Great job pointing out the questionable issues in the article Nadav!
Perhaps I tend to hone in on these issues but one of the big takeaways for me was related to the performance issues raised. I agree that the author went looking for evidence to back up the answer he wanted on these issues but the problem is that it is far to easy to find such evidence. Green buildings should outperform non-green building in energy performance. I certainly know that there are many variables and we can rationalize with facts all we want about why they don't perform well but the bottom line for a green building rating system should be the ultimate performance.
When articles like this come out many who have put their heart and soul into LEED react defensively and to a certain extent they should. But we should also read between the lines and see if there is anything we can learn. There have been far too many articles written about the significant gap in energy performance among LEED projects. This truth should be acknowledged and we need to change the system to recognize projects that actually perform and not ones that just predict that they will perform and don't.
In the past I have defended the LEED system as it now stands thinking we could explain our way past its limitations. Once everyone understood the intent they would make the connections. I have come to the conclusion that it is just not happening and we need to remedy the situation. It is time to change LEED BD+C so that we do not award certifications strictly on predicted performance.
Z Smith
Principal | Director of Sustainability & Building PerformanceEskew+Dumez+Ripple
8 thumbs up
December 19, 2012 - 6:38 pm
Indeed. Since many projects don't complete their LEED BD+C documentation until many months after substantial completion, transitional step would be for v4 to allow teams to submit the first year's *actual* energy performance instead of the model prediction. This would borrow the EA credit from LEED EB O&M as an alternative compliance path.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
December 20, 2012 - 3:50 pm
Agreed. I have proposed this for v4 many times and think it should be an obvious interim step. Not sure why anyone would object to this as an alternative compliance path.
Jill Perry, PE
ConsultantJill Perry, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
440 thumbs up
December 27, 2012 - 6:30 pm
A better measure would be to submit a year's worth of measured energy data, but give the building 6 - 12 mos. to work out the kinks in it's equipment first.
Z Smith
Principal | Director of Sustainability & Building PerformanceEskew+Dumez+Ripple
8 thumbs up
January 4, 2013 - 11:08 am
Yes. To be more precise: Submit 12 contiguous months of data, as soon as you're ready. This gives teams the incentive to get the kings worked out sooner rather than later. It also rewards measures that lead to *actual* energy savings (occupant engagement) not recognized by ASHRAE 90.1. Only kink is buildings that ramp up in occupancy slowly (spec office buildings, etc...).