so take this with as large a grain of salt as you think is required:
i've been advised, repeatedly, that there's a perilously fine line between commenting on pending litigation and expressing thoughts about the state of our industry. i'm doing the latter - not the former.
i consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of leed criticism. my title is vp, leed technical development so lots of criticism about the way leed works comes my way. it might be the sheer volume of criticism i see but over the years i have to admit that i've become a bit of a snob about it. that said, some of the very best ideas i've ever seen for making leed better happen in forums like this (which is one of the reasons i read them). i look back and wish i had kept a running tally of specific instances where a blog post or a passing comment in the hall at greenbuild have changed the way leed evolves but i'm not an overly detailed note taker and most of the time people weren't looking for credit anyway. our thanks to all the nameless/uncredited anyway.
i'd like to add a few thoughts to this discussion - some of which i find very productive:
the institution of mpr6 (the data reporting requirement), the building performance partnership (which we've been building since the initial nbi study was published) and the feedback loop that our gbig program is connecting are part of the continuous improvement of this tool we've all invested so much time, passion and hope in. the proposed changes for the next version of leed are proof of that - please take a look. but, in your review of the proposed rating system please remember that our work is ahead of us, not behind us. it can always be better and we're in it with you.
michele and jason - please consider your comments here officially part of the leed 2012 1st public comment period. i can't say i agree with everything you've written, but that doesn't mean that your ideas won't combine with someone else's to make magic. if you've got more, keep 'em coming!
also, to respond to the parting thought from michele's last post, i think we should all remember our margaret meade - http://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm?quote_number=88
brendan owens, LEED AP (and pretty damn proud of it)
Bill Swanson
Sr. Electrical EngineerIntegrated Design Solutions
LEEDuser Expert
734 thumbs up
February 25, 2011 - 4:02 pm
Hi Brenden,
I appreciate the fact that you read various forums and talk with the people at GreenBuild to get a sense of where to steer LEED in the future. But your post above instantly reminded me of my first frustration with the LEED system.
You said, "i look back and wish i had kept a running tally of specific instances where a blog post or a passing comment in the hall at greenbuild have changed the way leed evolves "
LEED is designed to evolve via public comment. It's always being touted as consensus based. My own experience in submitting and reading others comments are that none are adopted, from anyone. Only trivial proof-reading items are accepted.
From your comment it sounds like most of the significant changes to LEED over the past few years has been from decree on high. I'm curious how many of your ideas had previously been rejected by the TAGs during Public Comments.
I really would like LEED to work but there are fundamental issues that need fixing. One being how Public Comments are absorbed into LEED.