JUL 01

Green architecture and design is so important in the world's quest for greater energy efficiency, but a green design is only as good as the person using it.  A low-flow shower head is a great tool for cutting back on water use, but if the owner takes 45-minute showers, the shower head becomes negligible.  Luckily, the U.S. Green Building Council wants to make sure its LEED program stands for more than just Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, but also leadership in energy and environmental performance.

The USGBC announced last week that all projects seeking LEED certification will be required to report their energy and water use as a condition of certification.  This new requirement will allow the USGBC to collect information for future versions of LEED and to ensure that the certification doesn't just mean a building has green features, but is also operating in the most efficient way possible.

The USGBC hopes that energy reporting will highlight any gaps between design and performance that can lead to both better design and better behavior on the part of building occupants.  Any projects applying for certification will have three options for fulfilling this requirement.  They can report energy and water usage on a yearly basis, apply for recertification every two years under LEED for Existing Buildings or they can sign a release authorizing the USGBC to access their energy and water usage directly from their utility.

The council is working to eventually have all LEED buildings metered in some way so that this information is collected automatically.

via USGBC

Comments (6)

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written by Fred, July 02, 2009

this will keep business underwire to keep them from being wasteful.

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written by Patrick, July 02, 2009

This is a great idea. It will make sure that people are not just slapping up a building and using the LEED certification for tax credits/deductions.

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Uhhhh
written by me, July 02, 2009

WTF "but if the owner takes 45-minute showers, the shower head becomes negligible." what if the owner takes a 45 minute shower with a regular shower head. That's a dumb as saying, what if a more efficient car takes a longer road trip?! Straw man argument for controlling you. Government limited showers? WTF?! is that really what you want? Make thing more efficient but do not try to tell me how or when or why I can or can not use it!

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written by charles, July 05, 2009

@"me", no one is telling you what to do and LEED is neither government related nor mandatory. If a building owner/developer wants to seek LEED certification, energy use reporting will be a necessary part of the process. Previous versions also had post-occupancy reporting but were simply another credit possible.

Please learn about what you are ranting about before you hit the "Add Comment" button. Very often you will find you have nothing to rant about.

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Does not make sense
written by Kim, July 07, 2009

There is a LEED rating system for existing buildings and new construction (there are a lot of other flavors but these are the major ones). The New Construction rating system is most popular, I think. You can't have historical electricity and water consumption data for a brand new building. They already require reporting actual electricity and water use in the Existing Buildings O&M rating system. Perhaps they will require reporting or all existing buildings applying for certification --- that would make more sense.

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LEED
written by Everblue Training Institute, December 10, 2009

I actually think this is a good idea. I think it forces occupants of the building to maintain a certain degree of accountability for their energy consumption and usage concerning their new LEED certified building. It can only lead to more responsible energy usage.

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