[Bldg-sim] Cost of LEED certification
Marcus Sheffer
sheffer at energyopportunities.com
Mon Jun 8 09:39:06 PDT 2009
Anyone's first LEED project requires an investment of time to learn how to
do it. This learning curve is somewhat steep but once you learn how to do,
actually doing it takes considerably less time. Outside soft costs
(commissioning, energy modeling and LEED documentation) if you are spending
a dime more for construction costs than conventional for LEED Certified or
Silver then you have made an optional choice or are not properly applying
the system. Many projects attain the Gold certification level without an
increase in construction costs.
There have been several cost studies over the years than do not show that
LEED requires the type of investment purported by the American Chemistry
Council. Here are some links:
http://www.cap-e.com/publications/default.cfm
http://www.davislangdon.com/USA/Research/ResearchFinder/2007-The-Cost-of-Gre
en-Revisited/
The Davis Langdon study above is far more thorough and comprehensive than
the much older ACC report which relies on a considerable amount of early
anecdotal evidence.
In many respects the cost of LEED comes down to what you assign to LEED as
an "extra" cost. Many teams have figured out how to neutralize even the
added soft costs through an integrative design process.
Marcus Sheffer
7group
From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of P. Hay
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 11:36 AM
To: Bldg-Sim
Subject: [Bldg-sim] Cost of LEED certification
I recall someone once asked about the time needed to be spent on LEED
certification. Well, I have just come across a report prepared by
Northbridge Environmental Management Consultants
<http://www.nbenvironmental.com> entitled Analyzing the Cost of obtaining
LEED Certification, which is available online at the following link:
http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/for_communities/LEED_links/AnalyzingtheCo
stofLEED.pdf
It indicates that the documentation takes 226 working hours on average to
prepare and costs between US$8,000 - US$70,000 per project: the first
project costing between US$30,000 - US$60,000.
Paul Hay
Managing Partner
PAUL HAY Capital Projects
Strategic Facility Planning and Implementation
15a Cassia Park Road
Kingston 10
Jamaica, W.I.
tel: 1 (876) 756-0631
cel: 1 (876) 324-4274
fax: 1 (876) 756-0631
web: www.phcjamaica.com
e-mail: paul.hay at phcjamaica.com
profile: www.linkedin.com/in/phcjam
twitter: www.twitter.com/phcjam
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