John Fulmer

East Mill Street Studio

313 Hardwick Place
Joppa, Md. 21085
410.510.7513
814.512.1482 cell
814.975.1144 fax

LEED Revisions

After hearing grumblings that the LEED-EB (Existing Buildings) rating system was too

costly and complicated, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) tweaked the guidelines and

announced the revisions in New Orleans on Oct. 25.

The USGBC heard more than 650 suggestions from architects, contractors and facility

managers, among others, during the first public comment period held from Aug. 2 to Sept. 2. A

second, two-week comment period ended in October.

Doug Gatlin, USGBC’s national accounts director made the announcement. The USGBC

was a big presence at the International Facility Manager Association’s “World Workplace”

convention held in New Orleans that week. The USGBC also held its Greenbuild 2007

conference soon after in Chicago.

Today’s Facilty Manager reported Gatlin said the rating system underwent a number of

changes “to streamline documentation and make it even more relevant to building operations.”

The revisions to LEED-EB 2.0 will be voted on by USGBC members in a balloting process that

lasts for 30 days after the announcement.

Teresa Sweek, an engineering consultant and LEED AP with Paladino, a Seattle contractor,

was part of a panel that spoke on LEED-EB at Greenbuild. Though hesitant to endorse the

revisions before the vote, Seewk said she was pleased with what she had seen. LEED-EB is still a

hard sell and, during the question-and-answer period held after the panel spoke, many attendees
questioned the cost-effectiveness of LEED-EB’s intricate documentation process when they could

aim for simpler, informal sustainability goals.

But Sweek said the revisions have completely revamped the process.

“One thing you can say is that we had a LEED-EB scorecard that was based on the existing

program, and we looked at the pilot that came out and made a scorecard for that. We changed

almost every single line item,” she said. “My personal opinion is that it’s n improvement. It’s

really exciting. If you’ve gone through the current EB process, looking at the new one will be a

different approach.”

LEED-EB v.2008, as it’s now called, is designed to eliminate certain program prerequisites

and intersects with LEED for New Construction (NC), clear up some fuzzy language, and put

more stress on facilities operations, building commissioning, and maintenance. More emphasis

was placed on green cleaning, which was given a single category.

The revisions should help cut red tape. For example, to score commuting points in the current

process, owners have to log on-site bike racks, car-pool numbers, and the site’s ease of access to

public transit. The revisions require only the ratio of one-car commuters to those who use public

or alternate transportation.

Energy and water standards were also targeted for updates, including doubling the points for

energy efficiency in EA Credit 1. Brand-new credits were introduced for energy best practices.

Points for water efficiency were also doubled and credits for water metering and cooling-tower

water efficiency were also introduced. LEED-ED v.2008 updated references to the latest versions

of third-party standards, such as ASHRAE 62 and 55, the Uniform Plumbing Code, and Green

Seal.

Since existing buildings make up more than 90 percent of the country’s building stock, the

revisions are seen as another important step in the greening of America. The USGBC initiated

LEED-EB in 2001 and, after its development phase and first public comment periods, the

program was activated in 2004. However, following its revision of LEED-NC standards in 2005,
the USGBC began overhauling its EB guidelines this year.

The July 2007 issue of Building Design and Construction magazine reported that only 46 (5.6

percent) of 824 completed LEED projects earned EB certification. Michael Arny president of

Leonardo Academy, consultancy firm that oversaw the EB committee from 2001-2005, told the

magazine, “Everyone has been a little surprised about how long LEED for existing buildings has

taken to sink into the marketplace.”

Sweek said she thinks that will be a thing of the past and that she seen the number of LEED-

EB registrations rise.

“We have many clients, some of them with large portfolios, who are looking at LEED-EB,

recognizing the importance and wanting to make a positive change,” she said.

“In a nutshell, we will make the process more user-friendly by reducing the documentation

and reporting burden,” Gatlin told the magazine.