By: Allison Smith
Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems have brought objective standards to
the understanding of sustainable and regenerative design projects. But as the
leading rating system in the US market, it’s easy to forget that LEED isn’t the
only tool to create effective sustainable and regenerative designs, and “going
for LEED” isn’t the only way to be “green”. Green Globes is increasingly in the
news lately with support from the Government Services Association (GSA) and the
change in Green Globes’ leadership: Jerry
Yudelson.
Green Globes is an evolution of the
Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) the
international leader in sustainable building certification and the standard for
all new UK non-residential buildings. Green Globes was established in 2004 and
is administered by the Green Building Initiative (GBI) in the U.S. and Building
Owners & Managers Association (BOMA) in Canada.
Complaints
of the LEED rating system range from cost to bureaucratic headaches to lack of flexibility
to frustrations with LEED online, their online documentation and submittal
submission format. Any LEED practitioner will admit the certification program
is far from perfect, but still laud the system for promoting sustainable
building and encouraging a whole systems approach to design. The US Federal
Government, as well as many state and local governments, require sustainable
building certification and since most people are only familiar with LEED they
believe that is the only option. On the contrary, the GSA recommends either
LEED or Green Globes for federal projects based on a recent research project studying
the robustness of both rating systems. Many states and local governments allow other
sustainable building certifications than LEED, however confirm the requirements
of the presiding legislation.
Advantages
to the Green Globes rating system are that there are no prerequisites, partial
credit is allowed, there is flexibility for non-applicable criteria, it
incorporates an ANSI-Accredited Standards Developing Organization (ANSI-GBI)Life-Cycle
Assessment (LCA), and certification hinges on a third-party on-site assessment.
A Green Globes project is assessed on a 1000-point scale, however, since some
credits can be marked “non-applicable,” projects typically are assessed on
fewer points. The program has four certification levels, similar to LEED, but
is based on the percentage of points granted as opposed to points available. Furthermore,
when evaluating a project’s energy performance, Green Globes uses regional performance
data as the benchmark, rather than LEED’s use of a hypothetical building model.
Perhaps
most exciting is the inclusion of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) process, an
assessment that LEED lacks. LCA’s are a research-based evaluation of
cradle-to-grave resource use and environmental impacts of materials, systems,
and buildings. Green Globes allows a
prescriptive or performance path option for meeting this requirement. The
prescriptive path is based on Environmental Product Declarations, third-party
certifications, and upon ISO 14040 and 14044 Standards. To meet the performance path, design teams use
Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings software to compare alternate design
scenarios. LCA’s are a foundation for sustainable building, yet this assessment
remains excluded from LEED v4.
Criticism
of Green Globes range from a perception of not being rigorous enough, a
perception of Forest Certification bias, industry representation on the GBI
board, and no required minimum performance. Furthermore, Green Globes
certification criteria is not as transparent as LEED’s criteria.
A quick
count of sustainable rating systems in the US returns a list of six alternates
to LEED. When starting your next project, evaluate Green Globes and the other applicable
sustainable buildings systems to select the one that best aligns with the
projects’ goals and principles. LEED has its place in sustainable building
certification systems, however keep in mind that it’s not the only option.
Now through April 15,
GBI is offering “Green
Globes Professional Training”, an online self-paced course for free. Completion
of the course can count towards American Institute of Architects (AIA)
Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Though Green Globes does not offer
professional accreditation, this is an opportunity to learn more about Green
Globes certification.
Bibliography and citations:
Kibert, C. J. Switching
from LEED to Green Globes: A User’s Perspective (PDF). Green
Building Initiative. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from http://www.thegbi.org/assets/pdfs/Switching-from-LEED.pdf
Green Building Initiative. Retrieved
February 7, 2014 from http://www.thegbi.org/
LEED User. Retrieved February 7, 2014
from http://www.leeduser.com/
Photo credit:
Life Cycle
Assessment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Cycle_Assessment
Green Globes
icon: http://www.thegbi.org/
