From ExxonMobil’s sprawling Houston campus to Sierra Club’s bustling Oakland headquarters, many major organizations tout their LEED-certified buildings. A sustainability buzzword, “LEED” vaguely conjures up images of glistening glass facades and cutting-edge modern architecture, but what does LEED certification actually mean? Is LEED really the paragon of green building it claims to be, or does it perpetuate greenwashing? Read on to find out!
What is LEED?
First things first, LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.” An internationally recognized third-party certification developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED verifies that a building meets a sustainability threshold.
While often associated with completed building projects, LEED certification is actually available for all building types and phases. This means that everything from new building construction to operations and maintenance is eligible for LEED certification. Additionally, LEED covers a vast scope of buildings, including single family homes, neighborhoods, entire cities, schools, data centers, and hospitals. As the world’s most prominent green building rating system, LEED certification spans from the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, the “most sustainable sports venue in the world.”
How does LEED Certification work?
LEED certification is awarded on a points system across four levels: Platinum (80+ points), Gold (60-79 points), Silver (50-59 points), and Certified (40-49). Points are earned from the following nine credit categories: Integrative Process, Location and Transportation, Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, Innovation, and Regional Priority.
For instance, a school can earn up to one point for installing bicycle facilities (Location and Transportation), and up to five points for using on-site renewable energy (Energy and Atmosphere). In addition to credits, prerequisites are building requirements that don’t contribute to point totals. For example, hospitals are required to facilitate recycling storage and collection. Essentially, prerequisites ensure buildings meet minimum environmental standards, while credits provide a flexible framework for sustainable innovation and design.
Why LEED?
With the technical terminology out of the way, let’s get to the juicy stuff: Why do companies like LEED? What’s in it for the business? As the world’s most prominent green building certification, the LEED name holds a ton of marketing power. According to the USGBC website, “LEED-certified buildings command the highest rents,” and “61 percent of corporate leaders believe that sustainability leads to market differentiation and improved financial performance.”
It’s no secret that sustainability and environmental impact have evolved from fringe hippie movements to a strategic necessity for any company that wants to establish itself as a benevolent corporate giant. LEED certification is a great way to publicly signal a company’s sustainability initiatives. As a bonus business win, LEED certification can score companies and homeowners valuable tax credits.
In terms of environmental impact, LEED certification holds builders accountable to green building standards that help conserve energy and leave a lighter carbon footprint. According to the USBCG website, LEED buildings lead to a 34 percent decrease in CO2 emissions and save 80 million tons of waste from landfills. Additionally, adopting green building standards leads to improved environmental health outcomes for occupants. Per the USBCG website, LEED-certified buildings have “higher recruitment and retention rates, and increased employee productivity,” due to spaces with “cleaner air, access to daylight, and free from harmful chemicals found in paints and finishings.” For organizations seeking to improve their environmental impact on the planet and better the environmental health of their workforce, LEED is a great opportunity to do just that while making an impactful public statement.
LEED: Greenwashing or Good for the Planet?
While LEED is arguably the crown jewel of green building practices, its sustainable sparkle can mask some of the dirty greenwashing that goes on behind-the-scenes. For instance, The Palazzo at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas achieved LEED certification in 2008, becoming the first Sin City resort property to receive LEED Silver Certification. However, one glance at the luxury casino’s indoor waterfall and power-controlled curtains suggests that there’s more to The Palazzo’s environmental footprint than the LEED certification lets on. The Palazzo was able to achieve LEED certification due to strategic points stacking— essentially, gaming the system. By installing bike racks and implementing room cards informing guests of towel replacement schedules, The Palazzo was able to score “easy” points towards LEED certification.
Unfortunately, the concept of gaming the LEED points system is not a rare one. According to Bob Berkebile, one of the architects who helped launch LEED, “People have a tendency to buy points — they buy that bike rack even though there’s no value in it.” Furthermore, USA Today examined 7,100 LEED-certified commercial buildings and found that designers “target the easiest and cheapest green points by trying to create pleasant and healthful office spaces; using common building materials; or taking steps with an unknown effect, such as providing preferred parking for fuel-efficient cars, bike racks and showers, and posting educational displays about the building.”
Ultimately, LEED is an imperfect but useful tool that can be used to drive sustainable design and innovation, or abused to perpetuate greenwashing that contributes to a misleading mirage of sustainability. Having a LEED-certified facility certainly doesn’t excuse companies like Coca-Cola and Saudi Aramco from their environmental culpability as the world’s top plastic polluter and the leading greenhouse gas emitter among fossil fuel firms, respectively. However, LEED’s brand power does provide that extra push for such companies to incorporate some sustainability features into their buildings, which is arguably better than none at all.
Also important to consider is that just because a building isn’t LEED certified doesn’t mean it’s not sustainable. LEED certification comes with a hefty bill and requires or incentivizes architectural features that simply might not make sense for certain building projects. After all, the most sustainable building out there is probably some off-grid earth-sheltered tiny home—not a glistening LEED-certified skyscraper. At the end of the day, LEED doesn’t tell the full sustainability story, nor is it the be-all and end-all of green building, but it can provide a useful starting point for sustainable design.
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