Here are just a few “LEED firsts” that I have found while surfing the internet.  My favorites are “first”.

Favorites

• First LEED Platinum Single Family Residence in Western Puget Sound – Puget Sound, Washington
• First Ever LEED Certified Floating Green Building - Lake Mohave, NV
• World’s First LEED Certified Pizzeria – Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• First LEED Certified Parking Garage – Santa Monica, California
  • Here is more information on the project from the Santa Monica website. And a bonus…Their LEED Scorecard!!
• First Female, LEED Accredited Attorney in North Carolina – Charlotte, North Carolina

Restaruants

• First LEED Platinum Restaurant – Greensboro, North Carolina
• First LEED Certified Restaurant (McDonald’s) – Chicago, Illinois

Commercial Buildings

• Citi’s Frankfurt Data Center Earns First-Ever Leed Platinum Certification – Frankfurt, Germany
  

  The first flight ever from Kittyhawk to Kittyhawk

• Canadian Triple-A Office Building Aims for LEED First – Oakville, Ontario, Canada
• Broadway Launches First Ever LEED-Certified Theater! – New York
• First LEED Platinum Data Center – Sacramento, CA
• First Ever LEED Gold Certified Automobile Manufacturing Facility – Lansing, Michigan
• First LEED Factory – Grand Rapids, Michigan
• First Ritz-Carlton LEED Certified Hotel – Charlotte, North Carolina
• First LEED Platinum Skyscraper – New York, New York
• First (maybe second) LEED Gold Skyscraper – New York, New York
• First Certified Med Spa in the Country – San Francisco, California
• San Francisco’s First and Only LEED Certified Green Hotels – San Francisco, CA
• First Office Building in LA to Receive LEED Gold EB O&M – Los Angeles, California
• Waco Debuts Nation’s First ‘Green’ Chamber Building – Waco, Texas
• Florida’s First LEED-EB Gold Building – Tampa, Florida
• Africa’s First LEED Platinum Structure – Rwanda, Africa
  

Residential

• First LEED Platinum Home in Virginia – Arlington, Virginia
• New York City’s First LEED Platinum Certified Condominiums – New York, New York
• First Platinum LEED-Certified, 100% Solar Powered, Affordable Housing – San Diego, California
• Lansing’s First LEED Home – Lansing, Michigan
• Chattanooga’s first LEED Certified Residential Properties – Chattanooga, Tennessee
• First Gold LEED for homes certification in region – Baltimore, Maryland
• First LEED-for Homes Platinum Home in Arizona – Bellemont, Arizona
• First Student Build LEED-Certified Modular Home – Bel Air, Maryland
• Nation’s First LEED Platinum Affordable Housing – Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts
• First Home in State to Receive LEED Platinum – Washtenaw County, Michigan
• First in LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot Program – Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Project First in Nation to Complete Stage 1 Certification, begin Stage 2 of LEED ND – Hawaii
• First LEED Project in Oklahoma – Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Community gets Md.’s first LEED gold rating – Baltimore, Maryland
• Nation’s First Multi-Unit LEED Certified Building – Cambridge, Massachusetts
  

Government

• Chicago’s FBI Building Earns First Platinum LEED-EBOM Certification – Chicago, Illinois
• First City Hall in the Nation to Achieve LEED Gold (pdf) – Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
• Science and Technology Facility is first LEED Platinum Federal Building – Golden, Colorado
• First LEED Silver Pump Station at Clean Water Services Facility – Hillsboro, Oregon

Healthcare

• Dell Children’s First LEED Hospital in World – Austin, Texas
• Florida’s First LEED Silver Certified Healthcare Facility – Port St. John, Florida

Education

• First LEED-Certified Laboratory Renovation – San Francisco, California
• Univ. of Florida First LEED Platinum Stadium with Green Power – Florida
• Chicago’s first LEED-built green school – Chicago, Illinois
• Vermont’s first LEED platinum building – Middlebury, Vermont
  

Religious / Museum

• World’s First LEED Museum Complex – Grand Rapid, Michigan
• World’s First LEED Platinum Religious Center – Chicago, Illinois
  
• First LEED Certified Art Museum in New York- New York, New York

An Inconvenient Truth

A couple of months ago, we asked the USGBC for a bunch of data related to LEED projects.  Ask and thou shalt recieve, er something like that.  We received a giant, green boat load of data, stretching back all the way to 2000 and covering all LEED Rating Systems up through the end of 2008.

By any measure, the explosion of LEED and the USGBC’s popularity has been unprecedented in the AEC industry.  Let’s dive into that data a little bit, figure out where the growth will be in the coming years and see what has made LEED so popular.

LEED Rating Systems

To give some background, LEED has numerous rating systems that each apply to a different building or project type.  To date, the most popular has been the New Construction (NC) Rating System.  Since LEED NC is the oldest rating system, this would make sense.   LEED NC currently accounts for 58% of all certified or registered projects.  Coming in at a distant second are Core and Shell (CS) and Existing Building (EB) with 12% each.  Commercial Interiors rounds out the top 3 spots with 11%.  The other rating systems (also the newest ones) are in at 3% or less, but as we will see later, they are gaining ground.  Click here for a live Google chart where you can explore the data a bit more.

Registered and Certified Projects

Registered is one thing, but Certified is another.  Certified means you have a plaque on the wall, you have been through the whole process, peer reviewed, etc.  The graphs below show that while registered projects are up, and I mean way up, certified projects are slow to move along.  This criticism is nothing new, as this article from 2005 points out.  I don’t have data on whether any of the registered projects were out right rejected, but to date, the average LEED Certified NC project takes 1,015 days, from the date of registration to the date of certification.  That is 2.75 years.

YOY Growth for EB and NC

The other interesting thing I found is the growth of year over year growth of NC vs EB.  EB is the fastest growing rating system.  This coincides with what we have been hearing from numerous sources:  existing buildings will become the hot item over the next couple of years due to the current vacancy rates.  Many developers do not want to build new, when the costs are relatively high to build, rather than purchase existing.  (Cushman Wakefield report, CBRE Report, JLL Report)

A Convenient Ad Campaign

I noticed something interesting when I plotted all of this data.  There is a spike in the trends after 2006.  I believe that while green building and sustainable design would have continued on its slow course to the mainstream, it was Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” (wikipedia link) that set the trend ablaze with the general public.

An Inconvenient Truth came out mid 2006.  It broke all kinds of box office records for documentaries, won an Academy Award, was well received at numerous influential film festivals and the companion book became a New York Times best seller.  Al Gore is now a Nobel Peace Prize laureate due in large part because of his work with the climate.

I have often thought that the only thing that engineers would need to get the recognition they are seeking is to have a dramatic television series written about our daily lives in the office

Anyway, that is exactly what the green movement and the USGBC got with An Inconvenient Truth.  It was a jump start to the tune of a multi million dollar global ad campaign that went more mainstream than the green building movement could have ever hoped for or probably have done on its own.  Gone are the days of design professionals having to trying to convince owners to pursue sustainable solutions.  Owners are asking for it.  All thanks to Al Gore.

A GOOD visualization

I love visualizations.  Here is another good one from GOOD.is.  It illustrates the water consumed by everyday items and actions, both actual water used (i.e. flushing a toilet) and virtual water used (a steak uses lots of virtual water because it had to eat lots of grain which takes lots of water).

I have recently developed a coffee habit.  One cup a day, black.  I was doing tea for a couple of months.  I would have at least a three cups of tea per day.  I enjoyed using the same tea bag twice, but I would add a second tea bag (of the same or different type) to get more flavor after the first cup.  Looking at the graphic, it appears that my coffee habit (per cup) uses over 4 times the water that tea does.  Maybe I should wake up with a tall glass of wheat beer in the morning (only 20 gallons of water vs coffee’s 37 gallons).

Also interesting to note, is that producing one pound of beef takes 1,500 gallons of water.  Claims vary widely on this, but the idea is the same:  it takes a lot of water to produce beef.

Here is another article from the Economist that deals with the same issue of producing goods and water.  I love the Economist by the way.  Whenever I have a flight, I try to pick up the latest issue.

The intent of both of these articles is the same:  true sustainability must account for the life cycle costs of all items that our processes consume to manufacture and distribute those resources, not just the direct costs .  We could design the most sustainable office building in the world, but if it was 50 miles from any of the occupants (and assuming none of the occupants use mass transit), the benefits would be lost because of the transportation impacts of the occupants commuting to and from the building everyday.

LEED has received a lot of criticism in the past for not taking into account more of these hidden costs, such as transportation.  However, the USGBC is looking to change that in future versions, further solidifying LEED’s place in sustainable design.  LEED is consensus based and because of that the users (us as a design profession) can shape LEED into what we want.

Misleading statement #1: Automatic ID Credit

Nothing will give you an automatic ID (Innovation in Design) credit.

The following statement was taken from the U.S. Green Building Council’s website.  (This document specifically):

LEED ID Credits are evaluated for each project. It is important to note that the award of an ID Credit for one project at a specific point in time does not constitute automatic approval for a similar strategy in a future project. Innovation credits are not awarded for the use of a particular product or design strategy if the technology aids in the achievement of an existing LEED credit.

USGBC does produce a catalog of ID credits awarded on past projects.  But this document is meant as a “brainstorming tool only to assist project teams in the development of new ID credits. It does not set any precedent to be upheld during a LEED Certification Review.”

Misleading statement #2: LEED Certified Product

From the USGBC website:

The USGBC does not certify, endorse or promote products, services or companies, nor do we track, list or report data related to products and their environmental qualities.
However, using green products and materials may contribute to a building’s LEED Certification. See our Green Building Links for information from other green building organizations.

Misleading Statement #3: LEED Qualified Product

The image below was taken from a carpet manufacturer’s website.  The USGBC strictly prohibits using LEED in reference to a product. Refer to the Member Logos and Guidelines on the USGBC website.

The logo may not be placed on product packaging, ads, or be used as a visual reference to LEED claims in product literature.  For example, the logo cannot be placed next to text that says, “Product A can help fulfill Credit X under the LEED Rating System”

Although the logo below does not use the actual LEED logo, the name still implies endorsement.  This is wrong and misleading.

Further more, the language included in the image above is not clear.  It is fantastic that their carpet contains 10% recycled content.  However, is it post-consumer or pre-consumer?  There is a difference when calculating your total project recycled content.  LEED instructs us to only to take 1/2 of the pre-consumer content and all of the post-consumer content.

In addition, claims that because a product is 100% recycled, your project will earn points is incomplete.  Your overall project needs to meet certain goals, not just a single product.  If the only recycled content in your project was the carpet above, you would most likely get no recycled content credits.

Conclusion

LEED is a complicated guide to green building.  It is complicated because it needs to be thorough.  Here are some things you can do as an owner, developer, home owner or concerned tenant to help you through the green building process.

• Ask a LEED Accredited Professional.  All LEED APs are listed at the Green Building Certification Institutue’s website.  (The GBCI is the testing and certification arm of the USGBC, although it is completely independent from the standards writing USGBC.)
• BJG has 7 LEED APs and we would be happy to help you with your next proejct.  Feel free to contact us:  Reno (775.827.1010), Las Vegas (702.990.3532) or Pleasanton (925.251.9800).
• Ask questions.  Many manufacturers will tell you that their product will give you 6 LEED points.  (This happened to a coworker of mine today, in fact).  As discussed above, this statement is not true.  Ask them what points their product will contribute to.  Ask them for literature and backup.  Really press them on how their product is green.
• There are some directories out there for reference.  Many cities, like Portland and Santa Monica, are starting to compile directories of products not only green, but also regionally manufactured. Buildinggreen.com and Builditgreen.com are reputable sources for green information.

Everyone wants a piece of the green building pie.  Make sure to not get caught up in the marketing hype.