There’s a lot of talk these days about green buildings.  We sometimes hear people remark that their buildings have been built to “LEED Standards” but have not gone through the rigors of certification.  It usually makes me USGBC
cringe when I hear it because all I can think about is the lost opportunity.  But why do people go through the effort of creating energy efficient and sustainable buildings without going through the process to certify them? First off let me acknowledge that there have been energy efficient structures designed and built long before LEED or green building certifications came into vogue.  But, now that LEED certification has a certain marketing appeal to the public, developers and architects like to drop it into every mention of a building whether they intend to certify the building or not.  In reality many developers are constructing projects that may or may not have aspects of green building without going through the vigor of certification.  Cost is usually cited as an issue, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars to certify a project.  It’s true; you cannot get away from the costs paid to the USGBC to certify a LEED building or the costs to document the project for certification.  However, many of the other costs can be mitigated or significantly reduced if the design process is changed.  By tradition architectural design has been a linear process.  The architect will finish their drawings and then send them to other specialty consultants who have to work around the parameters set by the architect.  Sometimes the consultants further down the line have good ideas on how to save energy or incorporate sustainable features into the project but making major changes at such a late stage of design is costly and usually not viable.  If you bring the architect, engineers, and consultants all together in the beginning of the project common goals can be discussed and worked towards.  This holistic design process creates the environment for designing and creating the most cost effective sustainable and energy efficient buildings. It’s not just good enough to pay lip service to green building anymore.  Far too many buildings are being built with only a few of the characteristic that we would consider to be green.  Not to mention there are entire certification systems that will give you a certification based on what you say that you did with no double checking.  The value that LEED and EnergyStar and other rigorous systems bring to the table is the third-party verification of claims by the building owner and architect.  When I see a LEED or EnergyStar plaque on a building I have an assurance that some level of scrutiny went into the green claims of that building, much more so than someone showing me a gold star they placed on their own forehead.