Green distinction changing texture of interior design.

When most people who are interested think about sustainable design, they think of LEED certification. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the program developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) in order to measure and rate a building's sustainable performance.

Over the past few years they have been refining the system by creating a separate but related rating system for commercial interiors, as well as for more specialized categories such as residential design.

How does an interior qualify as LEED certified? The ratings range from Bronze (or simply certified) to Silver, Gold, and finally Platinum, depending on how many points the project can achieve. The points themselves are awarded for fulfilling requirements related to the categories of Site, Water Use, Energy and Atmosphere, and Materials and Resources.

With the escalating cost of oil and related energy, interest in the system has also escalated, and clients who never would have considered it are now starting to think about designing to these standards.

This year the City Council in NYC passed Local Law 86, requiring all construction undertaken by the City that goes over a certain set-point in construction cost and scope to achieve at least a rating of LEED Silver.

But what is it that LEED is really measuring? Americans love measuring systems, from Robert Parker for wine to Consumer Reports for appliances. There have been a lot of questions raised about the system, and some consultants who specialize in sustainable design complain that a building can achieve the bronze rating and not be energy efficient at all.

Part of the problem lies in defining what "sustainability" means. The LEED system interprets it as relating to a broad range of topics, anywhere from using renewable materials, to selecting buildings for a project so as to take advantage of public transportation, on to actual energy efficiency. Some of the items awarded points seem downright silly in the context of the realities of the working world.

As an example, there is a point for including bicycle racks and a shower for a certain percentage of the occupants of a commercial interior.

Even with these facilities available (we have them in my office), the probability is that no one will take advantage of them given NYC weather, traffic, the difficulties of storing and accessing a bike in an apartment, let alone the challenges of using it once at work to get to meetings, etc.

Items that seem to fall within a more traditional concept of sustainability (such as those concerning energy conservation) require a system of documentation that is time consuming and complex. Not every client can afford the upfront costs this will entail, for both the equipment and systems themselves as well as for the consultant's fees necessary to design them and then to document them for LEED.

For this reason, the majority of LEED projects my firm has been working on are for large companies who have a policy initiative to "do the right thing", as well as deep enough pockets to wait until financial benefits kick in over time.

So is the system worthwhile? The answer may lie in the phrase "consider the alternative". Without a measurable system, sustainability remains a noble but amorphous goal, and anyone can and will claim their building is sustainable, without that having much meaning.

Our federally mandated mileage standards have not been updated and reduced to match increasing energy costs, and our car industry has not stepped up to the plate for energy conservation with disastrous results. Similarly, without a system for measuring the relative sustainability of construction projects, we would not have the will or the incentives to change the status quo.

Along with accepting this system come the public relations benefits of "doing the right thing", and finally, the actual long-term financial savings coming from energy conservation, savings that are real and that can offset first costs within three or four years. The US Green Building Council has spent time and effort in creating a recognizable and quantifiable system that is in many ways imperfect, especially as some of the categories being quantified may not be so easily measured, or may be of limited relevance.

But without some sort of system that is national in scope we have no simple means for recognizing and rewarding those who spend the time and money to incorporate sustainability into their projects. With rising energy costs and finite energy resources, this makes financial sense in the long run.

And if we accept the fact that we are in a period of humanly caused climate change, then programs like this are a step in the right direction for us as caretakers of our children's futures.

BY JOAN BLUMENFELD, FAIA, IIDA,

LEED, PRINCIPAL, PERKINS + WILL