You remember the $100 million dollar lawsuit against the U.S. Green Building Council, right?
It’s back in the spotlight, and it has taken a new form through an amended complaint filed by multiple plaintiffs. No longer is the plaintiff asking for $100 million. No longer is the plaintiff asserting a class action lawsuit that would have represented essentially anyone that ever took a step into a LEED building.
You can download a copy of Henry Gifford’s amended complaint (PDF), which was filed on February 7. [Editor's Note: Disclosure -- The original lawsuit named Rob Watson, who chaired the LEED steering committee for its first 12 years and is now executive editor of GreenerBuildings.com, among the defendants.] Here are the basics of the amended complaint:
- The plaintiffs are four design and construction professionals: Henry Gifford, Elisa Larkin, Matthew Arnold and Andrew Ask.
- The plaintiffs allege that the USGBC has falsely led consumers to believe that LEED buildings are more energy efficient. The plaintiffs claim that the USGBC’s own data proves that LEED buidings are actually not more energy efficient. The plaintiffs also assert that the USGBC never actually verifies that buildings are designed and constructed to save energy.
- To prove the USGBC’s alleged lack of verification, the plaintiffs point to the Northland Pines High School LEED certification challenge. You may recall that I covered this story extensively in 2010. [Coverage on GreenerBuildings.com by Cheatham, Watson and attorney Shari Shapiro is available here.]
- The plaintiffs do not assert how much they have lost due to the USGBC’s actions.
I have always wondered how the plaintiffs would argue that the USGBC’s alleged false advertising cost the plaintiffs’ actual jobs and income. You can see the foundation for the plaintiffs’ argument in the complaint:
“USGBC's false advertising causes consumers of building design and construction advice to utilize a LEED-certified professional instead of Plaintiffs because consumers mistakenly believe that LEED-certified professionals will design a LEED-certified building that is verified by a third-party to be more energy-efficient than the building that Plaintiffs would design. . . .”
What do you think of this argument?
The original version of this post appeared on the Green Building Law Update and is reprinted with permission.
Image CC licensed by Flickr user Payton Chung.
The building users always
The building users always make for a nice scapegoat for poor building performance. The statistics from the lawsuit were based on averages of many buildings. The intelligence of the building users should be balanced out from this large number of buildings.
I'd love USGBC to provide meter data on their Platinum rated HQ building. First building certified under LEED-2009. Those users should be well knowledgeable and motivated to reduce energy use.
I would be interested to see
I would be interested to see what the figures refered to actually are recordings of, if they are just the building data or building plus people. It is acknowledged that once you add people to a building the sustainbility of that building can be drastically changed. Building users make the difference; if they are sustainable the building can exceed expectations, if they are not the building may as well not be sustainable in any way. I have read reports that show education brings better savings than green tech in buildings. The purpose of BREEAM and LEED is to provide a building designed to the best sustainable standards, not to guarentee that the users will be educated in sustainability. In responce to these findings BREEAM and LEED now have in use assessments to educate users on sustainability and how to use their new shiny green building to the maximum.