At Penn, LEED means greener

In designing recent building projects, one of the University's goals has been to construct more environmentally sustainable buildings. Often this entails meeting the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, Green Building standard.

But recently, the efficacy of this rating system as a way to measure the sustainability of a building has been questioned.

According to the USGBC, the LEED rating system rates the operation, construction and design of "green buildings" and awards "green points" based on these criteria.

LEED Certification rates the total amount of points a building achieves and offers four levels of certification: certified, silver, gold and platinum, with platinum being the highest. LEED-certified buildings are intended to save money and reduce greenhouse gases.

A number of Penn's new construction projects - including the Music Building and Fisher Translational Research Center - will receive a minimum of LEED silver certification, according to Facilities and Real Estate Services spokeswoman Jennifer Rizzi. Meanwhile, the Weiss Pavilion is planned to meet gold standard, while the Morris Arboretum Horticultural Center will meet platinum.

However, one of the main problems with LEED-certified buildings is a discrepancy between predicted standards in design and actual building performance, according to USGBC spokeswoman Ashley Katz.

LEED certification assumes the building will be managed more efficiently than is probable, Katz explained. "Savings get better when occupant and building management behavior is part of the performance metric."

The most recent version of LEED, "LEED v3," will focus significantly on energy use with new points and minimum program requirements. One of these requirements is that building owners provide performance data.

"Some LEED buildings haven't really focused on points in the rating system dealing with efficient mechanical energy systems," said Penn's Sustainability coordinator Dan Garofalo, who is also the chairman of the Delaware Valley chapter of the Green Building Council. "You can't force building developers to focus on energy efficiency over other points in the rating system. At Penn, we are very much focused on energy consumption and want to maximize building performance."

David Hollenberg, the University architect, added, "Penn is looking at points that are most relevant [to minimizing the environmental impact of a building], rather than the easiest to attain."

As an added effort to increase the efficacy of the LEED system, USGBC launched a Building Performance Initiative in August, which focuses on data collection from all buildings that have achieved LEED certification. This information will provide feedback to building owners, which can be used to confront performance gaps between predicted building function and actual performance.

"LEED is moving in the right direction because it's a step towards transparency of buildings, design and energy use, among other things," said Environmental Protection Agency Green Building manager Lorna Rosenberg. "With a classification system, buildings have a guideline to improve buildings."

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