New_Concepts_in_LEEDv4.pdf

7/27/2019 New_Concepts_in_LEEDv4.pdf

1/241New Concepts in LEED v4 2012 BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights reserved.

New Concepts

in LEED v4A LEEDuser special report

Published byBuildingGreen, Inc.


2/24

2New Concepts in LEED v4 2012 BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights reserved.

AuthorsNadav Malin

Paula Melton

Tristan Roberts

Graphic DesignAmie Walter

About BuildingGreenBuildingGreen combines insight with inormation, creating knowledge that inorms

practice. We provide design and construction proessionals with practical insights,

engagement opportunities, and sotware resources to exceed clients energy and

environmental perormance expectations.

BuildingGreens other inormation resources include the ollowing. Environmental Building News, since 1992, the trusted source or news and

inormation on green building

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BuildingGreen.com, with news and product inormation, case studies, blogs,

and more

LEEDuser, a website dedicated to helping LEED project teams with credit-by-credit

support and a discussion orum

Published by BuildingGreen, Inc., 122 Birge St., Suite 30, Brattleboro, Vermont 05301

2012 BuildingGreen, Inc.

Cover photo: The Kubala Washatko Architects, Inc./Zane Williams

Rain gardens and other low-intensity rainwater management strategies

virtually eliminated runoff from the previously problematic site of this

projectan addition to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed First Unitarian

Society Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin.
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New Concepts in LEED v4 4

Integrative Process 4

Sustainable Sites 6Rainwater Management 6

Light Pollution Reduction 7

Energy & Atmosphere 8

Building Envelope Commissioning 8

Demand Response 9

Green Power and Carbon Offsets 10

Materials and Resources 12

Whole-building life-cycle assessment 13

Environmental product declarations 14

Multi-attribute optimization 15

Corporate sustainability reporting 15

Biobased raw materials 16

Framework for Responsible Mining 17

Chemicals of concern 17

The Health Product Declaration (HPD) 17

The GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, from the nonprofit 17Clean Production Action

Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of 18

Chemicals (REACH)

Cradle to Cradle (C2C) 18

Indoor Environmental Quality 19

Measuring VOCs: Goodbye, 01350 19

Spatial daylight autonomy 20

Acoustic Performance 20

Rolling it Out 22

TABLE OF CONTENTS


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New Concepts in LEED v4

Past versions o LEED have helped make FSC and other

concepts practically household terms. Where is LEED v4

taking the green building conversation next?

Energy modeling, commissioning, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)since the

rst building projects became LEED-certied in 2000, concepts like these have gone

rom niche interests to being used on tens o thousands o building projects world-

wide. While larger trends are also responsible, widespread adoption o the LEED

rating systems rom the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has arguably been the

biggest driver.

But why stand still? Ater a primarily structural upgrade to LEED in 2009, USGBC is

trying to convince the building industry that its time to push ahead with moreinnovative concepts in greening our buildings, even as it continues to ne-tune the

bedrock LEED requirements. It has been a tough sell: ater our public comment

drats, USGBC scrapped plans or launching LEED 2012, pushing a planned member

ballot on the system back to 2013 and renaming it LEED v4.See page 22or more

on how USGBC hopes to roll out LEED v4 over the next year.

LEED v4 is introducing a number o programs, terms, and concepts that are likely

to be unamiliar even to the most LEED-savvy proessionals: BUG ratings, LID inra-

structure, BECx, and spatial daylight autonomy are a ew o the more esoteric terms.

We combed through LEED v4 or concepts that we elt we should know more about,

and in this article we elucidate the key LEED v4 concepts most likely to shape theindustry or years to come. In analyzing the impact on credit requirements, our ocus

is on LEED Building Design & Construction (BD&C) rating systems, but most o these

concepts crop up across all o LEED.

Integrative ProcessThe new Integrative Process credit is essentially a codication o certain aspects o in-

tegrative design. The credits authors preer the term integrative because integrated

connotes that youre done, says John Boecker, principal at 7group, who led an eort

to write the credit. Integrative has a more powerul meaning; it connotes that it s an

ongoing process involving all systems o the building, o those who use it, and those

that its a part o.


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The process dened in this credit requires project teams to analyze their oppor-

tunities early in design, beore many choices have been made and cost-eective

options eliminated. It ocuses on energy and water specically, with a list o

interdisciplinary explorations or the team to pursue. The goal is to uncover op-

portunities that might be missed in a more traditional process.

For example, the credit requires that teams consider and run analyses on two or

more options or massing and orientation, envelope parameters (such as insula-

tion levels, window-to-wall ratios, or glazing specications), and lighting levels,

among many others, to assess the impact o each o those options on HVAC

sizing, energy use, and occupant perormance.

In addition to structuring the process, the Integrative Process requirements tie

this early design exercise into the commissioning process that carries through

design and construction and into the occupancy phase. It does that by leverag-

ing two documents, the Owners Project Requirements (OPR) and Basis o Design

(BOD), which are embedded in every LEED BD&C project as part o the commis-

sioning requirements. Documentation requirements are currently being claried,

according to Boecker, with the goal o minimizing any unnecessary work. I they

are actually integrating, the documentation should be a breeze, Boecker says.

HOKs advanced

collaboration rooms

use high-denition video

conferencing and virtual

whiteboard technology to

make long-distance

meetings more effective. Photo:HOK


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Sustainable SitesBorrowing a page rom LEED or Neighborhood Development and LEED or Homes,

the BD&C rating systems in LEED v4 have a new category, Location and Transporta-

tion, to address larger-scale land-use issues. That change allows the Sustainable

Sites (SS) category to ocus on issues specic to the project site. SS credits with new

concepts are Rainwater Management and Light Pollution Reduction.

Rainwater Management

To the average LEED user, the rainwater management language in LEED v4 may

simply look like a new set o engineering jargon that describes already-amiliar ideas.

However, to Amy Rider, a hydrology expert with DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability,

its an evolutionary step or the eld, with an underlying intent to do right by nature.

The credit title says it all: rainwater is a natural phenomenon and a natural resource.

New credit requirements to manage the 95th percentile o regional or local rainall

events direct LEED projects to address rain consistently throughout the year. In con-

trast, stormwater management (the old LEED term) put an emphasis on managing

the statistically worst storms that might occur in a year.

The low-impact development (LID) tools reerenced in LEED v4 are much more about

mimicking pre-development hydrology than managing o-site ows, says Rider.

For example, rain gardens would be preerred over swales under LID, she says. In

engineering a rain garden, there is more attention to managing the soil structure to

encourage inltration o water. In a swale, youre just messing with the topography,

says Rider. A swale is more o a channel that leads the water in a linear direction while

hoping that some o it inltrates, but ultimately much o the water may ow o-site.

When compared with conventional stormwater management, LID has many subtle

dierences like this, says Rider. While most projects should already be working with

a civil engineer to achieve stormwater management objectives, Rider argues, the

emphasis on LID, with more o a technical component related to site hydrology and

calculating soil characteristics, will push this credit even urther into the lap o an

engineerone who has LID expertise.

The Green at College Park of the University of

TexasArlington transformed a parking lot with

drainage problems into a pedestrian promenade

and rain gardens that protect a nearby creek

from ooding.Photo:Schrickel,RollinsandAssociates

,Inc.


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Light Pollution Reduction

Light Pollution Reduction in LEED v4 oers two options: the BUG Rating

Method and the Calculation Method, which are basically a prescriptive and a

perormance path, respectively, according to Bill Swanson, P.E., o IntegratedArchitecture.

LEED v4s prescriptive option uses the new Illuminating Engineering Society o

North America (IES) TM-15 -11 BUG classication o outdoor lighting xtures;

the acronym stands or Backlight, Uplight, and Glare. Designers using this option

will be looking through light xture specications or BUG ratings that match

their lighting zone. For example, in LZ2 (Lighting Zone 2), the BUG rating B2 U0

G2 is near the midpoint on a scale o 0 to 4. Allowed backlight and glare ratings

depend on the projects lighting zone and the xtures distance rom the prop-

erty line. The uplight rating cant be higher than the projects LZ zoneso, or

example, zero uplight is allowed in the most sensitive zone, LZ0.

The perormance option looks a lot like the LEED 2009 version: project teams will

have to reerence their lighting zone (rural versus urban) and then meet uplight

and light trespass targets accordingly. But this option now draws on the Model

Lighting Ordinance, or MLO, which was developed by the International Dark

Sky Association (IDA) along with IES. The MLO is a tool or helping municipalities

reduce glare, light trespass, and skyglow. With stringency designed to be ne-

tuned according to local sensitivities, the MLO oers an easily adopted overlay o

existing codes.

According to Swanson, the LEED v4 drat language is much more eective than

LEED 2009s because they lowered the allowed wattage dramatically, and this

has reduced reective light o the pavement. He also gives high marks or theeort made to align with the MLO and ASHRAE 189.1 but says, It is ar rom

easy to document: try drawing a vertical calculation grid around a curved street

centerline, or constantly looking up the BUG rating or each option selected on

a light xture. Swanson predicts that The perormance option is doomed by

complexity, and most people will use the BUG option.

Photo:InternationalDark-S

kyAssociation

Light pollution may be more

literal than previously thought:

leaving the lights on prevents

nighttime chemical reactions

that normally clean the air.

The BUG system (for backlight,

uplight, and glare) uses

subdivided zones around out-

door luminaires to provide a

standard system for measuringand reporting xture data for

compliance with light pollution

restrictions.

Image:InternationalDark-SkyAss

ociation


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Energy & AtmosphereKey prerequisites and credits in this categoryenergy perormance, commis-

sioning, rerigerant managementremain undamentally unchanged. A new

energy-metering prerequisite creates the oundation or more robust ongoing

measurement o perormance. Other credits introduce some brand-new

concepts, however.

Building Envelope Commissioning

While the evolution o LEED v4 throughout the public comment process has

pushed this requirement out o the commissioning prerequisite, building enve-

lope commissioning (also known as building enclosure commissioning, BECx,

or ECx) is still in the Enhanced Commissioning credit.

According to the National Institute o Building Sciences (NIBS), BECx is utilized

to validate that the perormance o materials, components, assemblies, systems,

and design achieve the objectives and requirements o the owner as outlined

in the contract documents. As with other types o commissioning, the commis-sioning agent should ideally be involved throughout the design and construc-

tion process and may conduct a variety o activitiesrom reviewing enclosure

design against the owners objectives to observing construction, perorming

eld testing, completing checklists, and veriying corrective actions. So ar, the

LEED BECx requirements are airly vague, and it does not appear likely that any

eld-testing will be required.

Its long overdue that it get incorporated into LEED, says Marcus Sheer, a long-

time LEED technical committee volunteer and ounder o Energy Opportunities,

Inc. Im sure everyone has heard envelope horror storiesaades alling o

due to unexpected moisture migration, unpressur-

ized underoor air plenums due to poor detailing

with the envelope, and more. The building enve-

lope can play a much bigger role than mechanical

systems in determining the longevity and energy

efciency o a building, and commissioning those

systems is already a standard LEED requirement.

One controversy with the BECx requirement

although it has died down since BECx was removed

rom the prerequisiteis added cost. Some

observers have predicted that commissioning costs

will go through the roo or LEED projects. Sheerdownplays this, saying that cost issues are nothing

new. Weve seen huge price dierentials between

the low-cost commodity BECx providers and people

that do it right, he says. The low-cost types will

gure out how to do it cheaply, Sheer says. Those

willing to pay more hopeully understand the value

they are getting.

A long gap between the roof and upper wall joint in

this building showed up clearly on an infrared photo.

While this photo was taken as part of a diagnostic

effort well af ter occupancy, building envelope

commissioning can head off potentially huge energy

and moisture problems like this one.

Photo:T

erryBrennan


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Scott Bowman, corporate sustainability leader at KJWW Engineering Consul-

tants, argues that a well-written LEED Reerence Guide will go a long way toward

ensuring that all projects get good value rom BECx. We have to compete with

very low-scope, low-cost providers, he said on a LEEDuser discussion board,

and I have seen little enorcement rom GBCI [the Green Building Certication

Institute, which certies LEED projects] on commissioning.

Demand Response

Demand-response programs are nothing new or manuacturing acilities with

large loads; theyve long had the opportunity, at least in some service territo-

ries, to reduce their energy cost by giving the utility the right to cut back on the

power they can use during peak demand times. New technology and policies are

now bringing that opportunity to commercial ofce buildings as well. These pro-

grams help avoid the need to build new power plants or to re up less-efcient

plants that are used only during peak demand times.

Traditionally, demand-reduction programs were manually controlled. The man-

ager o a actory would get a call rom the utility asking the actory to cut backon its power draw, and the manager would respond by turning equipment o

or slowing it down. Newer, automated programs put the control o chillers and

lighting in a building directly in the hands o the utility. Up to an agreed-upon

limit, they can dim the lights or cut back the chiller remotely.

The Cook+Fox-designed Bank of America Tower in New York City

includes a sophisticated combination of onsite cogeneration,

ice storage, and automated chiller controls to manage energy use.

The Durst Organization, which manages the building, participates in

several demand-response programs through local utility Con Edison.

Photos:AlexWilson


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LEED has a long history o paying attention to how buildings t into their sur-

rounding inrastructure when it comes to location, transportation, and waste-

water, says Brendan Owens, P.E., vice president or LEED technical development

at USGBC. But in terms o energy, LEED has until now treated buildings as

isolated entities. The Demand Response credit changes that by encouraging

two-way communication between buildings and electric utilities, supporting

sophisticated load management on both sides o the meter. These capabilities

are especially important as more renewable energy sources come online, with

their potentially inconsistent output.

Demand-response programs come in various avors. Some utilities pay the

customer a retainer just or the right to cut back on their power, regardless o

whether that right is exercised. Others pay by the demand-reduction event. The

LEED credit provides two points or projects that enroll in a program allowing the

utility to curtail at least 10% o their peak demand. I the project is in a service

territory that doesnt oer a demand-response program, it can still garner one

point by installing the technology and having the procedures in place to partici-

pate i and when it does become available. In both cases, the demand-response

technology has to be included in the buildings commissioning scope o work.

LEED buildings are typically rst adopters o new technologies, says Rebecca

Schlanert, principal consultant at the energy consulting rm Skipping Stone,

and approximately one-third o the power grid load in the U.S. is attributed to

commercial buildings. Thats why the electric power industry is interested in

getting LEED to help promote these opportunities.

Green Power and Carbon Offsets

Thanks to carbon osets that are now widely available with airline tickets,

building products, and a host o other purchases, many people are amiliar with

the idea that they can pay an extra ee to und projects like tree-planting and

landll-gas reclamation that in theory mitigate or oset the same amount o

carbon their activities just emitted. Although the same idea has been a part o

LEED or years with green power, or renewable energy credits (RECs), certied

carbon osets are nally set to become a part o all the LEED rating systems with

LEED v4.

This building in Portland, Oregon, uses

an integrated 30kw photovoltaic system

to produce carbon offsets, which are

certied by Green-e Climate and sold by

Bonneville Environmental Foundation.Photo:BonnevilleEnvironmentalFoundation


11/24


Projects will have to include all energy use in their oset calculationsnot just

electricity use, which can still be oset with RECs. Sheer says that, while this

idea has been around or years, there has been a lot o uncertainty relative to

the quality o osets available, and there wasnt a denitive set o standards. The

drat LEED language reerences the Green-e Climate Standard or carbon osets,

to go along with the Green-e Energy Standard or RECs.

Green-e Climate, rom the Center or Resource Solutions, was rst to ocus on the

voluntary rather than the regulated market and to provide a product label rom

an established brand supported by a published

standard. That standard addresses knottyissues like additionality, the concept that the

purchase o a carbon oset should help und

projects that wouldnt have already happened under business as usual without

that unding (see Carbon Osets Get Oversight, Environmental Building News

Apr. 2008).

The Bear Creek Wind Farm in

Bear Creek, Pennsylvania, with

12 Garnesa 2 MW turbines,

was developed in 2005 by

Community Energy, which sells

renewable energy credits

(RECs) from the project. Photo:CommunityEnergy,

Inc.


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Materials and ResourcesEntirely new approaches aecting most o the Materials and Resources (MR)

category o LEED v4 are the most controversial, and some have seen signicant

changes several times throughout the development process. Although details

could change again, the current drat includes key new concepts and terms that

are likely to remain in one orm or another.

The still-settling nature o the MR credits is reected in new language appearing

in the th public comment drat, which intentionally leaves some loose ends

hanging. For example, the rst option under the Environmental Product Decla-

rations credit lists three types o reports that may be used, then adds a ourth

option: any USGBC-approved program.

This open-endedness simply makes explicit how the rating system has always

worked, says Sara Cederberg, LEED manager at USGBC; credit interpretations

and minor amendments have always been added regularly, and this option o-

ers an explicit signal to the market to expect that, and even to help drive market

transormation. A lot o these markets are new and still under development,she told LEEDuser. So its especially important to note that this is an ongoing

process. Well be adding [new programs] to the rating system, and we wont have

to wait or the next ull development cycle to revise the credit. We want to leave

that door open.

Perhaps the most novel and conusing MR incentives come up in three new two-

part creditsall covering Building Product Disclosure and Optimizationwhich

oer points or publishing environmental impacts (even i the impacts are heavy)

and product ingredients (even i the ingredients are harmul). This has been a

difcult shit in mindset or many in the green building community, but USGBC

insists its a necessary one, or two reasons. First, says Brendan Owens, creating

market demand or transparency will lead to product optimization because

manuacturers will not want to embarrass themselves in the marketplace; and

second, transparency is really in its inancy, and Owens believes LEED can help

create a data stream on which better tools can be builttools that can more

accurately measure and express the true environmental and human health costs

o building materials and products.

Toward that end, the three new Building Product Disclosure and Optimization

credits are structured to incentivize transparency as Option 1 and perormance

as Option 2. Depending on the products chosen, project teams may get points

or both.

Additionally, in the th public comment drat, the disclosure option has beendecoupled rom cost and is instead tied to the number o products and product

manuacturers meeting the reporting requirements or each credit. Cederberg

explains: Its about getting more inormation. We wanted not to ocus on the

most expensive items but to really make it so that more manuacturers can enter

the rating system, no matter how big or small.


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Whole-building life-cycle assessment

One o the more ambitious new credit options introduced in LEED v4 is the op-

tion under Building Lie-Cycle Impact Reduction or whole-building lie-cycle

assessment (LCA). This option allows new buildings to garner three points in

a credit that also oers points or reusing existing buildings and/or salvaged

materials.

The impact o materials has typically been viewed as relatively small compared

with operational impacts, but as buildings get more efcient and the urgency o

addressing climate change grows, the initial burst o energy and resources that

go into constructing a building looms larger. In very large and complex build-

ings, structural engineers go to great lengths to analyze and optimize the materi-

als needed to keep the building standing. More modest buildings dont oten get

that kind of attention, however, and this credit is intended to reward those that do.

This credit option works somewhat like the energy optimization credit, in that

users have to model both a base case and a design case o their project and

show that the design case is better. The models are limited to the buildingsstructure and enclosure, excluding sitework and interior nishes. The base case,

or reerence model, is supposed to reect typical construction practices or

buildings o that type, size, and location.

Unlike the energy modeling credit, however, which re-

wards points based on just one result (energy cost), the

LCA credit considers impacts in six distinct categories:

1. Global warming

2. Ozone-layer depletion

3. Acidication

4. Eutrophication

5. Formation o ground-level ozone

6. Depletion o non-renewable energy resources

To earn the three points, the design has to be at least

10% better (lower-impact) than the reerence case in

the global warming category and two others, and it

cannot be more than 5% worse than the reerence case

in any o the categories. The entire building lie cycle is

included in the analysis, including extraction and manu-

acturing o the materials, operation o the building,

and disposal o the materials at the end o the buildingslie. Operational impacts such as energy use must be

the same in both the reerence case and design case,

however, so they cant be used to contribute to the 10%

improvements.

Currently, there is only one sotware package widely

available to project teams in North America to run this

analysis: the Athena Impact Estimator rom the Athena

The diagonal bracing on this tower designed

by SOM in China reduces material use

optimization that could be rewarded under LEED's

proposed whole-building LCA credit.

Photo:SOM


14/24


Sustainable Materials Institute. With version 4.2, released in September 2012, this

tool is available ree to users. Alternatively, teams can hire a trained LCA practi-

tioner to run these analyses using more sophisticated LCA tools, such as GaBi or

SimaPro. (The other LCA sotware package that may be amiliar to North Ameri-

can designers, BEES, only deals with individual products.)

Given the range o uncertainties in LCA data and the difculty o enorcing use

o a air reerence case, the ecological benet o projects that score 10% higher

in certain categories is questionable. By introducing project teams to this kind

o analysis, however, LEED may well be stimulating choices that wouldnt other-

wise have been considered. Just as the energy modeling requirements in LEED

have brought mechanical engineers into the design process in a more integrated

manner, USGBC hopes that this credit will do the same or structural engineers.

Environmental product declarations

Environmental product declarations, or EPDs, are relatively new to the industry,

but they could take o rapidly under a new credit called Building Product Disclo-

sure and OptimizationEnvironmental Product Declarations.

An EPD reports a handul o environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas

emissions and smog-orming potential, that result rom product manuacturing,

use, and disposal; it summarizes a much longer LCA report. In order to count or

ull credit in LEED, a products EPD has to ollow a certain process and reporting

ormat laid out in a panoply o ISO standards and has to be certied by a third

party. Some LCAs can also be used or this credit (those created according to ISO

standard 14044), as can generic EPDs or a whole class o materials, but you only

get a raction o the credit or those products.

With little burden on project teams, these could be very easy and inexpensive

points to achieve, so its likely that designers and contractors will be calling

manuacturers to request EPDs or their avorite products; right now, says USGBC,

the idea is to jump-start transparency by getting more manuacturers to produce

the reports.

Design rm Perkins+Will has

developed the Transparency

label as an example of

how EPD information might

be displayed in a digestible,

on-product formatmuch

like the nutrition label on a

cereal box.Image:Perkins+Will


15/24


The ultimate goal is to encourage betterenvironmental perormance, something

USGBC believes you can do only i you start with reliable data, and lots o it. Ater

more manuacturers release this data, project teams will be able to use EPDs to

make inormed choices about things like embodied carbon, energy, and water.

Its important to note, though, that EPDs are imperectone reason the rating

system uses credits like Sourcing o Raw Materials to deal with blind spots,

according to Owens. (For a deeper look at the strengths and weaknesses o EPDs,

see The Product Transparency Movement, Environmental Building News Jan. 2012.)

Multi-attribute optimization

The EPD credits second option, multi-attribute optimization, opens the door

or products with certain multi-attribute environmental certications to count

toward credit. For products to qualiy, manuacturers will need to demonstrate

that the products impacts are below the industry average in at least three o six

impact areas typically considered in an EPD, including global warming potential,

smog ormation potential, and depletion o nonrenewable resources. However,

the credit drat does not currently reerence any specic certication programs.Cederberg said USGBC has already gotten an earul about this option, and she

tried to clariy its intent. The hope, she says, is that certications like BIFMA level

[or urniture] or NSF-140 [or carpeting] will start to base their datasets on EPDs

so that all the certication systems are more likely to harmonize. We are setting

up a working group over the next year to work with people developing these

programs, she said, afrming that, to her knowledge, there are no multi-attri-

bute programs that currently get their data rom EPDs.

Option 2 in the EPD credit also encourages extended producer responsibility

which typically indicates product manuacturing that uses a closed-loop

recycling program. This means the manuacturer takes back materials rom

construction or demolition waste and uses the waste to make more o the same

product (rather than disposing o it or down-cycling it into a less useul or

lower-quality product).

As with all the reporting and optimization credits, this one oers extra incen-

tives or local sourcing o qualiying materials.

Corporate sustainability reporting

Building Product Disclosure and OptimizationSourcing o Raw Materials gives

new prominence to corporate sustainability reporting that includes certain

inormation about land use, extraction and manuacturing impacts, and social

responsibility. To count or ull credit, the report must be veried by a third party.

Corporate sustainability reporting is a voluntary but well-established system

used by many large corporations. Reporting typically happens within a standard-

ized ramework developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), but the credit

oers other options as well.

Within GRIs ramework, there are two levels o verication, according to GRIs

Marjella Alma. GRI does an application-level check and gives the report a grade


16/24


o A, B, or C based on the level o transparency and ease o nding inorma-

tion. External assurancethe third-party verication required or ull credit in

LEEDis optional but earns companies a + rom GRI i they do it; this level o

review includes data validation, Alma explained. I the report is assured, you

have a better view o data quality and credibility, she said, adding that in the

U.S., there are quite a number o companies that use the ramework but dont

publish the data. There is potential or LEED to change thatat least or building

product manuacturerswith enough market pressure.

Biobased raw materials

The optimization option under Building Product Disclosure and Optimiza-

tionSourcing o Raw Materials (called Leadership Extraction Practices) also

creates new incentives to use biobased building products. But biobased might

describe anything rom undyed wool to highly processed corn- or soy-based

plastics, and the impacts o many biobased materials can exceed those o the

ossil-uel materials they replace (see Biobased Materials: Not Always Greener,

Environmental Building News May 2012). This credit attempts to address grow-ing and harvesting practices by requiring certain guarantees o environmental

perormancethe most amiliar one being FSC certication or wood products.

Non-orestry materials would have to be certied to the Sustainable Agriculture

Network (SAN) standard, which is similar to FSC in scope but instead covers

crops. According to Conrado Guinea, certication systems coordinator at SAN,

the main goals o the certication are to provide air working conditions, prevent

the use o certain pesticides, and protect wildlie and natural ecosystems. SAN

has close ties to the Rainorest Alliance and has historically ocused on Central

and South America; the only North American arm currently participating in this

system is a coee plantation in Hawaii. In the same way that it elevated FSCs

prole by including it in LEED, USGBC is hoping that SAN will be more widely

Photo:RainforestAlliance

Conventional sugarcane harvesting starts with burning the elds to remove excess

plant mattera major source of pollution in areas where sugarcane is grown.

To qualify for Sustainable Agriculture Network certication, farms must use alternative

harvesting practices.


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adopted so that projects wont have to look to imports to earn this credit. (The

credit also provides extra incentives or local and domestic sourcing).

To qualiy toward LEED points, products must also be tested using ASTM Test

Method D6866, which measures total biobased content. I you want to use a

biobased spray polyurethane oam that turns out to be only 2% soy, you only

get to count that 2%.

As with all the reporting and optimization credits, this one oers extra incen-

tives or local sourcing o qualiying materials. It no longer oers credit or local

sourcing alone.

Framework for Responsible Mining

This credit at one time included the Framework or Responsible Mining;

although this program is no longer reerenced in the th public comment drat,

the language leaves open the option to add other programs or other material

types. We hope to be able to reerence them in the near uture, but at this time

we only want to reerence established, credible programs, said Sara Cederberg,LEED manager at USGBC. She added that the program was in a pilot phase but

would likely be ully available in 2013.

Chemicals of concern

Both options under Building Product Disclosure and OptimizationMaterial

Ingredients are based on lists o potentially hazardous ingredients. At the

reporting level, relatively large lists are cited to identiy any ingredients whose

presence has to be disclosed. The optimization option cites more targeted

lists and rewards projects that avoid those ingredients or a certain raction o

their products. As with all the reporting and optimization credits, this one oers

extra incentives or local sourcing o qualiying materials.

The th public comment drat cites the ollowing sources or this credit.

The Health Product Declaration (HPD)

The HPD was pilot-tested in spring 2012 and ormally launched by the

newly ormed Health Product Declaration Collaborative in November 2012.

The HPD Open Standard enables transparent disclosure by dening the

inormation that manuacturers should present so that air comparisons can

be made. Full disclosure o ingredients means dierent things to dierent

people; the HPD Open Standard requires that manuacturers explicitly state

the level o ingredient disclosure and provide a hazard prole or 100% oingredientseven ingredients that arent identied.

The GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, from the nonprofit CleanProduction Action

Based on large experimental datasets and regulatory red lists rom around

the globe, the GreenScreen divides chemicals into our benchmarks, the


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most hazardous being Benchmark 1; most o these are persistent, bioaccu-

mulative toxic chemicals or known human carcinogens, but newer chemi-

cals may receive this benchmark i they have characteristics similar to those

o known hazards and chemical producers have not done research that

shows them to be saer.

Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals

(REACH)

The European Unions REACH legislation is a broad mandate or all chemi-

cals sold in quantity in the EU to be registered in a central database and

prioritized or evaluation and possible restriction based on their hazard

prole. The program maintains several lists o substances it has identied or

attention, most notably the Authorization List (chemicals that can only be

used with special authorization) and the Candidate List (chemicals being

considered or the Authorization List). The optimization option in the new

Material Ingredients credit oers ull credit or products that have no REACH

substances o very high concern, with multipliers i products also have no

ingredients on the Authorization or Candidate lists.

Cradle to Cradle (C2C)

Originally developed by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, C2C

is now managed by the nonprot Cradle-to-Cradle Certication Institute.

C2C certies that products meet the programs requirements or material

health, which are quite stringent at the higher levels o certication, along

with other criteria. It does not require any public disclosure o ingredients.

The health product

declaration provides a format

for voluntarily disclosing

product contents. Inclusion

in LEED will boost this

brand new program, giving

manufacturers an incentive

to participate. Image:HealthProductDeclarationCollaborative


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Indoor Environmental QualityThe Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) credits have seen major changes in

LEED v4, with a general shit toward more sophisticated modeling tools and

more perormance testing and monitoring.

Measuring VOCs: Goodbye, 01350

Low-Emitting Interiors, while not new, has changed signicantly. Three separate

credits rom LEED 2009 have been combined into one, and the credit or no

added urea-ormaldehyde in some materials has been eliminated. Now, all

indoor materials have to be tested by manuacturers or VOC emissions (how

much ogases rom the product over time), while wet-applied materials like

paints and adhesives have to be tested or both emissions and VOC content

(whats actually in the can).

That brings us to the Caliornia Department o Public Health (CDPH) Standard

Method v1.12010, which LEED v4 is reerencing. In a nutshell, the CDPH Stan-

dard Method is a test method or VOC emissionsand as the most stringentsuch method that is widely adopted in the industry, its a step up in toughness

or LEED. While the name o this method isnt very catchy, youre more likely

to have heard o programs that reerence the method: FloorScore, GreenLabel

Plus, and Greenguard Children & Schools are three. (You may have also heard

o Caliornia Section 01350, which is another shorthand or the same program.

Section 01 35 00 is one part o a State o Caliornia green building standard, and

it actually includes a variety o indoor air quality specications in addition to the

CDPH Standard Method.)

Chair in a mid-sizedemissions-testing chamber

at Air Quality Sciences lab.

Photo:CourtesyGreenguardEnvironmentalInstitute


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Spatial daylight autonomy

LEED v4 updates the daylighting credit to reect innovations in daylight model-

ing. While simple illuminance calculations at key points during the year can still be

used, the credit now gives the most points or a more sophisticated and dynamic

metric called spatial daylight autonomy, or sDAthe percentage o the work

plane that is above 300 lux (28 ootcandles) at least 50% o the time during

occupied hours over the course o a whole year. Because this metric alone might

encourage overglazing, the credit also requires glare simulations (in the orm o

annual sunlight exposure, or ASE) as a counterpoint. (For more inormation on

the state o the art in daylighting, see Doing Daylighting Right,Environmental

Building News Apr. 2012.)

Acoustic Performance

With the trend toward open work areas still gaining momentum (see Open

Ofces Engender Collaborative, Transparent Workspaces,Environmental Building

News Oct. 2011), acoustics are a growing concern in commercial buildings. Long

a prerequisite in LEED or Schools, Acoustic Perormance has now been adopted

across the BD&C LEED v4 drats as a credit.

The credit ocuses on a ew perormance eatures:

noise levels, especially those caused by HVAC systems, as calculated during

design or measured ater construction

sound isolation between spaces, determined by looking at the sound

transmission class (STC) ratings o building materials and assemblies

reverberation time and reverberation noise build-up, two ways o express-

ing whether sounds in a space echo or get absorbed

sound reinorcement and masking, two ways o improving the acoustics in

a larger spaces so that sounds are easier to hear (reinorcement) or more

readily absorbed (masking)

Roof monitors in the atrium of

the History Colorado Center

will allow expansive views of

the sky while minimizing direct

sunlight. The space will be

protected from excessive glare

and solar heat gain by architec-

tural features, exterior shading

elements, and fritted glass.Rendering:JillDalglish,DalglishDaylighting


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Although the concepts may be new to some project teams, the implementation

need not be tricky or expensive, says Jane Rath, AIA, principal at Philadelphia-

based SMP Architects. Rath served as project architect or the Kensington High

School or the Creative and Perorming Arts. There were, to say the least, huge

challenges because the site is right next to the elevated train, and its incredibly

noisy, she told LEEDuser. The design team wondered how they could ever make

a quiet school, but they ound that energy efciency helped a lot on its own:

Once we got the windows in and caulked everything and sealed everything,

she said, all the thermal efciency measures helped damp that noise rom the

train.

But dont rely on that alone, and dont wait till the last minute, she warns: acous-

tic perormance starts with the site assessment and is integral to the design. For

the Kensington project, the classroom wing was sited arthest rom the train, and

heat pump units each have their own separate closets that open onto hallways

instead o into classrooms. The Kensington project does include some acousti-

cal materials, but early design choices minimized the need or them; i you dont

start early, you could end up buying lots o expensive materials to make up or it.

I actually think that acoustic issues are going to become more important,

says Rath. In addition to a greater ocus on occupant comort and productivity,

peoples hearing is getting worse. A lot o kids are having hearing loss at reallyyoung ages because o the really loud music they listen to through ear buds.

Photo:BarryHalkinPhotography

Acoustic performance requires a different approach for different spaces. In the cafeteria

of the SMP Architects-designed Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing

Arts, some sound masking was needed to dampen noise from the elevated train;

acoustic ceiling tiles and long, thin layouts were among the strategies used. In contrast,

the theater was designed to provide performance-grade acoustics.


22/24


Rolling It OutUSGBC is optimistic that the th public comment period, scheduled to run

through December 10, 2012, will be the last, leading to a member ballot in June

2013. Assuming the ballot is approved, LEED v4 will become available to project

teams sometime in the late summer or all o 2013. To assuage concerns about

how much is changing in LEED, however, USGBC has promised that LEED 2009

will also remain available or new registrations until June 2015.

USGBC is also working to set up a beta test o LEED v4 with high-volume users,

beginning beore the member ballot. This test is not intended to validate the

credit requirements, which USGBC expects will be nalized by then, but rather to

test and rene supporting materials, such as the Reerence Guides and the LEED

Online credit orms that are used to document compliance. The beta test will also

give participants a chance to get some experience with the new requirements

beore committing to using them on new projects. Support rom those users will

be critical i LEED is to repeat its initial success by introducing yet another set o

advanced green building practices to the building industry.

For more information:

U.S. Green Building Council

www.usgbc.org
http://www.usgbc.org/http://www.usgbc.org/


23/24


Continuing EducationContinuing education credits are available to subscribers o Environmental

Building News or BuildingGreen Suite or reading this report.

The American Institute o Architects (AIA) has approved this course or 1 HSW/

SD Learning Units. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has approved thetechnical and instructional quality o this course or 1 GBCI CE hours toward

the LEED Credential Maintenance Program.

This course has several learning objectives. Upon completing this course,

participants will be able to:

Recognize the ways in which the Integrative Process credit requires teams

to analyze opportunities early in design.

Describe how the new Location and Transportation category allows the

Sustainable Sites category to ocus on issues specic to the project site,

including the concepts o Rainwater Management and Light Pollution

Reduction.

List and describe the new concepts in Energy & Atmosphere and IEQ.

Explain why the new Materials and Resources approaches are controversial.

To take the quiz to earn your CE units, log in at:

www.BuildingGreen.com/v4course

I you are not yet a subscriber, you can join or as little as $12.95 or one month

and gain access to dozens o continuing education options.
http://www.buildinggreen.com/v4coursehttp://www.buildinggreen.com/v4course


24/24

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