Building Nevada - February 2010

Growing Up Green

LEED Certification in Nevada

by Jennifer Baumer

    Welcome to the future of building and developing.  It’s here, and it’s green, and for those people who thought it was going to be selective, or at least elective, it’s quickly becoming not only the norm, but the required.

    Which is just as well.  The idea that building green is building expensive is a myth, at least now.  Overall, LEED certified buildings make good sense and they’re becoming economically feasible.

    “We are all connected and cannot view our actions on a construction project as if they happen without effects in the greater environment as a whole,” said Christian Klehm, LEED faculty president of Energy & Environmental Solutions, a LEED project consultant company.  “By going green and increasing the level of sustainable awareness, what we hope to do is help people understand the connection and realize they can build a building without increasing cost and footprint.  The goal is to have that project function better for the inhabitants inside the building, effect human health, increase productivity, help people have a better quality of life and increase assets while not deteriorating the environment at all,” he adds.

    “When LEED buildings first came out, there was a significant market cost for building,” said Dale Dunnet, design coordinator/LEED AP, Miles Construction.  “It’s not as bad now, and more people are seeing the payback.  With greener buildings and energy savings, they’re seeing a return on investment.  As energy costs increase, they’ll see that return on investment sooner and recoup their investment money faster. The more LEED buildings built the better the prices will be.  There was a big learning curve with the first LEED buildings built.”  

    LEED buildings don’t carry a cost premium.  “You can get a LEED certification for the same construction budget you have already,” said Rick Van Diepen, LEED AP, senior associate, PGAL.  “People think there’s a 5, 10 percent cost premium, but there are studies that show that high levels of green certified buildings are done on the same budget or even as a net savings.  A lot of different green building elements offset each other, so you can actually save money through integrated design and designing smartly.”  

    LEED certification isn’t just for new buildings with new construction budgets, though.  “The fastest growing segment of green building industry is renovations, existing building and maintenance,” said Van Diepen.

Who’s Building Green?

    So just who is building green in Nevada?  Are there LEED certified builders in Nevada?  Well, no, because LEED certification is by project, not by builder.  Builders, architects, contractors and everyone else may learn from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) but it’s the projects that are certified.

    And the projects are expected to become more common.  Van Diepen speculates that in the next five years, architectural firms still using LEED consultants to design green buildings will not get federal funded GSA projects.  “That shows how the federal government is looking at it,” he said.  “This needs to be a part of the DNA for architects and contractors and engineers who need to understand and implement [green building] in everything.”  

    LEED is a baby step, meant to get the construction industry used to the idea of doing green building on every project. According to Van Diepen, every new release of LEED certification standards (every year or two) makes getting points for certification harder, so that the level of green building becomes standard across the industry.

    “The International Energy Code, which governs all building departments and building codes across the country, is moving almost in lockstep with LEED and GBC toward the goal of carbon neutral buildings by 2030,” said Van Diepen.  “So the code mandated minimum is quickly chasing this whole industry, so people who think  they don’t have to do it because ‘no one said I had to build green,’ by 2015 all massive amounts of energy conservation will be mandated by the energy code so they won’t be able to avoid it.”

Just What is LEED Certification?

    The LEED® green building certification program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a voluntary national rating system for buildings designed to enhance conservation of resources and creation of buildings that are healthier for their human occupants.  Silver, gold and platinum certifications rank buildings and building components – LEED certification can be sought for materials use, materials transportation, core and shell of empty buildings, for existing and new buildings.  There are also neighborhood certifications for multiple buildings.  

    American Nevada Company built four LEED projects and has been involved with two more, including ANC’s flagship office building that achieved gold certification, the first for the state of Nevada for core and shell.

    “You can seek just core and shell certification,” said Ed Schiel, vice president of ANC. “Then seek LEED certification for tenant improvements for tenant occupied spaces.”

    ANC hired a LEED Accredited Professional to consult and guide them through the process.  “The commissioning process can be very costly and a bit bureaucratic.  In a perfect world I’d like to see the process streamlined,” said Schiel, adding streamlining the process could remove one potential barrier for more people pursuing LEED certification.

Simplifying the Green

    Klehm recalls working with a LEED pilot project in 1997 and has watched the process become simpler through the two bodies working with LEED certification: the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a Washington, DC-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which sets the standards for LEED certification and the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) which certifies projects.  

    Basically, a developer seeking LEED certification registers the project, documents each requirement to garner points for the level of certification he’s seeking through the construction phase, then submits the documentation through GBCI for independent review.  The entire process is done online, which is easier than the old, non-green version that required turning in a thick binder stuffed with photos.

    “The whole reason [for the process] is to design green buildings and prove all the things that make a building green were installed and the building actually performs and the mechanical systems and plumbing are efficient as they’re supposed to be,” said Van Diepen.  “It’s called commissioning the building and basically you’re proving your building is a green building.”

    Different certification levels require different proof, Van Diepen said.  It’s also handy to have experience.  “It’s a little confusing the first time for an architect to figure out.  In the past few years, the fallback for architectural firms getting their feet wet was to hire a LEED specialist to consult who has been through the process before, but more and more, architectural firms and contractors are not going to be competitive in projects if they don’t have more experience with it.”

    For now, most contractors and architects choose to work with a LEED Accredited Professional and the APs are coming from all over the place.  

    “You’d think it would be primarily architects and contractors, people who deal first hand with green building construction and design, but it’s amazing how many different people from different industries only slightly related to construction are interested in becoming LEED certified professionals,” said Van Diepen.  “People who are lawyers doing construction defect law, and sales people are doing it to prove they know what they’re selling as green product because it gives them more credibility that they went through the education process, public officials and more people in the City of Las Vegas, Clark County and Henderson are taking the class and taking the test and getting certified.”

    Whether developers, contractors and owners decide to work with an AP or not, it’s best to declare the level of LEED certification you’re shooting for before starting.  

    “I highly recommend clients do it as early as possible so the team is aligned around the same goals and they can manage the process in a tighter manner,” said Klehm.  “Spending time up front is time well spent.  The more time spent up front reviewing what you want to do and clearly articulating and outlining goals and allowing time for working with design to reflect those goals, the better.”  There’s no cost for declaring the project, and incorporating the costs of materials and transportation into the budget up front can mean savings in the budget.

    There are rating points every step of the way, points for sustainability on site, reuse of materials, limiting transportation of heavy, bulky materials and for just being a little friendlier to the environment.  

    “Over 30 percent of our materials in the building are recycled and 80 percent of construction water was recovered for dollars and kept out of landfills,” said Schiel.  This is cost effective as well as environmentally friendly.

Seeing Green Everywhere

    “The green building industry has been tripling in size for about the last five years and continues to do so in spite of the recession, so that’s showing this industry is here to stay and green building has really become mainstream,” said Van Diepen.

    The industry has changed.  Things considered high tech a few years ago today are standard fare, like Low-E glass for windows which is just as cheap now as standard glass but offers enhanced energy conservation.  The more widespread green building becomes, the more widespread the materials will be and where six or seven years ago there might be only one or two manufacturers for materials, today competition between the various materials suppliers and manufacturers is booming and prices are dropping.  

    When Nevada starts building again, much of it will probably be green.  “There aren’t going to be any speculative office, retail or industrial type buildings built certainly in the foreseeable future,” said Schiel.  “It’s a function of where we are in the market cycle but when oversupply gets corrected and it makes sense to develop again, yes, I believe the majority of those buildings will either be LEED certified or at least environmentally friendly.”  

    “I think the primary reason to go green or to build green is to understand that we are all connected and that through our actions we have a great responsibility and great consequence in the greater whole of the environment,” said Klehm.