Evolving LEED for Existing Buildings at BOMA's Every Building Conference & Expo

Lauren Riggs, LEEP® AP
Manager, LEED and Building Performance Partnership
U.S. Green Building Council

This Tuesday, I participated in a panel at BOMA’s Every Building Show in Seattle, WA. The topic: The Evolution of LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance.

Now, you’d think that we would have shared a lovely timeline of how LEED for Existing Buildings has grown from a renovation strategy baby to an operations-focused teenager – we didn’t. Instead the panel focused on our movement towards emphasizing building performance outcomes. Specifically, USGBC has launched Pilot Credit 67 (aka. Energy Jumpstart!), is emphasizing performance through a restructuring of the rating system requirements and will be launching LEED EB: O&M recertification program guidelines in the near future.

Given all that we covered, there were two comments from that audience that have stuck in my mind.

First comment: LEED should award a point to building owners and managers who provide submetering to tenant spaces.

My reaction to this comment was, “But what about tenant data privacy? Isn’t the intent of awarding points for tenant metering to also allow the property manager to manage and trend tenant energy consumption?” But, I was wrong. Rather, tenants would be presented with the opportunity to monitor and control their own energy consumption – something that isn’t as standard practice as some would like.

The Potential of Retrofits: Launch of LEED Volume Program for Operations & Maintenance

Doug Gatlin
Vice President, LEED - Commercial Markets
U.S. Green Building Council

The LEED Volume Program allows large users of LEED to certify buildings across their portfolio in a streamlined fashion, bringing a new level of speed and efficiency to our mission of greening the built environment. LEED Volume unites the large-scale building and management efforts of organizations with the rigor of LEED.

With this morning’s launch of the LEED Volume Program for Operations & Maintenance at the annual BOMA conference in Washington, D.C., we’ve hit two key milestones. The first: Opening up the landmark LEED Volume Program to existing buildings, the industry’s most promising sector with the most ubiquitous presence. To date, an impressive 625 LEED projects have been certified through the LEED Volume Program, including the Design & Construction track, launched last year at Greenbuild. Now, after being successfully shaped and applied by 11 pilot participants*, from large retailers such as Kohl’s Department Stores to commercial real estate service providers like Cushman & Wakefield, the launch will enable organizations of all types to access the benefits of the LEED Volume Program for their existing building stock. And the second milestone: Contributing to the momentum and enthusiasm we are seeing for greening existing buildings.

In his recent Newsweek cover piece, Bill Clinton said, “We could put a million people to work retrofitting buildings all over America.” President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative is projected to create over 114,000 jobs - 77,000 of those resulting from a revised tax incentive to encourage building retrofits. Retrofitting commercial buildings could save up to 200 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year.

Given this momentum, the BOMA conference could not have been a better venue for the launch of an expanded LEED Volume Program. The 16,500+ members of BOMA are the movers and shakers of the building industry. They’re ahead of the curve, on top of the technology, and aware of the incredible power that lies in retrofitting smart, sustainable structures.

But they aren’t the only ones privy to this knowledge about existing buildings. Across the building industry, from local to federal government, and throughout the business world, the potential of retrofitting our existing building stock is being realized.

Retrofits are the future, and the LEED Volume Program for Operations & Maintenance presents organizations, companies, governments and campuses a way to revamp their existing buildings – in a streamlined, cost-effective, and business-savvy manner.

---

*Pilot participants also include: American University, Bank of America, Bentall Kennedy, City of San Jose, InterContinental Hotels Group, Stop & Shop, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Florida, and Wells Fargo.

Congressional Outlook Uncertain, but Executive Branch Opportunity Abounds

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

There has been a whole lot of negative talk about the prospects for energy, climate or other significant legislation coming out of our newly divided Congress, and that is not the best news for the green building industry. However, this does not imply that green building advocates should pack up and go home – in fact, it means quite the contrary. It turns out that a renewed focus on utilizing the legal authority already granted to federal agencies by Congress could reap huge benefits for architects, engineers, builders, developers, manufacturers and others involved in the green building process.

The shocking size and scope of the United State’s potential energy and water savings were highlighted by a 2010 study on existing authorities held by the executive branch to push efficiency in commercial and multifamily buildings. USGBC commissioned this study with a diverse group of building sector organizations (e.g., the Natural Resources Defense Council, Real Estate Roundtable, and Building Owners and Managers Association).

The findings of this report were clear. There is something, and usually something very impactful, that nearly every agency can do to improve the public and private building stock. The more digging we did into the existing authorities, the more opportunities we discovered to “stoke the fire” of the building industry and its sustainable potential. I wrote about the highlights of the report when it was released, and the opportunities I noted then remain before us—still knocking—today.

In many ways, the sheer quantity of opportunities identified by the report (and sheer size of the report itself) is daunting. Where should the White House, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. start? Which potentially transformative policy must come first?

That’s why the full report was just the beginning of a broader federal push. Over the weeks and months to come, we will be reaching out to our 16,000+ member companies and working with our other partners on the report to generate support for industry- and agency-specific recommendations—ones that are targeted, actionable, and potent. We want to make sure that the voices of our member companies and the larger green building community are heard by the executive branch. We expect to deliver real results from their advocacy and leadership. We have already sent our top three recommendations over to the Department of Energy. Our January 21st memo recommends action on a green real estate appraisal standard, the tax deduction for commercial energy efficient commercial buildings, and loan guarantees for financing retrofits.

And the executive branch is paying attention! The President recently announced the Better Buildings Initiative (BBI) to improve commercial building energy performance, and he touched specifically on two of the three priorities. The BBI calls on Congress to take action but also lays out the steps the Administration is going to take by utilizing their existing authorities to create better buildings, better jobs, and lower energy bills.

By targeting executive branch action— along with continuing to push Congress to make progress on BBI and our other priorities like energy and water efficiency, healthy built environments, livable and walkable communities— we will continue to push forward toward the transformation of the built environment. Elections may change our strategy, but they certainly don’t change our priorities—or our expectations for meaningful results.