It got the green certification. Therefore it’s green.
How easy it would be if there were just one step in being completely virtuous. Forever. We think of buildings and standards for those as – forgive the metaphor – set in stone.
In recent news, The Federal Building in Youngstown, Ohio, received attention in the New York Times because those in charge of design focused on “native landscaping rather than structural energy-saving features.” Even though more than 70% of the total construction debris, by was recycled, the design itself shaved off 20% of the energy that was once used, the building was still rendered inefficient, both by an EPA’s Energy Star standard, and by new standards pronounced by the USGBC. In making LEED rating systems go to market, the un-intended consequence was greenwashing.
“…In its own study last year of 121 new buildings certified through 2006, the Green Building Council found that more than half — 53 percent — did not qualify for the Energy Star label” and found that less than a quarter of the buildings surveyed had records of actual energy use.
Does this mean LEED is too lax? Was it a problem of not synthesizing one rating system – Energy Star – with LEED? How do we know that labels are doing the right thing? Where do we praise progress and what happens when there is a crevasse in trail of progress?
The point is that these rating systems are important, if not critical in strengthening a goal and at the same time, educating the publics’ image of what sustainability means. But they run the risk of having negative results if we don’t plan for the maintenance and assign responsibility for the ownership.
Members of BOMA say that maintenance personnel are often unfamiliar with these energy efficient designs don’t understand how to manage these systems. And that LEED is a checklist of standards, not necessarily a performance management system.
That’s why a good marketing plan comes in. As a system that orchestrates all activities within an organization, a marketing plan is a sound strategic plan that not only supports all communications, but also identifies the activities that sets the organization apart from others.
And yes, there are plenty of other green building standards, all of which have a slightly different approach. But we also need to design for real life scenarios.
That means more opportunities for businesses to:
- Create transparency for displaying utility bill.
- Create a list of all green building certification standards and compare program.
- Understand what the value is in making that decision for your marketing and operational activities.
- Train, evangelize and support those who maintain and pay the utility bills to ensure energy efficient standards are in place.
My green building friends say this is old news. Let’s move on. But we have to realize that as those who are educating and leading green standards of any kind, we need to consider there are many more to educate.
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