LEED,LeadershipinEnergyandEnvironmentalDesign.docVIP

Building On LEED Improving the Evaluation of Green Buildings Completed for “Energy Energy Policy” Professors George Tolley Steve Berry Authors: Likwan Cheng Alp Esener Kathryn King Erika Larsen Executive Summary LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a certification and standard-setting programme designed to improve the environmental sustainability of buildings and encourage the spread of “Green Buildings.” The success of this program could be instrumental in achieving US energy and emission reduction goals; buildings contribute a significant percentage of both US energy and carbon dioxide emissions. The current version of LEED should be commended for its entrepreneurial progress; it has undoubtedly contributed to considerable reductions in energy use and emissions. However, in order for LEED to achieve its full potential and evolve from a benchmark into a mandate, two key areas of improvement need to be addressed: Point Alignment: The current version of LEED was designed to be a helpful benchmark for commissioners who desired to build environmentally sustainable buildings. It was not intended to be a mandate for all new buildings. As a result, the point allocations are somewhat unsystematic and not directly correlated to energy and emission reduction. To ensure that the LEED program achieves the highest potential environmental improvements, we argue that the current point system needs to be redesigned such that the points align with actual energy savings over the lifecycle of the technology. Ultimately, the energy savings and appropriate point allocation should be calculated and weighted using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). Incorporating Appropriate Standards for Lab Buildings: Currently, analysts are able to be reasonably accurate in projecting energy performance for most LEED certified buildings. However, for high energy-use buildings (such as labs), the projections do not correlate well with actual performance. Without an accurate understand