To get future green buildings beyond the cutting edge, we need to become less reliant on the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating and certification system, said the chair of a regional green building conference and expo held in Birmingham, Ala. recently.

“Green buildings of the future will feature attributes that “perform well beyond today’s standard, especially when it comes to energy efficiency,” said Charles J. Kibert of the Powell Center for Construction & Environment at the University of Florida and lead author of “Greening Federal Facilities.”

He said that today’s green buildings are really the first generation of this concept of green building and sustainable construction.

“There are severe gaps not accounted for,” he said, adding that the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification program represents “only the first generation of green building. What are the next steps? It’s hard to tell.”

The professor said we should expect that as the economy recovers, the cost of fuel and energy will go up again. “The era of cheap energy is over,” he said. “We have a narrow window of opportunity to redesign buildings, transportation, and infrastructure for a future that is efficient and sustainable. The era of maximum oil production is over.”

This is why the green buildings of the future will have to be especially energy efficient.

Where we are today?

There is more than 5 billion square feet of LEED certified commercial building space in the U.S. today.

“LEED is hugely successful,” said Kibert, but, “It doesn’t go far enough.”

Founded in 1993, there are more than 81,000 buildings registered with the USGBC; 12,000 have been registered in 2009 alone, but only 1,600 have been certified.

“It’s not a great story in terms of how well buildings are moving through the certification process,” said Kibert, who “hoped for a radical change in LEED-NC 2009.”

He said the green building process and innovative design are not explicitly addressed in LEED. “It works against integrated design, and runs against the notion of systems thinking.”

He added that materials issues are poorly addressed and energy reductions for certification are minimal. As an alternative, he suggested a model based on the high performance buildings being built in Germany and Japan, where best building practices are leading to netzero energy buildings.

“Platinum, gold buildings in my mind are nothing to be proud of. We need to be less reliant on LEED,” said Kibert, adding that radical green building strategies that allow for net-zero energy buildings should include:

· Regenerated and integrated local ecosystems;

· Closed loop material systems that allow buildings to be designed for deconstruction. “A huge deficiency of LEED.” Products need to be disassembled into their constituent materials. Materials must be reusable and recyclable. Cradle to Cradle as much as possible.

· Maximum use of passive design and renewable energy systems. Buildings do not take advantage of local renewable energy. HVAC and lighting systems should be done simultaneously.

· Optimized building hydrologic cycles that don’t strain a short supply of potable water.

“Water is cheap,” he said, “but we waste it.”

LEED 2009 Includes Regional Credits

To address regional environmental priorities, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has included regional credits as part of LEED 2009, the new version of the LEED Green Building Rating System.

These LEED credits encourage that specific regional environmental priorities be addressed when it comes to the design, construction and operations of buildings in different geographic locations.

“Because environmental priorities differ among various regions of the country—the challenges in the Southeast differ from those in the Northwest, for example—regionally specific credits give LEED a way to directly respond to diverse, regionally grounded issues,” said Brendan Owens, vice—president of Technical Development, USGBC. “The inclusion of these regional LEED credits is the Council’s first step toward addressing regional environmental issues.”

With the help of USGBC’s regional councils, chapters and affiliates, credits addressing six specific environmental issues within a region were identified from among the existing LEED credits. In LEED 2009, LEED projects will be able to earn “bonus points” for implementing green building strategies that address the important environmental issues facing their region. A project can be awarded as many as four extra points, one point each for achieving up to four of the six priority credits.

LEED 2009 is one of the three major components that make up LEED Version 3, the next version of the LEED green building certification program, launched April 27, 2009.

The changes to the LEED rating system reflect the rapid advancements in building science and technology and provides incentives for strategies that have greater positive impacts on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reductions, among other priorities.

The other components of LEED v3 include a faster, smarter and easier to use LEED Online, the tool for managing the LEED registration and certification process; and a new building certification model administered by the Green Building Certification Institute through a network of internationally recognized independent ISO-accredited certification bodies. ❑

To learn more about LEED v3 and to download a region-by-region list of priority credits, visit www.usgbc.org/leed2009.