Abstract
The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program supports sustainable construction as part of the effort to address climate change and resource depletion. It is the world’s most popular green building certification system, with more than 146,400 projects. Satisfying the LEED requirements brings many benefits to a project’s design performance and adds community value, but it does incur additional costs and challenges. This study examined the choices made by those working on the 222 LEED New Construction version 4 (LEED-NC-V4) projects that were certified between September 2014 and March 2020 to determine how the LEED project teams selected appropriate LEED goals. The results reveal interesting insights into the way project LEED goals and the credits corresponding to the target certification level were chosen, as well as the links and trade-offs between the various credit options. Based on these findings, useful suggestions are made for ways to help LEED project teams achieve their target certification levels and encourage authorities to continue to improve their local green regulations. The analysis of actual certified projects’ data makes it possible to re-evaluate the effects of newly updated requests in LEED v4 in the light of the stated goals of the USGBC.
Highlights
Considerable evidence has accumulated regarding the long-term benefits of sustainable construction, especially improved energy efficiency, better financial returns, higher labor productivity, and the reductions in global warming achieved [1,2]
The results of the one-sample t-test and percentage of average score (PAS) mean value showed that the following credits were significantly achieved in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) v4 projects: INc2 (LEED accredited professional), IEQc3, LTc2, MRc5, WEc1, WEc4, SSc5, SSc1, INc1, WEc2, IEQc1, EAc2, LTc7, IPc1, EAc3, SSc6, SSc3, LTc8, and EAc1
One of the major contributions of this study is bridging the gap between LEED 2009 and LEED v4 by analyzing how the new standards are functioning in practice and updating the guidance provided to project managers, enabling them to identify the most appropriate and achievable credits for their project at an early stage of the development process
Summary
Considerable evidence has accumulated regarding the long-term benefits of sustainable construction, especially improved energy efficiency, better financial returns, higher labor productivity, and the reductions in global warming achieved [1,2]. The construction industry’s huge economic contribution and high energy/resource consumption in economies around the world highlight its enormous potential for significantly reducing/mitigating climate change compared with other major sectors [3,4,5]. Dean et al predicted that future developments in sustainable construction would reduce energy consumption by up to 50% and help limit global warming to 2 ◦ C by 2050 [5]. Sci. 2020, 10, 7081 cognitive scores [7], while those who live in them have reported sleeping an average of 46 min longer each night [8] and enjoy better indoor air quality [9]. The supporting factors that have transformed the more sustainable building industry include the green building rating systems, the most popular and well-known of which is the U.S Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental
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