Hey Rob thanks for your thoughtful reply.

We no doubt share the same goals and maybe LEED is not the vehicle to use but I think it can be.

I agree with your analogy except some of the underlying assumptions. In your example it is assumed that the grade scale is the ultimate measure of human intelligence. As we both well know there are very different measures of intelligence quite a few of which are not measured well on a standard grade scale in a standard academic institution. The same can be said of commercial building energy use. None of the ways we measure it will be accurate in all cases. Energy Star is full of holes and problems and is not a good measuring stick for many commercial buildings, even the ones that is covers. So if a building is “below average” it could be poorly managed and needs to be retrofitted or it could be managed as well as it possibly can be given the situation and due to constraints beyond the current owner’s control or other issues like unaccounted for equipment or occupant densities. Awarding LEED certification to only those who can excel on a flawed grade scale is the same as marginalizing individuals whose intelligence is outside that which is measured by standardized testing. Allowing those with significant improvement to get in the game simply recognizes these flaws in building energy metrics and provides another compliance path.

My point is that none of this is black and white. There are numerous complexities, as you well know, which make the ultimate answer not either/or. I feel it can be both/and.

Since LEED is about market transformation it does not make sense to me to automatically exclude a large segment of the existing building market who needs it’s transformative power the most.

Hi Marcus--Thanks for your note & the clarification at which point the 20% improvement would occur (the energy star score vs. the source EUI). Clearly we share the same underlying goal of capturing more energy savings in the existing building stock. I also think we share the goal of USGBC taking the lead (no pun intended) on this effort. It's not clear to me that LEED is necessarily the correct vehicle to do this for the reasons articulated above. If you'll allow an analogy to an elite educational institution, all have remedial programs to get their students up to some minimum level of proficiency across all subjects. So not all graduates of will be great mathematicians or pulitzer prize winning writers, but they won't (or should not be) embarrassing. As you have pointed out, saving energy can be really difficult and on some level what you're asking is to give an "A" for effort. But if students fail the remedial courses, they don't graduate. I believe this should be the case with LEED: either buildings pass the energy "course" or they don't graduate/certify.

Maybe the USGBC should have a program that measures and rewards percentage improvement in energy, water etc, regardless of the starting point; perhaps some kind of extra incentive structure could be put in place for getting buildings into LEED. I think that is worth an extended conversation.

All best,
Rob

Hey Rob,

I guess I will have to fess up and claim some of the responsibility for putting this idea out in the public comment version. As the immediate past Chari of the EA TAG I pushed for this and vast majority of the EA TAG agreed with the rational.

First I want to correct some numbers. I just ran a fictional office in Pennsylvania that was an Energy Star 10. Reducing energy use by 20% makes the same building an Energy Star 25, not a 12. The proposal is a 20% reduction in energy use, not in the Energy Star score.

While I understand your point and have heard it many times, as you allude to I guess it comes down to the definition of leadership. If we want LEED to drive significant reductions in energy use we are going to need a multitude of buildings to reduce their energy use by 20% or more. These buildings on the lower end of the scale may just be energy hogs or our current metrics do not accurately account for their relative efficiency. None of the metrics we use to measure energy use in buildings is without its flaws, Energy Star included. As I tell folks, BTU/sf-yr is just the least worst of the building energy metric options.

The energy performance minimum is also a major barrier to many projects. In my experience projects who can't meet it do not even look seriously at the rest of EBOM, throwing out many potential environmental benefits as well. Ask anyone who has worked with EBOM; you start with meeting the energy prerequisite, if you meet that then you go to step 2; if not you stop. Not always but quite often. So in effect we are eliminating at least half the existing buildings market from being able to use the system. We don't do that with any other LEED product. All BD+C, ID+C, Homes, ND, etc. can get in the game if they desire.

As someone who has assisted numerous clients to reduce energy use, I can tell you from firsthand experience getting a 20% reduction is hard for many facilities. In my opinion this demonstrates real leadership. More leadership than the project who gets EBOM certified one year with an Energy Star 90 and then the next has an Energy Star 77. The proposal does recognize that the improvement path is not leadership at the same level so fewer points are available.

The difference between BD+C and EBOM, in my opinion, is that BD+C is a one-time event and EBOM is about continuous improvement. I think the system can be structured to reward significant improvement and high levels of relative performance. Both exhibit leadership to me.