By Steve Rizer
Could the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) survive a complete withdrawal of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) support for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program? It is a question that has arisen elsewhere in cyberspace and one that Green Building Insider (GBI) recently put to USGBC Policy Director Lane Burt, who has some very strong opinions about what would happen under such a scenario, which conceivably could unfold someday, given the ever-shifting nature of federal politics.
The military’s participation in the USGBC’s program of rating systems for buildings is “certainly important, but it’s not the only thing [supporting the program],” Burt said. “USGBC will be successful based on how successful it really is in the private sector. The goal, the mission of the organization, is fundamental market transformation, and you don’t get market transformation by convincing a government or a federal agency or a state or local government to do this thing or that thing or to make these improvements. You get full market transformation by impacting the private sector and by making [it] standard practice, and if that happens, then yes, even then, potentially USGBC could go out of business, but that would be a successful outcome. If USGBC goes out business because the market is successfully transformed, then the impact to the building sector has been addressed. That’s obviously a different trajectory than the one you’re talking about, but the bottom line is [that] success internationally and success in the private sector is what’s going to determine whether or not USGBC continues on.”
Burt did acknowledge that a U.S. military withdrawal of support would have an adverse impact. “[DoD] is the agency that has the most LEED-registered and -certified buildings of any federal agency, so, obviously, a reduction in the intent to certify or a reduction in the number of registered buildings would certainly have an impact on USGBC.”
DoD Representatives Clarify Department’s Policy
A pair of military spokespeople emphasized to GBI that such a withdrawal will not happen anytime soon.
In an email interview, Office of the Secretary of Defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan provided the following information:
GBI: In recent congressional testimony, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Dorothy Robyn stated the following:
Morgan: In addition to retrofitting existing buildings, we are taking advantage of new construction to incorporate more energy-efficient designs, material and equipment into our inventory. In the past, all new construction projects were required to meet the LEED Silver or an equivalent standard and/or to comply with the five principles of High Performance Sustainable Buildings. This year my office will issue a new construction code for high-performance, sustainable buildings, which will govern all new construction, major renovations and leased space acquisition. This new code, based heavily on [American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Standard] 189.1, will accelerate DoD’s move toward efficient, sustainable facilities that cost less to own and operate, leave a smaller environmental footprint, and improve employee productivity.
GBI: For clarification, does this mean that DoD will be lessening its commitment to LEED certification for its facilities?
Morgan: DoD is not lessening its commitment to third-party certification. However, it has become clear that as a tool to ensure compliance with the myriad federal energy, water, and environmental mandates, third-party certification alone is not enough. Therefore, the department has chosen to draft a set of building standards that will essentially set the baseline energy, water, and environmental requirements for all new construction, major renovations, existing buildings, and leased facilities to ensure they meet all federal mandates. Third-party certification will remain an integral part of the strategy to verify compliance and to guide those projects that have a mission-driven need to exceed minimum requirements.
GBI: What has been DoD’s policy regarding LEED certification for its facilities? Attaining LEED Silver certification for all new structures and retrofits, or only when cost-effective, or meeting LEED Silver standards but not necessarily certification?
Morgan: DoD’s policy has been that all new construction and major renovation projects must meet the Federal Guiding Principles for High Performance Sustainable Buildings. In order to achieve this goal, the project must be certified LEED Silver (or equivalent), and 40 percent of the points must come from energy- and water-efficiency improvements.
GBI: How, if at all, will DoD policy change in regards to its pursuit of LEED certification?
Morgan: DoD policy regarding third-party certification will remain unchanged, but the new building standards will be added to ensure a repeatable minimum standard of performance is achieved that complies with all federal mandates for energy, water, and environmental impact.
GBI: What statistical information, if any, can you provide regarding the average and/or total cost of achieving LEED certification for DoD facilities? Has this cost been climbing?
Morgan: The incremental cost of achieving third-party certification is difficult to determine with any precision or consistency. The department is in the process of conducting a study of the cost efficiency of various sustainable design and construction standards, including LEED. The study should be complete in the fall.
GBI: Which departments within DoD are subject to DoD’s green building policy? It would be the Army, Navy, Air Force, and which other departments?
Morgan: All DoD components are subject to DoD policy, including the military service and defense agencies.
GBI: To what extent, if any, can individual departments within DoD stray from DoD policy?
Morgan: DoD components are required to comply with DoD policy. The components can always establish more stringent standards, but DoD policy represents the baseline standard.
GBI: What statistics, if any, can you provide about the number of new DoD facilities that have been built to LEED standards in the last year, the number of facilities retrofitted to LEED in the last year, the total number of facilities that are expected to be built or retrofitted over the next year, and the approximate percentage of those facilities that will be built to LEED standards?
Morgan: The department is in the process of validating the real property data related to sustainable infrastructure.
GBI: Other comments?
Morgan: Thank you, but I believe your questions helped us cover the key points.
In addition, Army spokesperson Dave Foster told GBI, “The U.S. Army has the highest building code in the federal government with ASHRAE 189.1. We will continue to seek LEED certification for our buildings built to that standard and expect to get LEED Silver or better at no additional cost, per NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] requirements. During recent congressional testimony, Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and environment, stated, the Army ‘has adopted ASHRAE 189.1 as building standard, which prioritizes energy- and water-efficiency measures and is likely to allow the Army to get LEED Silver or higher at no additional cost.’”
Burt Provides Additional Comments to GBI
In a phone interview with GBI, Burt provided the following other opinions:
GBI: How concerned, if at all, is USGBC that the number of LEED certifications involving military facilities may drop in light of a provision within NDAA restricting the use of DoD funds for LEED Gold or Platinum certification, making it more difficult for military facilities to have LEED certification pursued for them (Construction Advisor Today, Jan. 13, 2012, “New Law Restricts the Use of DoD Funds for Obtaining LEED Gold or Platinum Certification; GBI Profiles Congressional Legislation”)?
Burt: Outside of certain members of Congress being lobbied by various folks to get involved in Defense authorization, we were trying to just be as consistent and supportive as possible as we can of all the Defense agencies as they worked to build better buildings. In terms of a level of concern, I wouldn’t say we’re concerned or unconcerned; we’re really just trying to work to make sure that we’re providing them the value that they need in the certification process. They continue to use LEED, obviously, because they find the value in it, and if they find the value in third-party certification, then we’ll make sure to continue to provide that service.
GBI: What types of trends do you foresee in terms of the types of LEED-related activities that the military may pursue? For example, could the military go for significantly fewer LEED Platinum structures and focus more of their attention on those credits that are less costly to achieve?
Burt: As a big user, they are constantly conducting their own experiments in terms of what the most effective strategy is to get to their desired level of certification, and that’s part of what the adoption of [ASHRAE Standard] 189.1 means, [which] is they are using that as a platform, as a roadmap, to get them to the final destination of better building, and one that could potentially, eventually be certified. I think the trend you’ll see is that they’ll use these documents and have been using these documents -- both the rating system and 189.1, the code from ASHRAE -- to streamline the way they design the buildings, build the buildings and then how they test out, how they certify the buildings, and get all of that information to us so that we can certify the buildings.
They’ll get better at that because the only thing that USGBC charges for is the certification… [I]n most cases, when we see projects that are very expensive coming through for certification, it’s because the implementers and designers were either unfamiliar with the process … but as they become more comfortable with the rating system, more comfortable with the technologies, more comfortable with changing their standard practice, the cost of implementing tends to go down. So, I think we’ll see the department get better at doing what they already do, and get better at building better buildings.
The longer term, I think there’s certainly going to be an impact from the move from LEED version 2009 to LEED version 2012. That version is going to be released at the end of this year, and eventually, in a short time after that, LEED 2012 will be the rating system that you certify your new projects to. While it’s a deliberate step for LEED to get more stringent and for LEED to respond to the success that it’s had in the market by moving to be even more aggressive and even more stringent as the result of market transformation and definition of standard practice changing in the construction industry, that’s certainly going to have an impact on what level [of] certification people [will] target [and] attain because they’re going to have to learn new things. They’re going to have to, again, take a step forward and go the next step to get to a certified level, a Silver level, a Gold [level], or a Platinum level.
