Who really pays for LEED certification?

Obtaining LEED certification costs a lot of time and money.  The resources required are not limitless and are generally diverted from other uses, though that seems impolite to discuss when pursuing sustainability.

But LEED certification does not, of course, add to a property’s sustainability.  Rather it confirms, or certifies, that objective sustainable criteria have been met.   If anything, the high costs of LEED certification divert funds that may be otherwise be spent on sustainable materials or systems.

In the end, the high cost of LEED ultimately comes from somewhere….or someone. 

I wonder how the retirees of Stockton, California feel about their city’s expense in obtaining LEED Gold certification for their new water plant after having their retirement benefits cut in Stockton’s bankruptcy proceedings.

While hardly the sole culprit of bankruptcy, Stockton’s self-imposed requirement to LEED certify all structures over 5,000 square feet is indicative of City Hall’s feckless finance.

SERF offers a low cost sustainable certification that doesn’t break the bank.  I bet that sounds like a good idea to some good folks in Stockton.

The Greenest Building is the one that is already built

This elegant phrase by architect Carl Elefante is bolstered by an important new study, The Greenest Building:  Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. 

National Real Estate Investor opines that the study, commissioned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab, empirically shows, “It is unequivocally greener to retrofit an old building than construct a new building, no matter how many high-tech bells and whistles are in the new construction.”

The numbers are startling:

                *It can take between 10 and 80 years for a new energy-efficient building to overcome, through

                  More efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts that come from construction.

 

                *Environmental savings from re-use are between 4 and 46 percent over new construction when            

                  comparing buildings with the same energy performance level.

 

                *The ROI on green retrofits average 19.2% versus 9.9% for new buildings.

 

Clearly there are occasions when new structures are greener than retrofitting.  And, after all, sustainability is not the only factor in building decisions—else we all return to cave dwelling.  Still, it’s important to always look first to reuse as the benchmark against which alternatives are measured.

Convective Heat Loss, a sneaky villian

Strategies to increase building energy efficiency typically focus on increased efficiency of the HVAC system and increased thermal resistance of the envelope and fenestration.    An oft- overlooked, but vital, path to efficiency is reduction of air-leakage.

Heat transfer in buildings occurs in three forms: conduction, convection and radiation. Of these, conduction and convection transfer most of the heat. Conduction occurs when one body transfers its heat to another with which it is in contact–in this case, the transfer between interior and exterior air. Convection occurs when a heated body physically transports itself to another location. In this case air physically moving through leaks in the wall. Thermal insulation prevents conduction but does little to prevent convective heat losses.

The results of my research at Michigan State University for the US Department of Energy on Residential Energy Retrofit showed the tremendous impact leaks had on energy efficiency. The research revealed that in an average American home, the aggregation of these leaks is an equivalent of a 1 square foot hole in the wall!

How can air-leakage be controlled? The solution is surprisingly simple. First, an energy auditor must measure and detect air leakage. They may use several tests to determine this. The blower-door test is a common method used in small and medium sized buildings. Once detected, they may be removed by either using an air barrier or by caulking and sealing them. Additionally, the use of foam insulation in place of fiberglass acts as an air barrier by itself.

The US Department of Energy’s Guide on Air-Sealing has some really good information to how to effectively air seal a building.

Air-tightening the thermal envelope is one of the most overlooked strategies for energy efficiency, yet is one of the most important and cost effective.