Make your voice heard: Comment now!

Wes, thanks for chiming in here. I also want to note that people can make their public commenting public on LEEDuser's v4 forum.Clearly there are a lot of questions about this language, so if you were able to add anything here based on your perspective, it would be quite welcome!

One of the interesting things I noticed, and continue to notice is, when I was a developer of LEED and vice-chair of the EQ TAG, was that I was one of the few members who actually worked certifying projects, and did the work myself. The majority of developers had never documented a LEED credit themselves.

Unless you actually do the hard work yourself, you do not understand the level of effort it takes to properly document a credit, and experience the every changing review rules that require you to revise and update completed work after the fact.

LEED TAGs have good intentions, not always, but most of the time. What they do not understand is the language interpretations of what they write by others who are not part of the TAGs.

I cannot even count then number of times, for credit requirements I wrote myself, the LEED reviewers have told me I did not understand what I wrote. Just amazing.

With this case, as with most of LEED v4, the same thing will happen as before. The actual rules and requirements will be written others who are not members of the consensus committee TAGs.

Sorry to be cynical, but what are the odds that any substantial change will occur at this time? They're not going to delay the vote again and miss the planned launch at GreenBuild. (Unless Rob Watson speaks up again.) There is an inherent problem with creating schedules before the work is done. We force the work to fit the schedule.

I agree, odds of substantial change are slim to none, but I plan on commenting anyway. Many of us long time practioners who are paying close attention are getting tired of the games from HQ and losing hope that LEED will continue to actually lead, and most people are not paying any attention at all. Industry must be licking their chops!

There are a couple of dealbreakers in the MR Credits for me that, if they are not resolved, will force me to vote 'no' or to not vote at all.

Peggy, I'd be curious to see your list of dealbreakers.

Maybe I'll start a dealbreaker discussion on the main v4 discussion thread. I'm sure others are feeling the same.

Are there any current GBCI reviewers or current LEED practitioners on the TAG? It seems like the TAG is out of touch with the current state of LEED Online templates and the LEED review process (which has grown increasingly - to put it lightly - stringent over the past year and a half.) I cannot see how the GBCI will be able to review documentation for the new MR credits with their current level of complexity and lack of clear requirements.

As an example - in Option 3, the requirement for Manufacturers includes: "Document at least 99% by weight of the ingredients used to make the building product or building material are sources from companies with independent third party verification of the following along the manufacturer supply chain…" First off - what constitutes acceptable "independent third party verification"? When you turn on the glossary function, verification is "the range of checks and tests carried out to determine whether components, subsystems, systems, and interfaces between systems operate in accordance with the contract documents." I am confused – are you confused? Secondly, how will the GBCI reviewer check that 99% materials by weight used to make the building material meet the requirements? The GBCI reviewer will need to be familiar with the supply chains for ALL building products, or they will not be able to ensure that requirements are being met.

I hope that the TAG can go through an exercise to tighten up their requirements and language before the next version is posted. GBCI Reviewers and current LEED Project Administrators will be a big help with this (if they can be engaged.)

Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR TAG) Members
Chair: Steve Baer, Five Winds International
Vice-Chair: Brad Guy, Material Reuse
Paul Bierman-Lytle, IMCC Management Consulting
Amy Costello, Armstrong World Industries
Barry Giles, BuildingWise, LLC
Rick Levin, Kahler Slater
Joep Meijer, The Right Environment Ltd. Co.
Xhavin Sinha, CH2M HILL
Wes Sullens, StopWaste.Org

Thanks Bill - do you and/or someone else have a list of the mystery 'working group' members who make the final decisions on Credits based on recommendations by the TAG?

This is all the info I have on Groups and members.
http://new.usgbc.org/about/committees/leed

The whole process itself is confusing with TAG, SME, Working Groups.

The USGBC will never tell you who their outside SME and Working Group consultants are. They want them to remain independent.

It is very obvious to me, as some who reads LEED review comments and writes responses, that the people writing the rules and changing the requirements after the fact are consultants who work certifying LEED projects. If you actually work on LEED projects details like I do this will make sense to you.

Unfortunately, these outside LEED consultants instead of making up rules that a reasonable percentage of practitioners can get through, make up rules that almost no one can get through. A legal A&E standard-of-care is not a goal of the rule writers. The rules are written to make the process as hard as possible. The harder LEED is the more it costs to certify. The more it costs to certify, the higher the consulting fees that can be charged. Wrong, in my opinion.

Green building works better when a greater number of projects can get through the process, than a smaller number can. Harder rules means fewer LEED projects. Fewer LEED projects means less business for the USGBC. This is why the USGBC is losing market share. It is not difficult to figure out.

To Melissa's point: I agree, the requirements are burdensome. Like you, I'm a long time architect/LEED practitioner, I envision a steep learning curve in obtaining access to resources and in performing documentation in an efficient way. As mentioned previously, this will translate to higher costs and--also quite significant and troubling--lower levels of certification. The undercurrent of feeling here among our client base in Northern California is that LEED is just not worth pursuing anymore because the rewards are not appreciable to them. This is especially true in California since CALGreen folded in LEED measures into our state building code. LEED's unreasonable (at times) and shifting burden of proof requirements eclipse what to me is the major issue getting lost in the fuzziness and controversy: we are doing this work because we believe that green building is a significant way to improve the planet! We need an efficient, functioning tool in order to do so.

The outside consultant making up the LEED rules do not want to hear what we have to say. I do realize that simplified rules would mean fewer higher fee projects, and likely, to remain in business, having to work on a much larger number of projects to make enough money to stay in business.

Personally, I believe the fear of the outside consultants —the ones who are active LEED consultants— is they will lose market share. Well that is the way it should be. Project teams should be able to do much of the work themselves. When errors are made they should be held to a normal standard of care applicable to the A&E and construction industry. Not a standard of care not even the most experienced LEED consultants can meet.

Unfortunately, LEED rules were developed by someone with the mind set of "It isn't LEED unless they prove it to us." That is an fairly accurate quote, from GreenBuild, made by the owner of the only LEED review team the USGBC had at the time. "It isn't LEED unless they prove it to us" is still hardwired into LEED.

By "outside LEED consultants" who do you mean: GBCI review teams (most are outside consultants) or do you mean USGBC, the ones who develop LEED?

I'm hoping that there will still be a platform, including here at LEEDUser, where we can be heard, and our concerns conveyed, outside the ballot process.

Yes, LEED should continue to set the bar higher, but the developers should absolutely make the documentation easier and more fluid, so that we can navigate efficiently and serve our clients with agility. Tristan, what do you see as an improved path of communicating these concerns?

The LEED Review teams do not develop review requirements. They have "canned" responses they are supposed to provide to maintain review consistency.

LEED Review teams are not supposed to be LEED Consultants.

The USGBC has outside consultants who help them develop LEED review rules. Some rules are developed in-house. Most are not, at least that is my experience for my projects. The only way some of the rules could have come about is from someone actively working on LEED projects. If you actively document a project this will make sense to you. The requirements are not coming from someone not working on LEED projects. They are coming from someone who is and has a job to try to fill any holes they thin exist, and are being paid to develop consistent rules. My observation is this can only be done if someone is actively working on LEED projects.

Who is actually making money off of the credit language being complex and written unclearly? As a LEED practitioner, I get paid to finish projects. The client doesn't pay more for the extra 10 hours I spend figuring out how LEED Reviewers will most likely interpret vague and complex LEED language in the reference guide. I don't see how the USGBC makes more money off these extra 10 hours of project team agony. The GBCI reviewers (I assume) get paid per project they review and make less money off of reviews that are riddled with errors because the project team was understandably confused on the requirements. On top of all this, clients get irritated when project progress is held up because LEED requriements are complicated and unclear.

Who is the winner here? LEED v4 should be written as clearly, simply and concisely as possible for everyone's sake.

Melissa - I would guess that Industry benefits the most from the lack of stringent and clear requirements within LEED. They can continue to do business as usual, and not have to invest in sustainable practices.

Fees are set at the start of a project. Every project I am working on is at a time lose, and it gets worse as time goes on. I have been actively documenting LEED for projects since 1999. I know what the effort required used to be, and know what the effort required is today.

My fees haven't gone up. Instead I find to remain competitive I have to reduce fees for new proposals. And, I find I have to take on tasks for the A&E team to reduce their costs, such as outside air ventilation analysis, site lighting design assistance, storm water reduction calculations, and more.

A company that develops the review rules knows in advance something I will not learn until a project gets reviewed. That forces me to do work twice. And if changes are required, such as revising outdoor air flows, my clients become very unhappy I did not properly advise them.

A company that develops the review can market themselves as the better consultant. They are better prepared to make adjustments to their projects because they make them before everyone else gets to find out what the rules are.

LEED reviewers do not interpret the LEED Reference Guide. They follow review rules developed by someone else. The USGBC and outside consultants they feel necessary to write consistent review rules.

The charter of the GBCI is provide reviews and try to remain consist. They also have a charter that any review comment asked, regardless of the question being incorrect, must be answered. The GBCI is an enforcement group, not a rules development group. Rules development belongs to the USGBC and what they call the LEED Department.

LEED v4 needs to table about 2/3rds of the credit changes. That is how we developed LEED v2 and v2009. Not too many changes at one time. We also believed the standard of care for LEED would work as it does for a normal A&E project. That means the typical architects, engineers and contractors could do the work themselves. But, because the rules are ever changing and hard, a typical project for a high level LEED building must hire a LEED specialist, if they want to succeed. A LEED specialist is someone who can take a project with a goal of Certified or Silver and increase the rating one or two levels at minimal cost to the owner. The only way to achieve that is by working on LEED full-time and learning, or being a rules developer. If you are both a full-time consultant and rules developer you have a major business advantage over everyone else.

"Industry benefits the most from the lack of stringent and clear requirements within LEED."

The charter of LEED is not to enforce codes. That problem is a separate issue that should be left to code officials. That is their job. It should not be the job of LEED to tell code officials they did not apply their codes properly.

I have a problem with that. LEED keeps claiming to be a 3rd party reviewer. But they're not checking to make sure ASHRAE 90.1 is followed. This came up with the challenge to the LEED rating for the school in Wisconsin. No one did a 3rd party check to make sure the minimum requirements of 90.1 were done. What added value is LEED providing if they're just assuming everyone else does their job?

Hernando - you may have misunderstood my statement. I was referring to sustainable requirements relating to building material content, not code requirements. For example, VOC levels - not code driven, but some manufacturer's are adjusting them downward in order to play in the sustainable marketplace.

LEED has essentially become an ASHRAE 90.1 code reviewer. They have also become in California a Title 24 reviewer. That they review is not the problem, it is how they review.

Is it really the USGBC's job to tell someone who wrote the Title 24 code analysis software be told they do not understand the code, and made errors modeling a building?

Should a person who is a national energy expert analyst, good enough to be a LEED energy reviewer, and good enough to manage LEED reviews, be told they modeled their project incorrectly by another reviewer?

The above has happened on projects I have been involved with. A top expert who can get though a LEED energy review without comments does not exist.

I know of only a single case where no energy review questions were asked, and that case was related to the person going to work for the USGBC before the LEED review occurred.

I'm enjoying this back and forth - I may not need to submit my own comments! I have a few observations on this discussion for now (I guess they count as formal comments):

1. Manufacturers are not over-represented inside the MR and IEQ TAG structures. There is no conspiracy. The membership lists are transparent and posted on USGBC's website. There is one manufacturer from the flooring sector on the MR TAG. There are three manufacturer members on the IEQ TAG from the furniture, gypsum and coatings and sealants sectors. I am the coatings and sealants guy and cover a broad range of technologies and applications beyond what my employer makes. A few, but not all, of the manufacturer members were involved in a Cross-TAG discussion on the early MR disclosure and avoidance credit drafts over a year ago. I can assure you that we were not a majority voice.

2. A clarification: In coatings and sealants, VOC content is highly regulated and has been since the 1970s. Some states are more stringent than others. VOCs are now regulated by code, CalGreen, in California as incorporated by reference. The same CARB regulation is incorporated by reference in the IgCC and the NAHB ICC-700 2012. At least in my industry sector, VOCs are covered by code. Incidentally, those regulations apply to specifiers, purchasers and applicators as well. So in addition to not getting an occupancy certificate if you don't specify compliant products, you can be cited by state regulatory authorities if you cross their regulatory lines as well.

LEED V4 goes several steps beyond regulatory compliance and LEED project specifiers tend to reward manufacturers that have done the best job of eliminating VOCs and other priority chemicals of concern. Keep picking the best, and not necessarily the cheapest, products. We appreciate it and will put some profits back into innovation. It is a virtuous cycle.

3. The MR Building product disclosure and optimization - material ingredients credit structure is far too complex. That is partly due to the reasons that Tom Lent and Eden Brukman have mentioned. But at a fundamental level, I believe it is unworkable. Option 2 requires 25% of the building value to be documented and conformant with GreenScreen Benchmark 1. I work with multiple Living Building Challenge projects and they have trouble sourcing Red List conformant materials. Benchmark 1 incorporates a list of lists far longer than the LBC V2 Red List. I have products that can thread the needle, but they are a relatively low cost percentage for a project and likely will have no reward even if a project team were to reach 25%. The system is dependent on the demand side from practitioners and use of the reward side from manufacturers. I know of a handful of manufacturers that actually understand how this is supposed to work. Will the credit as written reach critical mass and help transform the materials market?

4. Option 3: Product Manufacturer Supply Chain Optimization: As others have stated, the devil is in the details. Who can you trust? USGBC is an organization with more internal and external factions and tensions than the House Democrats. We collectively have to live within the confines of hard political realities. As a small manufacturer (less than 100 employees), Option 3 is simply irrelevant as I have no means to participate. I am not overly optimistic about the 25% threshold, either.

If you choose to trust USGBC and large and vertically integrated multinational corporations to do less bad, this is a positive start. But only the largest producers can participate. Small producers don't have the buying power to force change up the supply chain. Even the largest coating manufacturers have trouble doing that.

I'm not defending the large companies, but I suspect documentation is along the lines of using ISO 14000 and ISO 9000. Those are tough documentation requirements and outside the reach of the vast majority of small and medium sized companies. We don't have the money to hire consultants or the staff to support that level of documentation.

And yes, USGBC is probably responding to external pressures. Life and politics are one and the same at this level of play. We've gone from zero to sixty percent of the commercial building market in in a decade.

5. This is strictly a personal opinion, but based on my interactions with project teams and the many LEEDUser inquiries on LEED 2009, I'd say we collectively need to do a better job of making LEED 2009 work while we wait for LEED V4 to kick in. There is a lot of friction in the system that is causing frustration all the way around.

In the last two weeks, I've dealt with submittal and form requests for LEED projects, two LBC projects, a Florida hybrid version of LEED and an owner's request for information. They all use different forms and documentation requirements. I'm not sensing a lot of love for manufacturers at the moment, but given consistent direction and a little less red tape, you would be surprised what some of us can accomplish to help make your buildings better.

End soapbox discussion...for now.