“A LEED rating system does not confirm sustainability,” Susan Kaplan, CSI, CCS, a specifier for HLW International in NYC, explained to CSI’s Sustainability Practice Group during a recent meeting.
LEED is not a complete roadmap for running a green project. There will always be new material and system requirements, regulations and standards, etc. These are all LEED “special needs.”
Although it uses a great organizational method that covers attributes including Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality, LEED does not cover the entire life cycle of the project. www.storyofstuff.com was mentioned to emphasize that one needs to view the project from the stand point of the entire life cycle.
In the future, LEED will move toward a multi-attribute focus. ISO standards are beginning to address these attributes through LCA, and to look at products more comprehensively. Today’s owners do not necessarily understand that the products they are getting are not as green as they are made out to be. Michael Fuller, CSI, AIA., NCARB, CDT, LEED AP, member of the GreenFormat Program Management Task Team, believes that in the future, there will eventually be more comprehensive definitions of what constitutes a green or sustainable product.
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When designing and building a new home or office, both the architects and builders need to pay attention to detail. The architect needs to make sure when they are generating the details on how the structure goes together, that they are making sure that the structure is going to be energy efficient and durable. Therefore architects and contractors really need to pay attention to the details.