Leadership In Energy And Environmental Design Buildings Research Articles

Urban Sustainability: Network Dependency Across the Urban Rural Divide in Canada’s Built Environment

Urban sustainability and sustainable development have permeated both public and academic discourse since the 1980s Brundtland Commission Report. The report defined sustainability and situated it within social, economic, and environmental factors emphasizing sustainable development as a path forward. Academics, scientists, and policy makers undertook the task over the subsequent decades to define sustainability, operationalize it, measure it, and monitor it. However, despite the rapid progress and leaps in understanding the discourse has its weaknesses, its singular focus on particular elements of sustainability systems, its lack of cross level examination across scalar divides, its primarily urban focus, and its majority functionalist approach. These weaknesses leave a void in the understanding of urban sustainability as an element of an economic, social, and environmental interconnected urban-rural system. A subfield is emerging to understand this interconnectedness of sustainability through examining the built environment and the urban-rural divide. However, currently, Canada is largely absent from this subfield’s exploration. In order to expand this exploration and analyze the sustainability interconnections within Canada through the urban built environment, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification will be a key element going forward, because LEED is a globally accepted green building certification system that is primarily utilized in North America. This research thesis contributes, as a substantive text, to this subfield through answering the main question left open by current discourses: Are there any discrepancies between the projected sustainability of LEED projects and the actual sustainability realities of the projects? With further queries being posited: What is the sustainability reality of the LEED buildings; what are the sustainability realities of the users/tenants within the LEED buildings; and, what is the sustainability reality of the LEED buildings across the urban-rural divide? I garnered the answers through a mixed quantitative/qualitative analysis of case studies within the Canadian urban built environment: LEED projects. The projects will be examined utilizing an urban metabolic analysis of the quantitative data and a point-based scoring system adapted from a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis (SWOT) I named Focus Factor Analysis to quantify qualitative elements of the projects. Consequently, the analysis will also highlight connections between the urban area projects and the rural surroundings using a combination of databases and LEED, corporate, and government reports. Discrepancies have been found and although the LEED projects are sustainable on the local level on a network level they are not.

Adaptation of the SBTool for Sustainability Assessment of High School Buildings in Portugal—SAHSBPT

The European Union objectives in the Horizon 2020 program aim to reduce environmental impact through strategies such as the improvement of energy efficiency and the use of renewable technologies. With regard to the goal of sustainable development—which integrates environmental, social, and economic dimensions relating to the preservation of the planet and the integrity of consumers—several types of sustainability certification tools are currently used in the construction industry e.g., Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), and the Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool) There are international sustainability methodologies designed specifically for high schools and methodologies specific to the Portuguese reality, such as Natura Domus, LiderA (Liderar pelo Ambiente para a construção sustentável, Leading the Environment for Sustainable Construction) and SBtoolPT (Sustainable Building Tool, Portugal). Currently, with the concern in Portugal to requalify schools, it has become necessary to develop a specific methodology for school buildings according to the Portuguese reality. This work highlights the SBTool methodology that is employed in several countries and can be adapted to basic education institutions as the basis for the formulation of responsible citizens and the development of a country. The main aim of this study is to adapt an already existing assessment tool of sustainability (SBToolPT), maintaining some indicators while modifying and adding others, in order to develop a methodology specifically for conducting a Sustainability Assessment of High School Buildings in Portugal—SAHSBPT. In order to achieve this goal, other methodologies that already incorporate parameters relating to the school environment are analyzed, such as LEED BD + C Schools (LEED Building Design and Construction School), BREEAM Education 2008, and the SBTool for K–12 schools.

A decade analysis of residential LEED buildings market share in the United States: Trends for transitioning sustainable societies

Third-party verification and certification processes for low energy built environments have played a critical role in influencing transitioning sustainable societies to reduce their emissions footprint in both residential and commercial buildings. One prominent example is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program, which was conceived by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). Its residential platform, LEED for Homes, started as a pilot in 2004 and was fully implemented in 2008. This paper attempts to answer the question: what are the characteristics of growing sustainable LEED residential societies in the United States? The paper examines residential LEED market adoption trends in the United States by analyzing a decade-worth of data from 2005 to 2014 (71,438 certified units). The study implemented data visualization techniques and statistical analyses to explore predictors of residential LEED community adoption trends. The findings suggest that market share of LEED licensed residences in a state and the number of policies and incentives in that state are generally related. Overall market share for LEED Residential had a smaller effect (β = −0.03 with outliers, 0.11 without outliers) than for LEED for Homes overall (β = 0.06 with outliers, 0.12 without outliers). A significant positive relationship between LEED residential market share and number of LEED AP per capita was also found. The strongest relationship in this subset of variables was with LEED for Homes single-family homes, where one standard deviation increase in LEED AP per capita in year t was associated with a 0.15 standard deviation increase in market share in year t + 1. LEED Residential market share was not generally related to educational attainment, median household income, or political orientation (democrat vs. republican). The investigation proposes further research, specifically as related to local practice support as mechanisms of growing the transition to low-carbon societies.

Understanding the effects of environmental factors on building energy efficiency designs and credits

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between environmental factors and building energy consumption of three Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings at the Arizona State University, by establishing the relationships of the outside atmospheric temperature and the energy consumed in the building using real-time data generated from different sources.Design/methodology/approachK-means clustering analysis is used to calibrate and eliminate unwanted influences or factors from a set of building consumption real-time data. For further statistical analysis, the chi-square is used to verify if the results are ample to prove the findings.FindingsFew studies have addressed building energy consumption real-time data versus LEED Energy and Atmosphere (EA) credits with the data mining technique (k-means clustering) on most of building performance analyses. This study highlighted that the calibrating energy data are a better approach to analyze energy use in buildings and that there is a relationship between LEED credits’ (EA) Optimize Energy Performance scores and building energy efficiency. However, the energy consumption data alone do not yield useful results to establish the cause and effect relationships.Originality/valueAlthough there are several previous research studies regarding LEED building energy performance, this research study focused on the LEED building energy performance versus LEED EA credits versus environmental factors using real-time building energy data and various statistical methods (e.g. K-means clustering and chi-square). The findings provide researchers, engineers and architects with valuable references for building energy analysis methods and supplements in LEED standards.

Review On High-Rise Housing Projects in Istanbul: Toward A Sustainable Architecture

Emerging with population growth and developing technology as a result of industrial revolution, rapid and unplanned process of urbanization has led to rapid depletion of natural resources in the physical and biological environment. In consequence of urbanization, lack of urban land and accordingly excessive rise of land prices has resulted in vertical construction. In the phases of design, construction, use and demolition, high-rise buildings, consuming much more energy than low-rise buildings, have led to significant changes in the city skyline with increasing numbers of them. In this context, the concept of sustainability matters to efficiently benefit from high-rise structures and to minimize the degree of damage to the natural environment. With the rise of vertically dense structuring in the world, high-rise buildings have become more questionable and requested the answers of how the buildings can be designed to care of human needs. Therefore, green building practices paying attention to ecological data have entered as an important parameter of vertically dense building design. Resulting from such reasons as diversifying and increasing user requirements in recent years, developing construction technologies, increasing of the density in urban centers and the rise in the land values, the number of high-rise buildings has begun to increase rapidly. Green building designs, being important input for the vertically dense housing design and its derivatives are among the images and discourses used as a marketing strategy. A significant part of construction projects in Istanbul, claims that they place emphasis on the use of natural building materials and energy efficiency to associate themselves with sustainability discourses. The developers of these projects use LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or similar international green building certifications as a tool of presentation and promotion of the project. For many segments of society, sustainability is transformed into a perception management gathering terms, such as green technology, renewable energy and smart building. In this respect, the paper aims to evaluate the development of high-rise buildings in Istanbul on Metrocity Millennium Towers (2001), Sapphire (2006) and Varyap Meridian (2009) projects in the context of sustainability principles and practices. These projects describe three different processes and applications of sustainability. The main aim of the paper to discuss the efforts of transformation from solid structures to sustainable buildings based on various images and discourses related to high-rise building projects.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.18.1.16598

An Integrated Construction Management Approach for Addressing LEED Project Challenges

Notwithstanding the progress that has been made in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, engineering and construction professionals express frustrations with meeting the stringent criteria required to earn LEED building certifications. Without effective management practices, LEED project challenges can minimize the capacity of construction organizations to achieve LEED project certifications in a cost-effective and timely manner. The main purpose of this study is to explore LEED project challenges and develop an integrated construction management approach for minimizing LEED challenges. A mixed method approach utilizing surveys and a case study was adopted for this research project. Responses obtained from surveys completed by construction professionals were clustered into common themes and analyzed. Furthermore, interviews and LEED project document reviews were employed to examine the management practices implemented by joint venture partners on an ongoing LEED project. Results revealed four clusters of LEED challenges: Constructing LEED buildings (43%); Tracking LEED credits (26%); Understanding LEED requirements (22%); and Accessing LEED resources (9%). Drawing from these results and the case study, an integrated construction management approach for enhancing LEED project success was developed. The key components of this approach are project-specific, organization, and industry-wide practices. This approach should reduce LEED project challenges, and improve LEED project success.

The Importance of Integrating LCA into the LEED Rating System

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a rating system that rates green buildings; LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is a tool to evaluate the environmental impacts of building materials. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of integrating LCA into LEED to enhance its rating system. The LEED Gold building presented in this research is the Centennial College Progress Campus located in Toronto, Canada. Using ATHENA® Impact Estimator version 4.5 to conduct the LCA, this study analyses how different building envelope solutions and building materials affect the results of the environmental assessment of a whole building over the building's life cycle of 60, 80 and 120 years. Environmental impact assessment of LEED buildings is discussed, further research topics are suggested; for example how to develop specific LCA software tools and integrate them into LCA analysis for green building rating system.

LEED, its efficacy in regional context: Finding a relationship between regional measurements and urban temperature

Sustainable building performance has become one of critical concerns in recent architecture and urban planning disciplines. In this extent, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has proven that the LEED badge provides a certain type of owner benefits. The question, though, is that it still is not very affirmative whether or not a LEED certified building also enhances environmental benefits to its surroundings. For example, if a LEED certification promises a standard for an environment-friendly building, then a group of these certificates should imply greater environmental benefits to the society. This is the main question of this study and the authors answer with the possible relationship of LEED certificates and their influence on outdoor temperature of surroundings. With the analysis results shown, both the LEED certification levels and the mass effect of LEED buildings do not have significant influence on regional climate. The result shows that the relationship of LEED clusters and their effects on regional heat has very minimal interactions and thus, we may possibly question the positive side of LEED's regional credits, such as Sustainable Sites or Heat Island Effect credit.

A Study of LEED vs. Non-LEED Office Buildings Spatial & Mass Transit Proximity in Downtown Chicago

Although the number of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified office buildings continues to increase, research on their spatial distributions in comparison to non-LEED buildings and mass transit links need to be explored in depth. This paper focuses on these aspects using all the downtown Chicago Class A office buildings as the study area. The findings show that LEED buildings are 21% closer to each other, indicating possible proximity pressure. LEED-Gold buildings are also 18% closer to each other compared to Silver. Regarding mass transit, LEED compared to non-LEED buildings are on average 14% closer to a metro area commuter rail station (Metra) and 12% closer to a local commuter rail station (CTA). In addition, LEED and non-LEED buildings show some evidence of small group clustering in certain areas, while the econometric results indicate that buildings located along the most prominent office market street (Wacker Drive) achieved 12% higher LEED points compared to other LEED buildings. A similar result was experienced among buildings built after 1979 and those certified under LEED v.2009 (12% and 19%, respectively). Additionally, LEED-Silver buildings achieved a lower number of points compared to other certification levels by 20%.

Occupant comfort and health in green and conventional university buildings.

Green building standards are significantly impacting modern construction practices. The resulting structures are more energy efficient, but their impact on occupant health has not been widely studied. To investigate a range of indoor environment and ergonomic issues in green buildings. Retrospective post-occupancy evaluation survey of 319 occupants in two Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings and one conventional building on a Canadian University campus. Results show that working in the LEED buildings was a generally positive experience for their health, performance, and satisfaction. However, the LEED buildings did not always receive the highest ratings for environmental conditions or for health and productivity. Respondents indicated a range of concerns with thermal conditions, office lighting, noise and their overall workstation designs and these were not always better in the green buildings. These results highlight the need for better integration of ergonomic design into green buildings and into the LEED rating system, and these implications are discussed.

Integrating probabilistic methods for describing occupant presence with building energy simulation models

This paper presents a method for developing a probabilistic-based occupancy model that focuses on occupants’ long vacancy activities (greater than 1 week) and other potential building underutilization that is further integrated with a building energy simulation model. The combined model is then applied toward an existing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified military dormitory and later compared with corresponding values from the energy model's original prediction as well as actual building energy data. The occupancy model simulates annual building occupancy rates comprised of weekly values based on the frequency, duration, and seasonality of occupants’ long vacancy activities. The energy model uses the simulated occupancy rates to yield the building's predicted range of energy performance. Applying the combined model to the existing LEED building resulted in an improved, predicted Energy Use Intensity (EUI) mean value of 612MJ/m2 as compared to the original model and actual EUI values of 691 and 590, respectively. While the model also demonstrated its utility in describing the change in predicted performance over a range of probabilities associated with certain long vacancy activities, efforts to incorporate other occupant behavior-related aspects such occupant schedules and thermal set points could further improve modeling efforts.

Influential factors analysis on LEED building markets in U.S. East Coast cities by using Support Vector Regression

Abstract Building industry is closely related to current energy and environmental issues. Several green building codes and rating systems addressing the problems have been developed. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system is recognized as one of the effective and widely adopted commercial building standards. LEED buildings were investigated in several green city and green building studies but only used as instances in static matrices. These studies were not able to answer the question why a particular city favors LEED. However, in this paper, three commonly used machine learning algorithms – Linear Regression, Locally Weighted Regression and Support Vector Regression (SVR) – are compared and SVR is used to investigate, discover and evaluate the variables that could influence LEED building markets in U.S. East Coast cities. Machine learning models are first created and optimized with the features of city geography, demography, economy, higher education and policy. Then SVR model identifies the key factors by dynamic self-training and model-tuning using the dataset. Via optimization, the correlation coefficient between the model's prediction and actual value is 0.79. The result suggests that population and policy can be important factors for developing LEED buildings. It is also interesting that higher education institutions, especially accredited architecture schools could also be driving forces for LEED commercial building markets in East Coast cities.

Energy Consumption Evaluation of U.S. Navy LEED-Certified Buildings

As of October 1, 2008, the Department of the Navy established the requirement that all new buildings constructed for the United States Navy (USN) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) obtain a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). The goal of this requirement is to comply with Executive Order (EO) 13423, which mandates that all government departments reduce energy consumption by 30% by 2015. This research analyzes whether the 11 LEED-certified USN buildings have achieved the expected energy consumption savings. Energy data from LEED-certified buildings was compared with other USN and USMC non-certified buildings of comparable size, usage, and location. Statistical analysis shows that 9 of 11 LEED buildings did not achieve a 30% savings in electricity consumption, while seven of nine met the water consumption savings requirements set in place by EO 13423. Furthermore, this research concludes that the majority of the US...

Building an emerald city: a guide to creating green building policies and programs

Building an Emerald City is both the story of how Seattle, Washington transformed itself into a leader in sustainable 'green' building, written by one of the principal figures in that transformation, and a practical guide for anyone who wants to bring about similar changes in their city. Lucia Athens blends case studies from cities throughout the U.S. with her own experiences and insights into the processes that led Seattle to become home to one of the highest concentration of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings in the world. The result is a far-reaching book with broad applicability to the transformation of city building policies that encourage and reinforce 'green' development.

Improving the Link Between the LEED Green Building Label and a Building's Energy-Related Environmental Metrics

The US Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating program has grown from a little known tool for market change to a label and brand relied upon by many of the largest players in real estate. It now serves as an indicator of sustainability and an instrument for environmental management. While LEED-certified buildings tend to offer greater environmental benefits than their conventional counterparts, research and experience shows that the variation in and magnitude of these benefits varies, even among buildings of the same LEED certification level. In light of growing concerns about “greenwashing” and the liability associated with questionable environmental declarations, it is important to ensure that users of LEED and similar certification programs receive a set of benefits comparable to those expected. With a focus on energy-related issues, this research (1) highlights evidence of the inconsistency between the expected and actual benefits of LEED buildings, (2) suggests revisions to LEED's Energy & Atmosphere (EA) section to reduce the variation and magnitude in the energy-related environmental impacts from LEED buildings, (3) quantifies this reduction in variation and magnitude of impacts using Monte Carlo analyses and probabilistic models created specifically for this research, (4) compares carbon dioxide emissions from LEED buildings to the Architecture 2030 Challenge goals and (5) quantifies the importance of scoring LEED buildings on a per capita normalized basis. This research is a follow-up piece to the authors' previous work published in the Journal of Green Building (Wedding and Crawford-Brown 2007).