From the Editor
Without question, the new LEED Volume system will be a huge boon for retail giants, financial institutions and other organizations that build lots of similar buildings. These organizations can submit a single prototype design, get it certified, and then as long as they can prove a consistent level of quality control (i.e, that credits are being met), they’ll get LEED certification for subsequent buildings without having to get each one formally reviewed on a credit-by-credit basis. Buildings will be randomly audited to ensure the prototype still accurately reflects the way organizations are building the facilities.  

USGBC also announced that it will release a LEED Volume for Existing Buildings next spring. But facility managers with a large portfolio of existing buildings — say, at a college or university — may want to temper their expectations. According to Doug Gatlin, vice president of market development, it may be tough to prove a consistent level of quality control related to the certified prototype for buildings that include much different types of spaces. When you think about it, a lab space with its frequent air-change requirements and other specific-to-lab-space issues will require different LEED certification strategies than will an administrative building.

That’s the bad news. The good news is facility managers can register as many prototypes as they want. So if facility managers have 11 lab facilities, 21 classroom buildings and 10 administrative spaces they’re hoping to certify with LEED-EBOM, they could register three prototypes and use LEED Volume that way.

Gatlin says USGBC analysis shows that owners or facility managers enter the program with at least 25 projects, savings on LEED fees will be about 17 percent. With 100 projects, the savings would be 70 percent.

As always, I’m interested in hearing your take. Have you looked into LEED Volume as a possibility for certifying your existing buildings next year when it becomes available? What do you foresee as the challenges?

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

Green Strategies
Life Begins After LEED

In the News
USGBC Launches LEED Volume
At last week’s Greenbuild, the U.S. Green Building Council officially launched its LEED Volume Program. In order to qualify, an owner must commit to a minimum of 25 LEED projects.

Green Multimedia
What Comes After LEED Certification?
Rachel Hardesty takes a break from GreenTech 2010 to follow up on her presentation (link below) and explain how to keep the momentum going after LEED certification and how to continue to budget for improvements.  

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

An Introduction to LEED-EB

This GreenTech presentation by Jim Newman of the Newman Consulting Group delves into the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system and provides facility managers tips and tricks on how to achieve many of the individual credits.