Leadership In Energy And Environmental Design Rating System Research Articles

Green building progress assessment: analysis of registered and certified buildings for LEED rating system

Green buildings are of great importance to overcome climate change effects and the depletion of natural resources. This paper aims to provide a review of the progress in green building constructions that have used the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system for the last two decades. To do this the researchers have analyzed the data of around 61000 LEED-registered buildings (from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) website) Using Google data analysis module studying different factors affecting green building growth and trying to spot any possible correlation between LEED and each factor. The review will provide the researchers and the construction industry with the necessary information about the analysis of green building development. The results showed the trends in the green building progress and provided insight analysis for the reasons behind this progress which can help rating system developers, green building designers, and governmental decision-makers, to promote green building worldwide.

From existing conventional building towards LEED certified green building: case study in Bangladesh

Green Building refers to the planning, design, construction, and operation of buildings considering indoor environment quality, occupant health, using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing waste, pollution, and the overall environmental impact. Among the Green Building guidelines, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) offers a certification and rating system by which buildings are certified in different categories. The LEED rating system is used to rate an existing building how much it is fulfilling the criteria of Green Building (GB) or not. This research explored how an existing conventional building can be retrofitted to satisfy green building standards. An academic building of KUET has been selected for the study. A field survey and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools (i.e., Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Key Informant Interview (KII)) were used for the data collection and then the data was analyzed by comparative analysis concerning the LEED 2009 rating system for assessing the building. The New Academic building receives 31 points out of 110 and so cannot earn any certification level. The lacking for which the points were not gained is identified and the installation of water and energy efficiency features, rooftop gardening is suggested as retrofitting options to earn the green building certification level.

Evaluating the Sustainability of New Construction Projects over Time by Examining the Evolution of the LEED Rating System

In 1998, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program to provide a standard form of evaluation for sustainability in building design and construction. Since its inception, LEED has undergone seven significant revisions, wherein the expectations needed to achieve the desired certification level were clarified and updated. The reasons for these updates are varied and include the recognition of new technologies and materials, the application of more stringent energy standards, and the recognition of differences in building types. However, the perception within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is that higher certification levels are more challenging to obtain in each subsequent version of LEED. For example, projects receiving a Gold certification under LEED 2.1 may only qualify for a Silver certification under LEED 3.0. The goals of this paper are to review changes in LEED over time and to empirically test this perception. Direct comparisons of the text of the credit requirements were performed between LEED versions (v) 2.1, v2.2, and v3.0 on a credit-by-credit basis. The comparison revealed ten different categories of changes between versions. From this comparison, conversion matrices were developed to allow a project scorecard from an older version of LEED to be converted to a newer version. To address uncertainty resulting from changing the level of detail in the information submitted on project scorecards, both strict and interpretative versions of these matrices were developed. These matrices were then applied to a sample of LEED-certified building projects, drawn using a stratified random sampling procedure from the publicly available USGBC database. The strata were separated first by LEED version (e.g., v2.1, v2.2, and v3.0) and then by certification level (e.g., Certified, Silver, Gold, Platinum). After converting the project scorecards from this sample, qualitative and correlational analyses were performed to test the hypothesis that LEED scores increase over time. The results show that in both strict and interpretive transformations, LEED scores show a slight to moderate increase in points over time.

Saudi Arabia’s LEED Projects: Recent Green Building Trends and Perspective

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is one of the prestigious green building rating systems globally and the widely accepted international standard to evaluate green buildings. Many LEED certification building projects have already been carried out over the last few decades in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Recently, many construction projects underway in the Kingdom are expected to be nominated for LEED certification over the next few years.The paper explores the recent application of the LEED rating system in building construction projects and reviews the trends, project types, and potential challenges of the LEED certification buildings in the Kingdom. The study also investigates differences and characteristics in the types of LEED certification projects in the Kingdom and the Middle East countries, such as UAE, Qatar, Egypt, etc. The differences in the rate of adoption of the LEED categories in each country are indicated closely through the detailed analysis.As a result, the paper presents the current trends and future perspectives based on the current status of the Kingdom's green building industry. This is a critical milestone to accelerate the development of the green building industry in the Kingdom.

Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and LEED for A Green Building Rating

Green building design and construction is a global demand to save this earth. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the world's most widely implemented sustainable building rating system. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology assist to keep multi-disciplinary information into a single model, and it provides an ability to perform this research. The aim is to assess the pre-certification of a proposed residential building project in integration with BIM and LEED and find out the impact of cost for a green building project. A Prototype 3D model was developed by BIM technology for the LEED certification process. A total of 704 simulations was conducted by using Green Building Studio (GBS) tools. All simulation results were calculated based on nine categories of the LEED rating system. The results of this study indicate that the lifecycle cost can be reduced significantly for a high-performance green building despite of having a high initial investment cost.
 Journal of Engineering Science 12(2), 2021, 47-57

A STEP FORWARD ENHANCING GREEN BUILDINGS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Sustainability is essential for maintaining certain levels of life quality for next generations. Accordingly, Egypt started to establish its own rating system to achieve sustainable development. There are several green building rating systems that are recently used such as: the LEED (Leadership in energy and environmental Design) rating system, Green Pyramid Rating System “GPRS”, and TARSHEED rating system. GPRS and LEED are almost the same since GPRS is based on LEED. Due to the significant cultural and environmental changes between Egypt and the United States, LEED rating system cannot be implemented in Egypt. On the other hand, the rating system TARSHEED includes three categories only, namely energy, water, and habitat, to determine sustainable construction performances. For example, waste management category which is one of Egypt’s challenges is ignored by TARSHEED. This research introduces a new modified rating system for new construction with new weights to suit Egypt requirements. This work presents a comprehensive study and comparative analysis between the existing green building rating systems for new construction in Egypt. Moreover, some surveys and questionnaires are conducted to take the experts opinion in the green field. A new checklist for new construction is constructed using data obtained from Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) decision making tool. This list includes new categories and subcategories with new weights, which suit the environmental challenges in Egypt.

LEED Scores of Residential Buildings in Poor Cities: Kabul City Case

Urbanization and technology have proven to be detrimental to the environment. Buildings contribute a significant portion of this damage. This issue motivated governments, builders, engineers, and architects to seek ways to reduce buildings’ environmental footprints. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is one of the most widely used strategies to ensure energy efficiency and a clean environment in buildings. In Afghanistan, where there are no active regulatory frameworks for energy saving and efficiency for the building sector, it is imperative to promote the transformation of the building industry and practices towards sustainability. In this regard, the role of the residential building sector is of utmost importance due to its major share in the country’s energy consumption and GHG emissions profile. Thus, this study assesses the energy efficiency and environmental impact of existing buildings in Kabul city concerning the LEED rating system. This research suggests practical steps to improve the sustainability of the residential building stock in Kabul city. Robust sets of data on existing residential buildings in Kabul are collected, classified, evaluated, and compared to LEED standards. This research reveals and concludes that most of the existing buildings in Kabul city are in poor conditions and do not meet the minimum requirements to be a candidate for LEED certification. A detailed analysis of the results has led to recommendations on how these buildings could improve to meet the LEED criteria. This is the first study of its kind conducted for Kabul city residential building. Considering the cross-sectoral nature of the building industry, the findings of this study will contribute to many other areas such as water, transportation, ICT, health, energy and the environment.

LEED CERTIFICATION AND PATIENT WELLBEING IN GREEN HEALTHCARE FACILITIES

ABSTRACTBeyond resource efficiencies, green buildings aim to create healthy indoor environments for building occupants. In terms of improving occupant well-being, a unique case emerges for healthcare facilities, whose patients may be at a vulnerable state. In the U.S., the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system has become the most widely recognized certification system for green buildings, including green healthcare facilities and buildings. Hospitals with high total scores in the LEED rating system are green buildings but may not necessarily be the optimal green healthcare environment from a patient’s wellbeing perspective. Certified health-care facilities were analyzed in terms of their credit valuation to assess whether health-care facilities prioritize specific criteria that influence patient wellbeing and recovery time. Analysis of results indicate hospitals may be valuing the level of certification more than those credits that were deemed relevant for patient wellbeing and rate of recovery, either due to lack of information or due to economic constraints. To consolidate the previous results and to compare the performance of LEED certified green hospitals to the national average, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey was analyzed for patients’ perspectives on the healthcare facility. Results indicate higher satisfaction in green hospitals’ overall patient care performance as well as a greater tendency to recommend green hospitals to others compared to the national average. No statistical significance was found for hospital cleanliness and quietness between green hospitals and the national average.HIGHLIGHTS

FUZZY MONTE CARLO SIMULATION OPTIMIZATION FOR SELECTING MATERIALS IN GREEN BUILDINGS

Global interest in sustainable and green building design has been increasing in the last few decades. This interest is strengthened by the fact that sustainable measures help in reducing negative social and environmental impacts of buildings. For that, this paper aims to develop a mixed integer optimization model that aids architects/designers and owner representatives during design stage in selecting building materials taking into consideration costs and risks that are involved in the selection process. The model is developed as a simulation optimization tool based on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for new construction. The developed model allows deterministic and probabilistic cost analysis of various design alternatives. In addition, it identifies the least possible cost to gain the LEED credits and the risks associated with materials’ quantities and materials’ unit prices. To illustrate the use of the proposed tool, a case study of an office building project constructed in Egypt is presented. An integrated Fuzzy Monte Carlo Simulation (FMCS) analysis is performed to account for the associated risks of using new materials in the considered case study. The proposed model is capable to capture the cost uncertainty of building materials and to identify the cost and sustainability performance of various building materials by relating the LEED rating system for new construction.

LEED v4.1 operations & maintenance for existing buildings and compliance assessment: Bayt Al-Suhaymi, Historic Cairo

The architectural design and environmental treatments have shown a large impact on environmental indoor performance and energy efficiency of buildings. Designers have been working on more efficient buildings using tools like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) which is developed within the US Green Building Council (USGBC). This research aims to emphasize the passive design aspects of Islamic buildings in Historic Cairo, with special focus on Bayt Al-Suhaymi. Passive design elements such as architectural design aspects, orientation, façade treatments, selected materials and their impact on the energy efficiency levels are investigated in the research. Measurements of environmental indoor performance levels are carried out within the building where the temperature variance, humidity changes, TVOC and CO2 particles number are considered in a pilot survey. These measurements are employed in the assessment of the indoor environmental quality. Additionally, the building is assessed with reference to all other LEED criteria such as transportation, sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy, materials and innovation. LEED assessment revealed that Bayt Al-Suhaymi as an Islamic historic building could comply with the LEED rating system and could be a candidate to receive LEED gold certification.

New technologies for interior space and the impact on LEED rating system

The study aimed to know the value of new technologies for interior design spaces, including smart floors that generating electrical energy through walking steps, identifying people, analyzing the personal data, knowing marketing desire and alerting when heavy things fall on the floor. Also, identifying the impact of new technologies on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system and how contribute to achieve mandatory points and participate in different accreditation points. The Problem: The need to monitor all effects resulting from using the new technologies in interior design spaces according to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system. The shortage in interior designer’s study that shown effects in the new technologies used in interior design spaces and the relationship with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system. Objectives: Identify the new technologies, which used in interior design spaces and to arrive a relationship between new technologies and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system to achieve different aims. Methodology: Descriptive and analytical approach Resuls: The interior designers must provide a full study about how use the new technologies in the interior spaces from the initial stage until the design completed and the project implementation. Also, try to achieve the human, organic and psychological comfort, which required for each interior spaces. The interior designers must select the appropriate finishing materials inside the internal spaces according to the design criteria to ensure the proper performance of the work and using the latest technologies available during the project design and construction phase. The interior designer must arrange study to determining the spaces of reflection and absorption surfaces inside the interior spaces and FF&E items. Moreover, the internal shape and components of the interior space will be affect the sound quality inside every space. In addition, it is not necessary to use additional reflectors and new complex absorbent materials to reach the best sound performance. Furthermore, the designer must provide full sounds study for the interior design to achieve comfortably. - The most important recommendations for the designers is to use the new technology from the earliest stages of the design to enhance and achieve human, organic and psychological comfort inside the interior spaces that comply with the requirements of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Scientific institutions should provide the students and researchers information about the new technologies and LEED rating system. The Governments should provide incentives for the projects using the new technologies. Also, comply with the requirements of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

Federal policy, local policy, and green building certifications in the U.S.

Buildings account for about 40% of total U.S. energy consumption and around a third of total energy-related CO2 emissions. Concerns about these emissions have led federal, state, and local governments to pass policies to reduce energy use in buildings. In this paper, we examine whether policies aimed at encouraging green building certifications are associated with an increase in the gross floor area per capita of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications. We focus specifically on commercial LEED building retrofits certified under - :existing buildings: operations and maintenance (EB), commercial interiors (CI), and core and shell (CS) rating system categories. Using a panel data approach, we find that metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with local policies, particularly requirement and density programs, are associated with significant increases in commercial LEED retrofits. Specifically, we find that the switch of an MSA from having no requirement policy to having a requirement policy is associated with an increase of 0.22 LEED sqft/capita [0.02 LEED sqm/capita] (compared to an average of 0.6 LEED sqft/capita [0.06sqm/capita] across all buildings in 2016). We also find that federal policies and improvements to the LEED rating system are associated with increases in LEED certifications. While the impacts of federal policy and LEED rating system updates are difficult to separate, our work suggests that local policy, federal policy, and modifications to the LEED rating system can work in concert to drive green building adoption.

EVALUATING GLARE IN LEED CERTIFIED BUILDINGS TO INFORM CRITERIA FOR DAYLIGHTING CREDITS

ABSTRACT Extensive documentation has been developed to support the benefits of daylight for building occupants. Recently, the high performance building industry has shown a trend towards prioritizing better daylighting conditions. In response to this trend, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system now addresses daylighting and views as one of the criteria for compliance. However, effective daylighting has its challenges—most importantly addressing the issue of glare. This paper discusses the issue of glare and its relationship with requirements for effective daylighting within the criteria of the LEED rating system. In this study, a LEED certified building on Montana State University's campus was considered as a case study. This paper conducts an analysis by comparing the results obtained from compliance procedures for LEED with independent evaluations of glare using simulation and post occupancy evaluation surveys. This paper concludes that the ‘illuminance simulation’ option provided in the current version of LEED (LEED v4) for compliance does not adequately address the issue of glare. This paper provides recommendations to improve the LEED rating system for indoor environmental quality which include: the incorporation of glare assessment in the evaluation procedures of daylighting and views; the use of dynamic simulations that incorporate climatic conditions in the evaluation of daylighting; and evaluating glare in early stages of design by using simulation tools.

LEED-Certified Projects: Green or Sustainable?

Sustainability is one of the hottest topics these days. Its usage has been increasingly expanding over the last 20 years. In construction, the number of sustainable designs and green buildings has been growing since the 1990s. Nowadays, at least 70% of construction businesses use some green technologies or practices (CPWR 2013). Sustainability represents a comprehensive mission that incorporates the achievement of environmental stewardship, economic prosperity, and social responsibility. A project should not be called sustainable unless these three elements are incorporated into its practices and processes (Gambatese et al. 2007; Rajendran and Gambatese 2009). Sustainability is a moral and ethical obligation (Hinze et al. 2013), and therefore project teams are morally and ethically responsible for addressing not only environmental issues but also life-cycle safety challenges. Life-cycle safety is a holistic approach considered during the early stages of the design process of a facility to ensure that the safety, health, and well-being of all people (construction workers, building users, and maintenance personnel) are addressed throughout a project’s lifetime. ASCE Policy Statement 350–Construction Site Safety emphasizes that “Improving construction site safety [within a project] requires attention and commitment from all parties involved” (emphasis added) (ASCE 2012). The aim of this article is to discuss whether a truly holistic perspective of sustainability that encompasses all necessary ingredients (ecological factors, economic benefits, and social considerations, including life-cycle safety) exists in today’s industry. Sustainability in construction is often measured by the level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification issued by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Therefore, the goal of this article is to theoretically examine the completeness and effectiveness of the USGBC’s LEED rating system from a holistic view of sustainability.

LEED RATING SYSTEM APPLICATION ON EL-DAKAHLIA GOVERNMENTAL HEADQUARTER BUILDING TOWARDS BETTER SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE AND ECOFRIENDLY BUILDING

The overriding purpose of this paper is to determine the relative importance of the application of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system as a curriculum organizer Tools for getting a sustainable and eco-friendly building and community as well in Egypt. Throughout the application and assessment process on the proposed case study El-Dakahlia Governmental Headquarter building (Existing Building - Major Renovation) as a case study to achieve sustainability requirements which results in renovate and promote the existing building according to LEED Rating System Requirements towards a sustainable and ecofriendly buildings and urban communities consequently

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.

An online platform to automate LEED energy performance evaluation and submission process

Purpose – This study aims to develop a web-based tool – LEED Energy Performance Online Submission Tool (LEPOST) to reduce the submission cost of the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) application process and facilitate green building design. Lifecycle cost reduction is a major driver for designing green buildings. LEED rating system has been well recognised and widely used in the green building industry. However, certification cost incurred in time and money is often a deterrent for some projects. Design/methodology/approach – LEPOST automatically maps EnergyPlus and eQUEST energy simulation results to the LEED energy performance requirement submission templates using an extensible markup language (XML) data structure. It incorporates the Energy Star Target Finder online engine and current utility data to calculate points required to assess LEED Energy and Atmosphere Prerequisite 2 and Credit 1 automatically. Findings – A comparative case study is conducted using an office building project. The study results show that the tool can reduce the amount of time for the LEED energy performance evaluation and submission process from more than 6 hours to 2 minutes. The total number of manual data entries is reduced from 442 to 20. Research limitations/implications – Future work includes the update to support LEED V4, the development of a parametric design function that can help design teams perform design alternatives to evaluate energy performance with minimum effort, and the integration with the LEED Online system. Practical implications – The use of the tool by the building industry may decrease the cost of LEED certification for building owners, developers and design teams by simplifying the submission process. Originality/value – The overall development framework of LEPOST contributes to the knowledge of the data interoperability in the building sector by demonstrating a viable solution to extract and map digital model information for achieving code and standard compliance purposes.

A post occupancy evaluation framework for LEED certified U.S. higher education residence halls

Numerous higher education (HE) institutions in the United States have created sustainability agendas, including construction of certified sustainable buildings. More than 200 US HE institutions have at least one Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building on their campus. In order to assess if sustainable residence buildings are performing as expected, a post occupancy evaluation (POE) framework of indicators was developed and implemented. POE indicators were chosen through a review of sustainability rating systems, literature review, and surveys. The selected indicators address a range of parameters using quantitative and qualitative data collection methods via investigative and diagnostic techniques. The dataset includes temperature and relative humidity measurements, water and energy consumption, feedback from facility manager departments and almost 600 occupants. The findings highlight large variations in terms of energy and water consumption, and poor indoor air quality; moreover, LEED residence halls have also shown to be less sustainable over time. The findings also indicate the LEED rating system may generate skewed savings expectations, as occupant behaviours and feedback are poorly considered.

Dilemma of green and pseudo green architecture based on LEED norms in case of developing countries

Abstract Achieving sustainable and eco-friendly architecture is one of the main objectives that humans for creating a better life have made as the ultimate model for all their professional activities. For this reason, moving towards a greener architecture is considered the main goal of the contemporary architecture of our time. The goal of this study is to analyse architectural projects that have been already performed in the Middle East countries in terms of their compatibility with actual concepts of sustainability and their required green criteria. Therefore, for the sake of review and study, this paper is intended to discover up to what level the sustainability rating system such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) can be effective in rating contemporary architectural projects. Studies indicate three concepts for analysing contemporary architecture and have found to be descriptive: (1) green, (2) pseudo green and (3) energy-monger. The studies have also shown that some of the projects, although trying to display sustainable architecture concepts in appearance, in reality they turned out not to be sustainable enough. In latter steps, this paper intends to evaluate and examine the effectiveness of the LEED rating system. In evaluating LEED rating system, the results inferred indicate that the system is intended more for programming than actual designing purposes and is not an efficient instrument for analysing architectural design process. Analysis based on this study suggests that, for moving from pseudo green to green architecture, it is necessary to use design-oriented patterns.

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.