LEED Green Building Myth

Posted by Gennaro Brooks-Church
January 6, 2010

I don’t know if it is a mainstream thing or what but I don’t get LEED.  I even became a LEED AP in the hope that I would see what the big deal is but I still don’t get it. Why would you want to spend all that money and time so that you can get some plaque to put on your building. It just seems like a big game that makes no difference to anything. People have bought into it so it is a great PR and marketing move, but what does do to make the world a better place?

“Oh look! A LEED Platinum skyscraper!” Wow great. Let me tell the folks in the Amazon jungle they can relax.

Maybe it is because I am a Brooklyn green builder who builds green no matter what. I don’t care if I’m given a Brownie Badge. Building green is the most logical, ethical and financially intelligent way to build after not building at all, which is the greenest.

The reason I say this is that Eco Brooklyn just recently posted an add to hire a Green Architect. We got over 100 applications.  Most of them were LEED AP. And pretty much all of the Architects were not green. So clearly LEED and green are not connected. LEED and eager hoop jumping is connected. LEED and a warped desire for approval. LEED and an insecure need to jump on a bandwagon. LEED and anal paper-pushing bureaucracy. LEED and the belief that green can be put into a neat list of bullet points. LEED as part of your marketing budget. LEED as an attempt to greenwash your business. All that I’ve seen.

But LEED and green building so far have very little in common. In fact anyone who uses LEED as proof of their green building kudos is either a newbie wannabe or a marketing agent wanting to sell you something (and it aint green building).

LEED is better than building crap. LEED is better than chopping down the rain forest. But LEED is a deterrent from practical, affordable, ethical and easy green building.

You can build a LEED Platinum building by fudging the numbers and spending lots of money on useless elements, but it takes a lot of time and paper-pushing. Wow hat sounds like an ethical way to spend a fun day!

LEED sucks. I am happy to say that I spend my days building LEED Platinum buildings and the only reason I have the time, money and excitement to do so is that none of them are LEED Certified.

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Comments

Gennaro, you are sounding angry:)

Most people need a system to follow, and either don’t have the time to approach green building as an art form, or are interested in government incentives.

Many are not end-users, and intereted in selling their property to others, so marketing is important to them. I would be willing to bet that there are few LEED projects that actually hurt them environment more than non-leed, and that’s a good thing.

Comment by Gene Keyser on January 6, 2010 @ 8:39 pm

Having had a night to reflect, I admit I was harsh in my post. It was my gut reaction after wading through over 100 architect applications. It felt that most of them became LEED APs to boost their resume. One or two of them spoke about LEED with enthusiasm, which is great. They will probably use LEED to build greener buildings. But most of the applicants…well, I can’t read their minds, but it was my impression that it was one big collective hoax: if we all believe that LEED is green then it will be and therefor our buildings are no longer damaging the environment. Hooray! Problem solved!

Lets take Gene Keyser who commented above, a passionate Corcoran agent who is also involved in the green aspects of building. Tell me honestly Gene is the world a better place if the luxury condo you are selling is LEED Platinum? My opinion? No. A LEED Certified luxury condo is like a fur coat made from organically raised animals. You aren’t fixing the problem. You are just covering it up. If everyone in the world built to LEED standards the world would be destroyed immediately. The only reason everyone in the world is not building is that most of the world lives in poverty. They are too busy fighting off hunger.

So those of us with money (that is most of NY if you compare us to the world) are justifying this unsustainable building amount by saying it is built greener. How about the luxury hotel built in Manhattan for millions of dollars to serve 1% of the world population. Who the hell cares if it is LEED?! It makes no difference to the health of the world. Either way it will increase the need to chop down forests, mine the earth and pollute the air. It is an astronomical waste of resources and burden on the environment. And there are thousands of buildings like this built every year. Great now they are LEED. I can relax now.

Gene to be honest with you I don’t know if you would have a job if you really bought into what I am saying and I am not somebody to judge another persons need to feed themselves and their family in a comfortable way. So the change needs to be done incrementally otherwise we’ll have other problems on our hands. But the change has to happen fast. Time is ticking and the problem is already exploding.

Comment by Gennaro Brooks-Church on January 7, 2010 @ 1:06 pm

As a mechanical engineer. LEED sucks. It sucks time and money and poops out paper work and a placard.

I agree with you. I can design an efficient building without nearly doubling my design fees by trying to figure out a energy model.

Comment by John on April 13, 2010 @ 3:08 pm
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