Happy Birthday, LEED!

Brendan Owens, LEED AP, P.E.
Vice President, LEED Technical Development
U.S. Green Building Council

12 years, 12,000 commercial projects. Don’t forget to raise a pint or stick a candle in that cupcake to celebrate the market force that is green building - and of course, to celebrate all of the amazing, thoughtful, ground-breaking projects that have brought us here. We'd love if you share your favorite LEED project in celebration of this milestone in the comments.

Happy birthday LEED!

“Like TurboTax for LEED” - GSA Launches Building Portfolio Management System

Jeremy Cohen
Manager, Public Sector Programs
U.S. Green Building Council

One of the nation’s largest public real estate organizations is launching a new building portfolio management system, designed to benchmark performance in sustainable building operations across its portfolio - roughly 375 million square feet.

Game on.

“Our new management information system is like TurboTax for LEED certification”, said David Gray, Sustainability Manager at GSA.

The system is the backbone of GSA’s application to the LEED Volume Program for Operations & Maintenance, a program through which GSA intends to certify 50 buildings by the end of 2012. The federal agency has a long history using LEED as a tool for evaluating and measuring achievements in sustainable design.

The John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston: One of
GSA's existing buildings undergoing a greening process

“Our new tool cuts documentation time for LEED certification in half and allowed us to design a process where field offices can achieve certification at no cost beyond staff hours, as long as the facility meets the energy and water prerequisites.”

Sound too good to be true? It doesn’t stop there: The tool will help GSA comply with Executive Order 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. The order sets Guiding Principles for federal agencies, like water use reduction and energy use optimization, and requires that at least 15% of each agency’s existing buildings above 5,000 gross square feet comply by 2015. GSA has set their target at 18% of their portfolio, which chalks up to 236 facilities.

A Codes Retrospective: With IgCC’s Arrival, Jurisdictions Can Now Raise the Floor with this Important New Regulatory Tool

Jeremy Sigmon, LEED® AP BD+C
Manager, Building Codes Advocacy
U.S. Green Building Council

Today is an important day for USGBC and for green building. It marks the culmination of more than six years of work to turn a crazy idea into a tangible, attainable reality.

Today, the nation’s leading code developer, which emerged from the legacy regional code bodies, has published a model green building code. The International Green Construction Code (IgCC) was developed by almost everybody and, importantly, approved by the Code Council’s membership of code officials. It includes the second fully-published version of a green building standard that USGBC dreamed up with ASHRAE at Greenbuild in November of 2005.

Today we also celebrate the 12,000th LEED certified commercial building, totaling more than 8.4 billion square feet of LEED certified space, and the beginning of a final stage of development of LEED's next version. After nearly 20,000 comments during three rounds of public review, today begins the effort to respond and fine-tune LEED 2012 prior to member ballot this summer.

I’d like to travel back to that early moment in 2005 when the crazy idea of a green building code was first conceived. At that time, dozens (soon-to-be hundreds) of local governments were searching for a prescriptive, code-intended tool that could extend protections from the human and environmental health risks illuminated by greener building practice. LEED was taking off at an amazing trajectory, and new rating systems were under development for both homes and core & shell buildings to add to the LEED suite of new construction, existing buildings and commercial interiors rating systems.

The Road to Rio+20 Reminds Us to Think Globally and Act Locally

Maggie Comstock
Associate, Policy
U.S. Green Building Council

On Monday, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) convened the fourth installment of the Road to Rio+20 series. The series was born out of the need for stakeholder awareness and input in the rapidly approaching Rio+20 conference in June. The main goal of the Summit—the growth of the green economy in the context of poverty alleviation and sustainable development—have implications for each of us. The Road to Rio series seeks to bridge the gap between global conversations on sustainable development and on-the-ground challenges and solutions in urban sectors and the built environment.

Roger Platt and Lawrence Gumbiner

The New York installment of the series, “Exploring the Role of Cities and Buildings in the Green Economy,” coincided with the UNCSD intercessional meeting (or preparatory meeting) underway at the UN Headquarters. Skanska’s flagship offices at the Empire State Building set the stage for a larger than life cast of experts as part of the program. Keynote remarks by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of State Lawrence Gumbiner (seated on the left of the photo), addressed the state of negotiations as well as the goals for it outcome:

 “Rio+20 should be a powerful, aspirational event that inspires a new generation like its predecessor did 20 years ago. To do so, we cannot simply repeat the constructs, negotiating positions and symbols of the past. We must be forward-leaning and inclusive, and utilize all of the technologies and tools available to us in 2012 to assure that not just those present in Rio, but all stakeholders have a voice and can participate.”

President Obama Underscores Building Efficiency as Part of the Energy Solution

Nathan Robb
Chairman
USGBC Maryland

“If we don’t develop other sources of energy, if we don’t develop the technology to use less energy to make our economy more energy-efficient, then we will always be dependent on foreign countries for our energy needs.”

President Obama made this statement last week before a packed auditorium (a crowd I was fortunate enough to be a part of) at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland. The President laid out his vision of America’s energy future, a vision where true energy independence doesn’t only come from energy development, but through energy efficiency.



This is something all of us in the green community understand. While developing new sources of energy is important - especially for an “all-of-the-above strategy” that harnesses renewable energy forms like wind, solar, and bio fuels - our country will never be truly energy independent unless we are smarter and more efficient in using energy. This means we need to reduce our energy consumption through the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency, which starts with better buildings.

Introducing 12,000: A Milestone for LEED

Ashley Katz
Media Manager
U.S. Green Building Council

Twelve years after the first LEED certifications in 2000, today we announced the 12,000th commercial project has been certified (!). Without a doubt, this calls for celebration: If you've worked on one of these 12,000 LEED-certified projects, we invite you to join the conga line forming around our headquarters in Washington, DC (please call ahead, though). Thank you for tipping the green building scales to 12,000 - and thank you for your commitment to building better, healthier, greener buildings.

Without further ado, we give you number 12,000: The LEED Gold Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. Paid for by the Recovery Act and rebuilt after the original facility was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008, the facility will house new wildlife exhibits, an environmental education center, and National Parks employees.

Source: Bernard Freeman, Division of Engineering Chief for the SW Region USFWS

Read the press release »

The True Story of the EBies

Laurie Kerr
Senior Policy Advisor
NYC Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability

Several years ago, a group of us Urban Greeners were chatting about how to scale up energy efficiency in existing buildings – as we so often do for fun. Someone sighed and said for the umpteenth time, “The problem is, correcting operating schedules and insulating steam pipes just isn’t as sexy as installing solar panels or bamboo flooring…” At which point I thought, “Sexiness is in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? Fashions change. We need to make efficiency and existing buildings sexy, even glamorous!” And with that, the idea for the EBies was born.