Education New Online StoreThe inaugural product: LEED O+M Flashcards for those studying for the new specialty exam, LEED AP Operations + Maintenance, which is based on the LEED-EB rating system. Learn more... Register for the Sustainable Building Advisor Course We teach at three Puget Sound locations: Seattle Central Community College, Olympic College and Whatcom Community College. Learn more... Build It LEED Training - Now a Webinar If you haven't been able to attend the Build It LEED training for contractors in person, now you can view a recorded version online anytime. Learn more... Share with a Friend For every person who subscribes to this newsletter by fall of 2009, O'Brien & Company staff will plant a tree at our company field day. So far, we have *|LIST:SUBSCRIBERS|* subscribers and our goal is 1000 readers/trees. We hope you'll forward this email to your friends and colleagues and invite them to sign up for future announcements. Project Spotlight
Congratulations to our latest LEED certified project:
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 LEED 2009
Harder? Better? Enough?
by Elizabeth A. D. Powers, LEED AP, CSBA
As of this month, all projects registering with the US Green Building Council (USGBC) as LEED projects will use the new 2009 rating systems. These new systems are part of a broad initiative by the USGBC to roll out LEED Version 3 and respond to concerns with previous versions. The updates address user interface, the certification process, aligning credit requirements across credits, regional environmental concerns, and a reweighting of the credits based on life cycle assessment. The credit reweighting results in credits with the greatest positive impact on climate change earning more points. As a result, the USGBC organization and its membership have made a significant policy statement favoring urban projects, and projects with high water and energy efficiency.
O’Brien & Company conducted a small, internal study to determine the impacts of the new system on our clients’ projects. We compared the difference in score for both hypothetical and actual projects between earlier versions of LEED and LEED 2009. The bottom line: In most cases, projects will have to score higher in energy efficiency and water efficiency to reach higher levels of certification. Additionally, projects located near community amenities and residential zones, and near alternative transportation will have a 10% advantage.
We were excited to find that our results both confirmed the value of aggressive energy and water savings, but also showed that there are still pathways to Certified or Silver Certification through smart site selection, high scores on materials, and a broad focus on indoor environmental quality. This is good news for many of our clients that have made commitments to sustainability and changes in practice, but are still growing their green building program. Recognition through LEED is often a driver for these clients.
While these changes may represent a significant step towards LEED’s objective, to “encourage and accelerate adoption of sustainable green building,” another standard, the Architecture 2030 Challenge, which specifically addresses the challenge of climate change, is setting a higher bar. The 2030 Challenge website states that credible scientists give us 10 years to be well on our way toward global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. The energy points for LEED 2009 Energy & Atmosphere Credit 1: Optimize Energy Performance max out at 48% over ASHRAE 90.1 2007. Given that most LEED 2009 projects won’t come online until 2011, when the Architecture 2030 target is 60% over the regional or country average, is LEED 2009 enough to encourage and accelerate the needed changes?
For more on these thoughts and how the changes in LEED 2009 might impact your work or projects, watch our web site for the publication of our study findings, or schedule a LEED 2009 Lunch and Learn through cassandra@obrienandco.com
Top 10 Green Building Products
Sustainable Industries Journal's List for 2009
A panel of experts selected ten products that stood out for their environmental performance, scalability/market impact, innovativeness, design aesthetic, value and compatibility with LEED. The expert team reviewed the many submissions to discern which of the products that were submitted could truly be considered to be on the cutting edge.
Alistair Jackson, Principal at O'Brien & Company, was selected by the Sustainable Industries Journal to serve on the panel and to present the results at a webinar. Alistair provided a product life-cycle perspective and his on-the-ground experience as a LEED for Homes Provider and Rater.
To see the Top 10 List, download the .pdf. To hear more about what made each selected product stand out to the expert panel, look for the archived webinar, coming soon.
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