If It's Not LEED, Can It Still Be Green?

Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, may not have thought he was saying anything controversial when he used a standard line to promote the LEED^® Rating System: “If it’s not LEED, it’s not green.” But Fedrizzi’s comments raised the hackles of a number of attendees at the opening plenary session at the Greenbuild conference in Portland.

From a branding perspective, Fedrizzi’s statement is clear. What else would one expect from a CEO but to promote the brand that has catapulted his organization from relative obscurity to fame and fortune? The success of LEED in bringing green building out of the shadows is largely based on the perceived value of that brand. By bringing a measure of standardization and accountability to green building claims, LEED has given owners and developers an easy way to buy and sell green performance. This branding success has not only created a huge market but has also raised the bar for designers and developers who might previously have gotten away with greenwashing projects of marginal environmental merit.

But the statement “If it’s not LEED, it’s not green” is offensive to building professionals who’ve been on the cutting edge of low-impact, high-performance buildings since before the USGBC and LEED existed. LEED is still far from perfect as a yardstick of green performance, and some exemplary green buildings do not score well in the LEED system. The School of Nursing building at the University of Texas at Houston, for example, is reportedly teetering between LEED Platinum and uncertifiable, depending on what happens at the campus’ central chiller plant. For small projects, the cost of certification can be a barrier, and choosing to certify a project is a tough call, especially if the money comes out of the same budget that might otherwise pay for higher-performing building systems.

LEED has been successful because it manages to be both accessible and credible to its audience. To expand LEED’s market penetration, the Council needs to continue to improve the rating system on both those fronts—lowering the barriers to participation while strengthening its technical validity—no easy task. One way to do that is to be frank about LEED’s shortcomings and encourage open discussion about possible improvements. That type of open-to-learning, collaborative approach disarms critics and invites participation. Claiming “If it’s not LEED, it’s not green,” on the other hand, can be perceived as exclusive and alienating. More important, it’s just not true—at least not yet—so making such a claim hurts the integrity of the whole program.

– Nadav Malin