We're always looking for things that compare LEED to Green Globes so that we can address these issues with our clients. Here is a short internal summary we put together with resources from leeduser. Comments?
LEED versus Green Globes (http://www.leeduser.com/topic/getting-know-green-globes)
• As a tool, Green Globes is fine. As a rating system it doesn’t have enough transparency, standardization, or minimum standards. It does highlight LEED’s shortcomings. I'd rather have LEED that is intended to create and maintain a standard of quality that responds to these needs rather than a Green Globes whose intention is to provide an easier way to certification without upholding the substance.
Problems with LEED:
• Needs to be more responsive to project specifics.
• Needs more flexibility.
• Needs a better online system.
• Needs better response time and consistency among reviewers.
Problems with Green Globes:
• The main issue, to me, is the scoring of those subjective issues like space use optimization (and many many more) where a team can say, "yeah, we're doing that" and the reviewer can say "well, ok," without any of the transparency as to what thresholds have been met.
• No prerequisites in Green Globes
o Does not require minimum performance.
o There are no prerequisites, so a building could provide no outdoor air, for example, make all the occupants sick and die, and still be certified.
• Little transparency in Green Globes
o When I hold up a LEED scorecard, I'm like a doctor reading a patient's chart. I know what's going on in the building, what they achieved, what they didn't, and I can usually find the associated strategies by looking around said patient-building. But with Green Globes, there is no "checklist" to see. Or rather, it's damn hard to get a hold of one unless you have a project in the works. It is therefore really hard to know what's weighted highly, what specific measures they are looking for, etc. This again falls into the lack of transparency trap, which for me is one of the program’s biggest failings to date.
• Green Globes uses Target Finder instead of Energy Model
o Also, I'm not sure I think that using Target Finder for to score a project’s energy performance is a good idea. I could be sold on this point, but I'm on the fence. Our use of Target Finder on New Construction projects has provided a rough sense of where a project should end up, but it seems a bit arbitrary. Plus, you miss out on the use of energy modeling as a way to explore options and encourage learning of the relative value of one energy-saving measure versus another (note: in talking to Green Globes representatives, I got the impression that one could use energy modeling as an alternative compliance path, and that almost any energy model would do (yikes!), but again, there is so little transparency that one has to really hustle to try to get any info.
john lister
February 5, 2019 - 9:59 am
A quick reply - Green Globes is more objective than you think. they use the same standards and LEED. My company will guarantee certification and we can only do that if there is an objective metric. The subjective part is in the partial credit area where the assessor's discretion comes into play.
Regarding no-outside-air, I am sure that is an exaggeration. Neither program would allow it because it does not meet the minimum code standards.
Why is no pre-req's a problem? It means any building can be rewarded for being a good actor. The pre-reqs favor urban development. I thought progress was about doing more with less, not doing less with less. Favoring urban development is the latter, not the world I want to live in.
Regarding transparency, what is more transparent than calling the person making the decision? How does that work with LEED? It doesn't. Don't be misled that because there is less paperwork it is less rigorous. They use the same standards. Green Globes is different, less expensive, more user friendly, not inferior.