Some people believe that building green costs more and dismiss it as unaffordable. More and more studies suggest that building “green” generates significant savings over the life cycle of a building, at an equivalent initial cost.

Green buildings can reduce up to 50 percent of electricity consumption, 70 percent of waste output, cut emissions by 39 percent and cut water use by 40 percent.

There are five core principles of green buildings: site planning, water management, energy, material use, and indoor air quality. These components apply to both commercial buildings and residential structures. Each of these is considered by an accredited energy auditor who decides if a building meets specified standards.

There are several standards, but the most common industry standard is LEED. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, and it is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high performance, sustainable buildings. It provides a complete framework for assessing building performance for new construction, existing buildings or homes and neighborhood development.

Essentially, it is similar to a report card or the nutrition facts found on food labels. Other standards used are EnergyStar (which does not just refer to appliances), Green Globes, Living Building Challenge and the 2030 Challenge. Each has a set of standards for both the building and the contractor. Meeting these standards increases the efficiency and sustainability of the structures that meet them.

Another reason to be more environmentally conscious is that most people don’t realize that traditional building design consumes significant resources and can even cause health problems. In the U.S., buildings account for 38 percent of all CO2 emissions, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that indoor pollutants may be 10 times higher than outdoor levels. The superior air quality in green buildings is estimated to save up to $48 billion annually in health-care costs. In a U.S. Geological Survey done in 2000, it was found that buildings use 13.6 percent of all the potable water — that’s 15 trillion gallons a year. Buildings use 40 percent of all raw materials globally, which is equivalent to 3 billion tons.

Think about how much you would save if you could cut your electric bill by 50 percent, your trash removal by 70 percent, your emissions by 39 percent and your water usage by 40 percent. In your next building construction or renovation project, we challenge you to “do the math” and consider building “green.”

Source: goerie.com

Since then, LEED has certified more than 13,500 green commercial buildings and homes with nearly 60,000 more seeking certification.

Today, 42 percent of all LEED-certified homes qualify as low-income housing, thanks in large part to a grant from The Home Depot Foundation that helps affordable housing projects achieve certification.

But much work remains to be done to extend the benefits of green homes to everyone who wants them. Numerous studies show that affordable green housing is not only beneficial for low-income households, but also the businesses that build them and the environment.

First, affordable green homes provide healthier and more comfortable living environments. Inhabitants of low-income housing have disproportionately higher rates of asthma and upper respiratory diseases.

However, studies demonstrate that people in green buildings have 40-60 percent fewer incidents of colds, flu and asthma due to access to fresh air, better ventilation systems and use of non-toxic paint and furniture.

Affordable green homes also result in significant cost savings for low-income renters and owners. Low-income families typically spend 17 percent of their income on energy bills each year. But due to environmentally sound practices inherent in green design, affordable green homes have lower energy and water bills.

Second, investing in affordable green housing also makes good business sense. Studies show that green design, construction and operations can be achieved without any additional upfront costs and can result in lifecycle savings of 20 percent of the total construction cost. In addition, use of durable, sustainable materials in construction can further decrease operating and maintenance costs.

Third, buildings — including affordable housing units — account for over 40 percent of total energy consumption and produce 39 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions. Affordable green homes reduce the environmental impact of residential units through sustainable design and construction and use of energy- and resource-efficient materials. Affordable green homes built in green communities also reduce sprawl and the resulting environmental impact by providing easier access to shopping, jobs, recreation and public transportation.

At USGBC, we believe that affordable green housing is not just an environmental issue but a social imperative. True sustainability promotes the triple bottom line: economic, environmental and social prosperity.

That is why in 2008 USGBC added “Foster Social Equity” as an organizational Guiding Principle. And as part of this year’s Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, taking place Nov 17-19 in Chicago, Ill., USGBC, Habitat for Humanity Lake County and Bank of America have teamed up to build two affordable green homes in Lake Country, Ill. Currently, both homes are aiming to achieve LEED for Homes Platinum certification– the highest certification for residential buildings.

There are many remarkable non-profits, community groups, foundations, government agencies and businesses working to advance the cause of green building and affordable housing. On November 16, the Affordable Housing Summit at Greenbuild will convene these diverse groups for a robust conversation on innovative policy efforts as well as proven design and construction techniques aimed at ensuring long-term affordability and improving living conditions through green building for low-income families across the country.

The Affordable Housing Summit offers attendees a momentous opportunity, as Generation Green, to work towards redefining a socially equitable and environmentally responsible future for all.

Source: US Green Building Council

The Washington, D.C., public school reopened recently after a renovation that added a geothermal heating and cooling system, energy usage displays, information kiosks in three different languages, numerous new windows, a greenhouse made from recycled water bottles and carbon dioxide censors.

Students are assembled in “green teams” and give tours to visitors using a guide put together by the U.S. Green Building Council. The school is attaining gold certification from the council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, one of 6,500 schools in the country that are registered for certification or already LEED-certified.

With this “microcosm” as its backdrop, the USGBC launches its newest program today, the Center for Green Schools, with the goal of giving everyone the opportunity to attend a school like Stoddert within this generation.

“The education sector is doing more in the way of green building than any other sector, more than health care, more than commercial, more than religious institutions. But we still have a really long way to go,” said Rachel Gutter, director of the USGBC’s new initiative, before the launch event at Stoddert.

USGBC is hoping to educate and connect the people and groups involved in greening schools, from committee members in the council’s chapters throughout the country, to mayors who wield influence to get projects rolling, to the architects and engineers who actually get the work done.

It is also hoping to show teachers how to use the school building as a laboratory for lessons in different subjects, the idea being that students learn sustainability at a young age much like how they usually learn foreign languages.

“We want these students to simply act in a sustainable fashion,” Gutter said. “We want them to slip the note under their parents’ and roommate’s door that says, ‘You’ve exceeded the five-minute shower limit.’”

There are 133,000 K-12 schools and 4,300 colleges and universities in the country, according to Gutter. The USGBC has helped establish more than 1,000 green school committees in its local chapters and is helping college students set up groups to promote the Center for Green Schools’ mission on their campuses.

The center is also partnering with the USGBC’s 50 for 50 Green Schools Caucus Initiative and the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools.

A major part of the center’s college work is also to help the Princeton Review create guides to green colleges, the first of which was published in April. Gutter said she hopes it will prompt prospective students to ask, “Where are the LEED-certified dorms on campus?” when they visit campuses.

“Colleges and universities need to be responsive to that because these are ultimately the students that are keeping the college or university running,” she said.

The implementation stage

Finally, the Center for Green Schools is handing out a tool kit and holding training events to give school facilities managers, engineers and others the know-how to bring about green schools.

Greening a school does not necessarily mean gutting it or building a completely new school, Gutter said. It could mean making improvements when things need to be replaced. “If you need a new roof, let’s make sure it’s a white roof,” Gutter said. Or it can mean changes in operation, like switching to green cleaning products.

“The building is efficient if it’s used efficiently,” as Megan Campion of the Green Schools Program at the Alliance to Save Energy puts it. “You can’t be too reliant on efficient technologies without the habits.”

According to Sean Miller, education director at the Earth Day Network, which runs another green schools program, a LEED silver-rated school building can save about $100,000 a year — enough to possibly retain two teachers in cash-strapped school districts. Indoor air quality can increase up to 90 percent with doing things like changing filters and using fewer toxic cleaning chemicals, and a school can save 30 percent on its water usage by installing low-flow heads and other measures.

The USGBC, which partners with the Earth Day Network, is launching its program as interest in green schools is rising. Sixteen states have green schools programs, while about a dozen national nongovernmental organizations promote the idea, according to Miller.

“Right now I feel we’re moving in a phase where we’re getting done with the advocacy. People are now aware of green schools, and we’re moving now toward the implementation,” Miller said.

The resulting building, Miller said, has benefits in education, the environment and the economy: “You’re building finally an informed citizenry that understands the environment and its interaction with the economy. They’re active, they’re healthy, they’re engaged in their community.”

Back at Stoddert, teachers have committed to teach 10 hours of environmental education across the school year and have plans to plant gardens, according to Cuthbert, the principal. Gutter said it is “wonderful” to showcase a school district “that isn’t necessarily associated with abundance and help people to understand that they’ve been able to do this.”

“It’s a comprehensive approach to green, which really epitomizes what we’re trying to build at the center,” Gutter said.

Source: USGBC

“None,” she replied.

Several insurers declined coverage.

“They just didn’t understand what we were trying to do,” Mrs. Landau recalls. “They said the pipes would freeze.”

They won’t. A so-called passive home like the one the Landaus are now building is so purposefully designed and built — from its orientation toward the sun and superthick insulation to its algorithmic design and virtually unbroken air envelope — that it requires minimal heating, even in chilly New England. Contrary to some naysayers’ concerns, the Landaus’ timber-frame home will be neither stuffy nor, at 2,000 square feet, oppressively small.

It has been a good deal more expensive to build, however, than the average home. That might partly explain why the passive-building standard is only now getting off the ground in the United States — despite years of data suggesting that America’s drafty building methods account for as much as 40 percent of its primary energy use, 70 percent of its electricity consumption and nearly 40 percent of its carbon-dioxide emissions.

Proponents of the standard, who note that passive homes often use up to 90 percent less heating and cooling energy than similar homes built to local code, say the Landaus embody the willingness of more homeowners to embrace passive building in the United States. Even Habitat for Humanity, the affordable-housing philanthropy, is now experimenting with the standard.

Yet the market remains minuscule, and the materials and expertise needed to build passive homes are often hard to find. While some 25,000 certified passive structures — from schools and commercial buildings to homes and apartment houses — have already been built in Europe, there are just 13 in the United States, with a few dozen more in the pipeline.

“Even though the passive house standard is tried and true, and is used all throughout Europe — we know it works, we know there’s some simplicity to it,” says Mrs. Landau, “here in the United States, we were reinventing the wheel.”

STEVEN LANDAU, a partner at a factory design firm in Burlington, Mass., was already an efficiency geek before the words “passive house” entered his vernacular. He’d long ago outfitted the family’s current home near Boston with a full complement of efficient gizmos and upgrades, including a high-efficiency German boiler and solar collection tubes designed to pull daylight into dark corners and hallways.

Arrays of futuristic-looking LED tubes illuminate the Landaus’ current basement, and a wattage meter keeps tabs on how much juice the home is consuming at any given time.

Mr. Landau was also well acquainted with the growing number of “green” building certifications and rating systems in the United States, including popular ones like the federal government’s Energy Star for Homes program and the LEED rating system, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, from the United States Green Building Council.

The goals of these various systems vary widely. Some, like LEED, award points for a variety of environmentally friendly features, like using sustainable construction materials, in addition to energy efficiency. Others, like Energy Star, focus squarely on energy use.

But the most common green building standards, Mr. Landau said, fell short of his ambitions — which included avoiding any on-site use of fossil fuels. “I remember reading a book about someone in England in the 1980s who built a superinsulated house that was only heated by the body heat of the occupants and maybe a tea kettle,” Mr. Landau recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘Why can’t we build our houses that way?’ ”

Energy Star and LEED aim for efficiency improvements of at least 15 percent over conventional construction — and both programs can earn a variety of tax credits and other incentives. The passive-home standard, perhaps because it’s unfamiliar to many officials who create efficiency stimulus programs, is eligible for few direct government subsidies, despite the fact that homes using it can be up to 80 percent more energy-efficient, over all, than standard new houses and consume just 10 percent of the heating and cooling energy.

Add photovoltaic solar panels or other energy harvesting systems, and passive homes can quickly become zero-energy-use homes — or even power generators that can feed electricity back to the grid, according to Katrin Klingenberg, the director of the Passive House Institute-U.S. in Urbana, Ill.

Of course, quantifying the overall energy efficiency of any building is a somewhat imprecise affair. A family living in a well-insulated, highly-efficient home, for example, might keep the lights on all day and the thermostat at 85 degrees in the winter. The occupants of a drafty New England farmhouse, meanwhile, might be energy misers by habit, favoring blankets and sweaters over dialing up the heat.

And while many people are interested in passive homes for their cold-weather benefits, researchers in both Europe and the United States are looking into more applications for warmer climates, using a different balance of insulation, window technology and air control to achieve similar efficiencies.

Ms. Klingenberg echoes many building science experts when she calls for more rigorous standards for energy-efficiency benchmarks, particularly if there is to be any hope of tackling the environmental and climate problems related to the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“We have to stop using halfway measures,” she says. “Each new building that we don’t go all the way with now is putting us deeper in the hole.”

Ms. Klingenberg was a co-founder of the institute in 2008, intending it as a domestic outlet for the design philosophy espoused for the last 14 years by the passive-house movement’s official sanctioning body, the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany.

To date, Passive House Institute-U.S. has educated about 160 builders, architects and engineers in the standard through a series of training programs and a final certification exam. By year-end, the number is expected to be 300, and Ms. Klingenberg said the institute was having difficulty meeting demand for its courses.

But this sort of building comes at a premium, particularly in the United States, where the fledgling movement is trying to ramp up from scratch and has to rely on products supplied by a market that is geared toward less rigorous programs.

Ms. Klingenberg, an architect trained in Germany, estimated that in Europe the additional cost for a passive house, versus a more conventional home, is now below 5 percent. Her institute puts the comparable premium in the United States at a minimum of 10 percent; other estimates put the added cost at over 15 percent — though the exact amount will vary across projects.

WHERE possible, passive construction maximizes window and facade exposures toward the southern sun. Thick walls and abundant insulation are also cornerstones of the process.

Walls in a typical American home might be about six inches thick and insulated with fiberglass batting. The walls of the Landaus’ new home are nearly three times as thick — a citadel of insulation and tape-sealed construction intended to keep the cold at bay and to prevent costly heat from slithering out through cracks, holes and other imperfections common to conventional construction.

And more than a foot of rigid foam insulation sits between the earth and the concrete slab forming the Landaus’ basement.

Fresh air is continuously pulled into the house, and stale air pushed out through a sophisticated mechanical ventilation system that can serve double-duty as a heat saver: some of the thermal energy being carried by the exhaust air is transferred to the intake air, minimizing heat loss.

As for preventing pipes from freezing, the Landaus will rely on two heat sources — a wood-burning stove on the main floor and electric radiant floors in the bathrooms. When the house is occupied, the wood-burning stove is capable of heating the whole house. When no one is home, the electric radiant floors can maintain a minimum temperature throughout the house to avoid plumbing disasters. To heat water, the family will depend on solar thermal collectors on the roof.

All projects like the Landaus’ home are governed by the institute’s Passive House Planning Package, a bit of modeling software that keeps the building process — almost always marked by unexpected questions and detours — closely tied to a strict baseline for overall energy use and air infiltration.

If a homeowner wants to add a small window on the north side, for example, it’s no problem. But to meet the standard, a consultant must add the window’s anticipated size, positioning, efficiency value and other data into the computer model — essentially an expansive spreadsheet that logs nearly all the home’s components.

Of course, quantifying the overall energy efficiency of any building is a somewhat imprecise affair. A family living in a well-insulated, highly-efficient home, for example, might keep the lights on all day and the thermostat at 85 degrees in the winter. The occupants of a drafty New England farmhouse, meanwhile, might be energy misers by habit, favoring blankets and sweaters over dialing up the heat.

And while many people are interested in passive homes for their cold-weather benefits, researchers in both Europe and the United States are looking into more applications for warmer climates, using a different balance of insulation, window technology and air control to achieve similar efficiencies.

Ms. Klingenberg echoes many building science experts when she calls for more rigorous standards for energy-efficiency benchmarks, particularly if there is to be any hope of tackling the environmental and climate problems related to the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“We have to stop using halfway measures,” she says. “Each new building that we don’t go all the way with now is putting us deeper in the hole.”

Ms. Klingenberg was a co-founder of the institute in 2008, intending it as a domestic outlet for the design philosophy espoused for the last 14 years by the passive-house movement’s official sanctioning body, the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany.

To date, Passive House Institute-U.S. has educated about 160 builders, architects and engineers in the standard through a series of training programs and a final certification exam. By year-end, the number is expected to be 300, and Ms. Klingenberg said the institute was having difficulty meeting demand for its courses.

But this sort of building comes at a premium, particularly in the United States, where the fledgling movement is trying to ramp up from scratch and has to rely on products supplied by a market that is geared toward less rigorous programs.

Ms. Klingenberg, an architect trained in Germany, estimated that in Europe the additional cost for a passive house, versus a more conventional home, is now below 5 percent. Her institute puts the comparable premium in the United States at a minimum of 10 percent; other estimates put the added cost at over 15 percent — though the exact amount will vary across projects.

WHERE possible, passive construction maximizes window and facade exposures toward the southern sun. Thick walls and abundant insulation are also cornerstones of the process.

Walls in a typical American home might be about six inches thick and insulated with fiberglass batting. The walls of the Landaus’ new home are nearly three times as thick — a citadel of insulation and tape-sealed construction intended to keep the cold at bay and to prevent costly heat from slithering out through cracks, holes and other imperfections common to conventional construction.

And more than a foot of rigid foam insulation sits between the earth and the concrete slab forming the Landaus’ basement.

Fresh air is continuously pulled into the house, and stale air pushed out through a sophisticated mechanical ventilation system that can serve double-duty as a heat saver: some of the thermal energy being carried by the exhaust air is transferred to the intake air, minimizing heat loss.

As for preventing pipes from freezing, the Landaus will rely on two heat sources — a wood-burning stove on the main floor and electric radiant floors in the bathrooms. When the house is occupied, the wood-burning stove is capable of heating the whole house. When no one is home, the electric radiant floors can maintain a minimum temperature throughout the house to avoid plumbing disasters. To heat water, the family will depend on solar thermal collectors on the roof.

All projects like the Landaus’ home are governed by the institute’s Passive House Planning Package, a bit of modeling software that keeps the building process — almost always marked by unexpected questions and detours — closely tied to a strict baseline for overall energy use and air infiltration.

If a homeowner wants to add a small window on the north side, for example, it’s no problem. But to meet the standard, a consultant must add the window’s anticipated size, positioning, efficiency value and other data into the computer model — essentially an expansive spreadsheet that logs nearly all the home’s components.

The balance — an additional $110,000 for interior components like bathrooms, finishes and appliances — would bring the total to $550,000, although Mr. Landau recently suggested that his own exacting standards might drive up the costs quite a bit more.

 “When making decisions about energy use and payback, we considered that we will be living in the house for many years — perhaps 30 to 40 years,” says Mr. Landau. “Energy will be less available and cost more in the future, so we put the extra cost into energy efficiency and durability.”

During the summer, Mrs. Landau said that official passive-house certification — which will come only after post-construction tests to be conducted in the next few weeks — mattered little. “Many times along the way, we thought ‘Why are we trying to meet this standard to be certified as a passive house?’ ” she says. “And we talked about it a lot and I think we came to the conclusion that we don’t really care about the certification.”

“What we really were interested in,” she says, “was making sure that when we built this house that it would work the way we wanted it to work.”

On a chilly morning late last month, Mr. Landau looked on as a crew of muscled carpenters crawled across the bare, particle-board flooring and walked along the exposed wall studs of the nearly finished house. The men passed their hands over doorjambs and window frames as if casting a spell — or delivering a blessing.

Their goal was to find and plug as many air leaks as possible before the interior drywall went up. A giant fan blew outward through the back door, depressurizing the shell so that any breach in the tightly sealed envelope — even a pinhole’s worth — would reveal itself as a tiny wind against the palm.

Mr. Landau hovered eagerly over a device, attached to the fan, that was measuring the rate of air movement. The numbers fluttering across the digital readout suggested that they were right on target for official passive-house certification.

“It’s taken a long time to get here,” he said.

Source: The New York Times

Check out our Facebook page for more information!

“At USGBC, we understand the profound impact green buildings have on our lives and the innovation they have poured into the marketplace, and we believe no other market speaks more powerfully to the benefits and potential of green buildings than our schools,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair of USGBC. “The Center for Green Schools at USGBC is engaging educators in creating sustainable learning environments for their students and applying solid research to inform leadership – from school boards to college presidents – about the benefits of healthy, high-performing schools.” USGBC also announces United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) as the first Founding Sponsor of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC. Through UTC’s multi-year, multimillion-dollar financial commitment, the Center will lead hundreds of schools across the nation to becoming green and more energy efficient and will help build hundreds of LEED registered education projects in the next few years.

“UTC is once again honored to partner with USGBC, a world leader in sustainable buildings,” said Sandy Diehl, UTC Vice President, Integrated Building Solutions. “This multi-year, multimillion-dollar commitment demonstrates UTC’s strong support for sustainable building design and construction, as energy efficiency is a hallmark of UTC products. We believe the greening of school facilities will have the added benefit of educating our next generation of leaders about the benefits of sustainable building design.”

UTC’s support as Founding Sponsor will help the Center raise the volume on USGBC’s efforts to drive wholesale change in how schools are designed, constructed and operated so that they enhance the learning experience for students and save money for school districts and higher education institutions. Green schools provide fresh and clean air that improves health, additional daylight that boosts concentration, comfortable temperatures that increase focus and improved acoustics that enable better communication. Green schools also use less water and energy, making them less expensive to operate. The Center is building upon the leadership, partnerships and programming USGBC started through its Green Schools and Green Campus campaigns, by convening conversations with key decision makers, collaborating with leading education and environmental associations and creating tools and resources that help make green schools possible.

Through the Center, USGBC is escalating its work on green schools caucuses in the U.S. Congress and the 50 for 50 Initiative with state legislatures nationwide; the nationwide Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools; and the Coalition for Green Schools, which represents more than 10 million members collectively and comprises organizations such as the National PTA, the National School Boards Association, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The Center is creating new resources and advocacy tools to support USGBC Student Groups on college campuses and a nationwide network of more than 1,000 Green School Committee professional volunteers and is focused on providing trainings and helpful resources to those who need it most – K-12 schools serving lower-income families, under-resourced institutions and community colleges.

“The U.S. Department of Education is committed to being a partner in the efforts to build an environmentally literate and sustainable society,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “The U.S. Green Building Council is working with school districts and universities to incorporate green technology into schools through its Center for Green Schools. These schools not only are good for the environment, they provide a better learning environment for students—and they are cost efficient. I’m especially excited to hear that this fall that one of the Center’s programs, The Coalition for Green Schools, will be reaching out to groups beyond education in the private and public sector.”

A Center for Green Schools Advisory Board and Honorary Advisory Board made up of green advocates, experts, educators, philanthropists and other key stakeholders has also been formed. Current members include green schools pioneer Jayni Chase, environmental activist and philanthropist Kelly Chapman Meyer and renowned author and environmental studies and politics professor David Orr. Honorary Advisory Board members include National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel and National PTA President Chuck Saylors.

“We see an opportunity to educate a new generation of leaders we call sustainability natives, who are capable of driving global market transformation toward green schools,” said Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools. “Our job is to equip the people who make the case, the people who make the decisions and the people who get things done by elevating and accelerating important conversations with district and campus stakeholders and providing the tools and resources to help make transformation possible. We believe every child in America and throughout the world should have access to an environment that greatly improves their learning experience.”

The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is how USGBC is making sure every student has the opportunity to attend a green school within this generation. From the kindergartner entering the classroom, to the Ph.D. student performing research in a lab, the Center provides the resources and support to elevate dialogue, accelerate policy and institute innovation toward green schools and campuses. High-performing schools educate high-performing students, and the Center works directly with staff, teachers, faculty, students, administrators, elected officials and communities to drive the transformation of all schools into sustainable places to live, learn, work and play.

The USGBC community is transforming the way we build, design and operate our buildings for healthier places that save precious resources for people to live, work, learn and play in. UGSBC is helping create buildings and communities that regenerate and sustain the health and vitality of all life within a generation. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Council is the driving force of the green building industry, which is projected to contribute $554 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product by 2013. USGBC leads a diverse constituency of builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofit organizations, elected officials, concerned citizens, teachers and students. The USGBC community comprises 80 local chapters, 17,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 150,000 individuals who have earned LEED Professional Credentials.

Considering today’s building standards for sustainable construction are tomorrow’s building codes, it is important to analyze LEED standards and compare them to other sustainable construction certifications.  The United States’ infrastructure is actually behind other nations, especially in Europe, on a level of sustainability.  For this reason critics question the United States Green Building Council as a source to adopt building codes and regulations from.  In order to assess the standards, I like to compare LEED to the Passive House Standard that was developed in Germany, seventeen years ago as “Passivhaus”.  The passive house concept was adopted from Germany by the Passive House Institute U.S.  While other green home certifications exist in the States, I examine the Passive House because it is directly adopted from Europe and can be applied to all types of building construction, not just homes. 

The Passive House concept is simple and arguably easier to comprehend then ideas presented by LEED.  Passive House aims to minimize the use of energy systems in a home by using heavily insulated walls and an airtight building envelope.  Using heat recovery ventilators, the building will have more comfortable, healthy air quality and consistent indoor air temperatures. 

Passive House construction creates up to 90% more efficient heating energy and cuts over all energy up to 70%.  LEED projects usually provide increased efficiencies up to 30%.  This is a compelling argument claiming that Passive House is better. 

Why is LEED still prevailing?

LEED projects cover a variety of categories that encourage a building’s occupants to live a sustainable lifestyle.  While the energy efficiency standards are not as demanding, the scorecards evaluate the sustainable amenities of a building and its site to not only be energy efficient, but make it easy for inhabitants to be environmentally responsible.  This is more appealing to a designer whose job is to create a place that responds to the occupant’s needs.  In addition, a project with a LEED certified label might be what our nation needs right now.  Their projects showcase alternative energy sources and feature new exciting technologies that help encourage a sustainable lifestyle as a fad.  From an engineering perspective, a LEED certification is great for sustainable communities that aim to provide a complete sustainable lifestyle for those who choose to live there.  As far is creating immediate response to lower our nation’s dependency on fossil fuels, the Passive House Standard seems more attractive because it is based on performance research and statistics.

Which is more likely to influence building codes?

The complexity of LEED is its biggest fault to become accepted by the building sector as a means of regulating new construction by code.  Passive House is simple and to the point.  The Passive House Standard also changes according to geographical location, much like existing codes do.  Because its goal is simple and focused, when a Passive House is completed if performs to achieve efficiency far beyond a LEED project.  However, the Passive House Institute of the United States still has some work to do since its adoption from Germany.  It is likely that aspects of each standard would be implemented into code over time, but the construction of the building including the skin, skeletal and building systems should be based on the Passive House Standard. 

What is stopping Passive House?

Passive House in the U.S. faces some challenges since its climate is different from Germany.  Germany faces a more mild swing of the seasons, while the US gets hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.  Because temperatures rarely reach 70 degrees in Germany the energy reduction is focused on limiting heating sources.  Another difficulty is finding domestic products that are low energy and compliant with Passive House design.  All of these products are in Europe which would make it more than difficult for our government to adopt it as a building code.  Hopefully, these products will be produced in the United States over the next couple of years.

Source: sustainableconstructionblog.com

This week, 21 different countries are hosting festivals and round table discussions to promote the environmental and economic benefits of green building.

As part of the campaign, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) has released a report outlining the impact of building green.

It points out that green buildings typically cost up to 5 percent more than standard buildings during construction, but can reduce waste output by 70 percent, water usage by 40 percent and energy usage by 30 to 50 percent.

These numbers tie in with the U.S. theme of this week’s campaign, “realizing the potential of green buildings.”

The concept of green building involves reducing the energy and water use of a building, while also increasing the indoor air quality and use of recycled and low-impact construction materials. The U.S. EPA has compiled several statistics that point out the relevance of green building:

• Buildings account for more than 70 percent of U.S. yearly energy consumption, which can cost more than $2,000 per year.
• Public demand for water tripled between 1950 and 2000 while the population only doubled, to the point that Americans now consume an average of 100 gallons per day.
• Indoor air pollution is typically two to five times higher than the levels found outdoors.
• Construction and demolition waste accounts for 160 million tons per year, and only 20 to 30 percent of this material is recycled.

While LEED certification has only been around since 1998, the U.S. Green Building Council reports that more than 19,000 projects have registered for LEED certification. This breaks down to $464 million worth of construction that registers for certification each business day.

The USGBC will be celebrating World Green Building Week by launching a major subway advertising campaign which is expected to reach 32 million people including policy makers riding the metro to Capitol Hill.  The theme of the advertisements is ‘realizing the potential of green buildings’.

Source: earth911.com

It now accounts for nearly one-third of new U.S. construction, up from 2% in 2005, according to a report aired Tuesday by NPR, which cites industry data from McGraw-Hill Construction. The story attributes much of that success to the private U.S. Green Building Council, begun in 1993.

The Hearst Tower in New York City has been certified as eco-friendly by the private U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

The Washington-based USGBC runs one of dozens of green-rating programs in the United States, but itsLEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program dominates the commercial sector and is one of the strictest in the residential market.

The number of homes receiving LEED approval tripled last year, from 1,151 in 2008 to more than 3,000 in 2009, the USGBC’s Nate Kredich told Green House in December. Homes, like office buildings, get points for water conservation, energy efficiency, durability, location, air quality and other factors.

“They created a cachet around the LEED certification,” Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, tells NPR in the first of a two-part series. “They got people to want to do this as a marketing pitch — and I think that was really a stroke of genius to get a rather inertial industry to start to shift.”

University of Michigan has committed to seek LEED certification for every new construction project of at least $10 million. “College campuses are all starting to go this way,” Hoffman says. “If you want to keep up with the Joneses, you kinda gotta do that.”

The USGBC, which has expanded greatly in recent years, moved into a much larger downtown office space in the summer of 2009. Its office was retrofitted to earn the top or platinum rating from its LEED program.

The organization brought in about $107 million last year — $42 million of which related to accrediting people in its program, according to NPR. About 155,000 architects, contractors, consultants and others have passed a USGBC test to be designated as a LEED AP “accredited professional” or “green associate.”

Source: USA Today