[Bldg-rate] Costing Green

[Boucher, Francis B.]

 Aside from the study, I have worked on several real world project that
have applied for LEED Certification. One on particular is our own
300,000 SF headquarters that we are reaching for LEED CI and CS Gold on.
There are definitely significant additional costs to get to LEED Gold.
Now that the LEED requirements have been changed so that you need at
least 2 EA Credit 1 points there are real costs to get the building to
be more energy efficient than ASHRAE 90.1 required. If you have an owner
that is already budgeting for beyond code efficiency for their building,
I could see it would not cost much additional to get to LEED Certified
but one could not say there is no additional cost. Further, if you are
in an area like New England where there are serious utility incentives
for efficiency ( in some cases paying down the cost of efficiency
improvements to the point where the owner gets a one year payback)I
could see LEED Certified at very low cost. That said, the market now
expects LEED Gold or better for first class office space. LEED silver is
a "base" level that even State facilities, not known for their
progressive efforts, are expected to achieve in states like RI and MA. 


LEED is definitely encouraging people to reach further than they would
have otherwise in the design and to put more money into green features.
Not across the board mind you but still in a very significant way. 
-----Original Message-----
From: bldg-rate-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-rate-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Vern
Woodworth
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 8:02 AM
To: bldg-rate at onebuilding.org
Subject: [Bldg-rate] Costing Green

> Jason:
> I am a member of the AIA Board of Directors' Sustainability  
> Discussion Group (SDiG) and was a co-author of the AIA's study  
> "Quantifying Sustainability", a comparative analysis of three rating  
> systems' performance with regard to the AIA Position Statements on  
> sustainability.  I would like to start this off by asking for  
> feedback regarding the Davis Langdon 2004 (and follow-up 2006)  
> study, "Costing Green".  This study appears to say several important  
> things:
> 1) It doesn't necessarily cost more to go green (or, to get LEED  
> certified)
> 2) Projects are not looking for ways to go beyond minimum  
> requirements, whether local green ordinances or the minimum (and  
> least costly) way to get LEED certified.
> Has anyone looked more closely at this study?  While masquerading as  
> good news is this really telling us that LEED has diverted the  
> mainstreaming of Green by providing a placebo?
> Looking forward to some lively discussion, and thanks for starting  
> this list.
> A. Vernon Woodworth AIA
> Chair BSA Codes Committee
> Instructor, Boston Architectural College
> Associate, Sullivan Code Group
>
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