LEED Specifications

All good points about specs, but "LEED consultants" is apparently a pretty broad term. We are professional LEED consultants, not designers who profess to do LEED also, and we find most of these well taken criticisms to be perpetuated by Master Spec and designers who don't have practical experience with applying LEED in the field. As LEED consultants, we spend a lot of time editing this kind of stuff out and preparing bidder's requirements that speak directly to contractor issues. Designers don't always have a practical, constructability-oriented mindset whether working on LEED projects or not. This is an important issue of education and awareness. And the emphasis is significant. I have seen several design teams go through enormous effort to figure out how to "pin" the contractor on MR4/5 compliance through the specification. That's likely 2pts among the 40 to 60 they are pursuing, when 2/3 of what is needed will be design points that they are nowhere near conversant enough with or accountable enough for. Whether LEED consultant or designer, the professional involved should have practical field experience with design and construction to be an effective sustainable design practitioner. It's unfortunate to cloud such an important issue with generalizations about either.

#1 Discouraging bidding by specifying unrealistic LEED requirements For the most part, putting in LEED requirements, for typical building products is unnecessary. #2 Not recognizing that performance is a sustainable attribute. Never change an architectural specification from you would typically chose for a project. Pick a "greener" version of a product from the same product line, and with the same A&E performance specs. #3: Adding ‘their’ language to the specifications. Write your own requirements. Tailor them to the specs to make them job specific. Do not assume that MasterSpec LEED is correct. Many of the specified products do not comply with VOC requirements, the products don't exist, or the company no longer exists. Use performance language for VOCs. Do not provide a list of three products which, in my experience, are never what the subcontractors actually use for a projects. Verify the products by reviewing the actual GC submittals. #4: Believing manufacturer’s product literature. Throw out what is obviously wrong. One claim I had stated that gypsum was mined in a high urban density area. Obviously not true, and easily check with Google Earth. The claim was silently deleted, and never saw the light of day, at least not for my projects. By the way, there is no such thing as "submit a sample of LEED documentation from a previous project as an example." The GBCI/USGBC does not review claims at the level of verifying a claims letter. The best you can get is an approved claim from the LEED Forms, which is nothing more than a summary. Just because product gets approved does not guarantee that it will not get challenged later on. #5: Issuing a LEED Scorecard with “maybe” as an option. Never give a contractor a LEED scoresheet. Set the LEED requirements they are required to follow in stone. Meaning, put the requirements for the documentation you want directly in the specifications. Very few LEED Consultants do what I do. That is work with LEED A&E submittals during the normal submittal process and clearing up and verifying claims made during the actual construction work. #7: Don't rely entirely on LEED Specification Writers. The reason I write my own LEED specs and do not rely on "LEED" Spec writers do take care of the work --I cross-check everything and provide drop in requirements-- is that spec writers do not provide A&E submittal coordination and follow through services. You have to understand the pains of actually building something and working with subcontractors (small firms, some without internet access, some with limited schooling) to get the LEED products and claims right. I take what I learn, the hard way, and feed it back into my future LEED projects.