Reasonale Proof that a measure is not Standard Practice

This is reviewer nonsense. I have run into this before. In my case the reviewer demanded that an industry survey be conducted for process loads for a very complex life-support system. The system has only two qualified engineering firms in the U.S. that can design it. Well, you cannot survey yourself and your competitor. Worse, if design standard is to go beyond the minimum, to give you an green-edge over your competitors, you are deemed to not be green at all.

There is no way you will be able to get documentation to the level necessary to satisfy the LEED reviewers, for projects other than your own. This because those business competitors will not share that level of data with you. You are stuck referencing your own projects, and the reviewers will fault you for not documenting detailed supporting data from other firms. Pure Catch-22.

Ugly as it is, the is USGBC basically telling you to "design your systems for non-LEED projects to be energy inefficient, so that when you do a LEED project you can claim how efficient your project is by comparing it to your non-efficient projects."

This does seem very weird. My assumption is you are proposing something and an improvement that you feel is not standard practice, and they are pushing back, wanting PROOF that it is not standard practice. That is really hard to prove, I agree with Hernando. What if your firm does something that has not caught on or picked up by others yet…so if you compare to your work, it is standard, but not to the industry.

This concerns me that GBCI does not have enough practitioners in its ranks, or they are not being deployed correctly. Anyone with experience would know what is standard for this time and place, and if they don’t for some reason, they can call someone they know and trust to find out. I know those professionals exist in GBCI, I have met many and find them quite knowledgeable and helpful.

Maybe there needs to be access to a panel of professionals for things like this, as advisors to the reviewers. I would volunteer for that kind of role.

Scott,

The problem is that the GBCI has to follow rules invented by the USGBC's LEED Department. The rule making body is divorced from the reviewing body. The USGBC's LEED Department is filled with policy developers who have no real experience with designing buildings, and who have little experience with what is actually required to certify a LEED building.

Ten years ago I proposed to the LEED Steering Committee that LEED needed a public advocacy group (aka, ombudsmen team) to intervene when the LEED reviewers made unreasonable demands. The proposal was instantly criticized by the then VP of LEED. No one on the Steering Committee was allowed to make a comment before the VP of LEED finished his concentrated attack on the proposal. The Steering Committee decided it was best to leave things as they were to not further upset the VP of LEED. Why was the VP so upset, they were horrified that someone they would have no control over would be looking over their shoulder.

If there's a GBCI/USGBC person lurking on this forum, now would be a great time for you to comment.

This is a very common comment/request for 2009 projects. If you receive this for a v2.2 or other pre-2009 system, punt it back to the reviewer. Sometimes reviewers have their 2009 hat on when reviewing v2.2 projects.

"Innovative" is a subjective concept, which is why they ask you to demonstrate that it is innovative by explaining how it goes beyond "standard" practice - although also subjective, standard practice is easier to demonstrate. Think of your strategy as "standard until proven innovative". It's a hassle, but *in theory* it prevents gaming the system. In reality it creates an advantage to people who certify a lot of projects and have a lot of experience with ID credits. (Please note that this is an explanation - it doesn't mean that I agree with the approach.)

You should try to engage in an email dialog with the reviewers if you're unclear how to do this for your specific issue. However, they are unlikely to drop the request.

What prereq/credit is the comment in regard to? It sounds like the reviewer is referencing LI#10291 for EAp2. If you are taking credit for energy savings that fall outside ASHRAE established baselines you will need to justify how you arrived at the standard to compare your project to.

I can see where the reviewer is coming from. If you are doing something innovative you will need to back up those claims as to how your approach is quanitively better than an established baseline. The point of the 5 year limit is to ensure that your claim is indeed a current standard and that you are not inflating the level of innovation by comparing it to an outdated standard of practice.

Well, we did punt back to the reviewers for the LEED v2.2 project with special life support systems I mentioned. We responded by telling the reviewers that at the time the design decisions were made that standard equipment could be purchased that was not as efficient as the equipment that was designed into the project. The reviewers claimed that "recent" unnamed LEED projects had previously document similar efficient equipment, and therefore the project could not earn innovation credit since other projects had already done so. The project DID NOT apply for a LEED innovation credit of these special process load system. All efficiency claims weer included only as part of EAc1.

The reviewers had the gall to demand that an industry survey be provided with the first review comments. With the second review comments they made reference to an industry survey and conveniently failed to name the survey. Why the GBCI was forced this comment from the LEED reviewer is a real mystery. If they want a particular survey used, then the reviewers should have named it up front.

What was really ugly about that project was that these external loads represented more than 97% of the EAc1 loads. The building and its loads were less than 3% of the energy use total. Both the building and process loads were between 38-39% more efficient, very close to the same performance. The building included internal process loads that were well above the 25% minimum requirement.

The building on its own was accepted by the reviewers meeting all LEED requirements. The same number of EAc1 points would have been claimed if the life support systems were entirely removed from LEED. But, were not allowed to remove the systems by the GBCI and go through a appeal process.

Even more odd, we had evidence of a LEED certified project that earned a similar 38% efficiency for the same type of life support systems. We also had evidence of a similar LEED certified project the excluded the life support system, and this systems were internal to the building, and not external loads.

The end result was the the the owner of the project abandoned the USGBC and LEED. They committed to doing all their project using LEED and backed out. The owner was one of the most committed green organizations I have every worked with. Sustainability was integrated into their everyday practices. The food served in the on-site cafeteria was sustainable. They offer regular environmental educational programs free to the general public.

I disagree with you E H.

What the "standard" practice and 5-year rule fail to take into account is the actual design, construction and LEED certification process.

If a small, fast-track, project completes LEED before a multi-phase, many year, project, which started design long before the small project, then than later project sets the LEED standard.

ASHRAE has no established baseline for process loads analysis. Process loads analysis and setting a baseline is entirely subjective.

The generalities discussed here make it very difficult to develop a reasonable response to help you deal specifically with this issue but I will try to deal with it in general terms.

It sounds like you are claiming energy savings related to an energy saving exceptional calculation. In this scenario the establishment of the baseline is up to the project team. The reason for this is that quite often establishing a reasonable baseline for very specific strategies is a significant research project in and of itself and the reviewer cannot be expected to do so within the confines of the time we are allowed to spend on an individual review. If whatever industry has not done so, then LEED has no reference or established baseline. Also reasonable baselines vary by location and strategy as well as changing over time. For example, parking garage CO ventilation control is required by some codes in some areas and is not required by others. So in Oregon it is the law and projects cannot claim savings for doing something they are required to do anyway. Projects that did so before the law took effect could reasonably claim savings but afterward it is not reasonable savings. So requirements, laws and the standardization of specific strategies change and the project's registration date has always been the date that establishes precedence. I understand this is frustrating as I have been on both sides of this issue. I tried to claim energy savings related to infiltration reduction in about 2004 and 90.1-2013 has not yet established a defined reasonable baseline for a commercial building. These things apparently take time.

Some baselines are well established for things like food service equipment (LEED Retail), boiler efficiency and premium motors (both 90.1). I have long advocated for USGBC to provide more guidance on this baseline issue but it has not risen to the top of the pile yet apparently.

So back to your original post in this thread. Did the reviewer comment offer any other options for you to defend your baseline? The standard review comment typically includes additional options for establishing a reasonable baseline. Can you share the strategy for which you are claiming savings?

It is often very hard to determine a reasonable baseline for a project team spending many hours evaluating options and trying to determine reasonable savings. For a reviewer to do so within the 3 hours or so they get to evaluate it can be impossible. I do agree that USGBC could do a much better job of providing project team guidance on this subject so the best advice I can give anyone is to submit an Interpretation to get some feedback before you go to the review phase.

Marcus wrote, in part: "I do agree that USGBC could do a much better job of providing project team guidance on this subject..."

The problem I experienced was no guidance was provided. Being told to conduct an industry survey is entirely unreasonable. There is no statement in any of the mass of LEED documentation that justifies such a demand being made by a reviewer.

Later, we learned that the reviewer did have non-LEED-based guidance they could have provided, but they chose to keep the name of the guidance document a secret.

The solution is simple: If published LEED requirements do not exist the reviewers are not allowed to create their own requirements.

For process loads the two most important things to do are: first, establish a reasonable baseline based on the design phase of the project. Second, make sure the operational schedules are identical between the baseline and proposed case.

Erika,

Below is a small part of the very long response we received in the second review. The demand was made over three years ago.

"a listing of several other newly constructed, similar facilities with the design properties used for those facilities along with a statement from the engineer of record stating that these designs are standard practice for newly constructed facilities in the project location."

The demand made is entirely unreasonable.

I agree that if this was the only option offered it is unreasonable.

I think USGBC should provide better baseline guidance for projects pursuing process savings in general so project teams have a better idea of what will and will not be acceptable before it gets to the reviewer.

Agreed Marcus. The USGBC's LEED Department has created some review rules that are unreasonable. The GBCI tries to enforce the rules that are often misinterpreted by the reviewers.

There were no other similar, newly constructed, facilities in the project location, region, the State, and in the majority of the U.S. The comments were received were extraordinary in breathe. And, they took much longer than three hours to write. I don't know how the cost of the review that was done was justified.