Achieving Nothing
With the CaGBC’s first national summit soon upon us, [Toronto June 11 and 12] it is worth reflecting on what the LEED program has given us so far and pondering where it might go from here.
LEED has proven a valuable educational tool for design professionals, clients and contractors, promoting a thriftier approach to resource use, and greater consideration of occupant well-being. CaGBC’s web site now includes case studies of 80 projects certified since 2002. This is a small number in the greater scheme of things, but represents a critical cross-section of project sizes and types.
Among these are a handful of platinum buildings, exemplars of environmentally responsible design, whose energy performance is less than half that of MNECB - a standard roughly equivalent to that now required for all buildings under leading European codes. There is still some ground to cover, of course, but we may be approaching the practical limits of a purely conservation-based approach to design.
To date LEED has rightly emphasized energy efficiency as the quickest way to reduce global GHG emissions and the environmental impact of buildings. However, the next generation of design tools must be expansive rather than reductive in their conception.
The CaGBC Cascadia Region’s ‘Living Building Challenge’ represents a good first attempt. By Cascadia’s definition, living buildings need only meet 16 design prerequisites. Taken together, these re-imagine buildings as an integral part of the local ecosystem, rather than apart from it, harvesting rain water, solar energy and wind power.
Results of the challenge are not yet in, but they may prove to be less like science fiction than some might think. As the preamble to the ‘Living Building Challenge’ points out, all the prerequisites including net zero energy and water have already been achieved in North American buildings -although never simultaneously.
With the reductions in demand we are beginning to achieve in the real world, coupled with the advances in the efficiency and affordability of renewable energy technologies, we may truly be on the brink of a new era - one in which gold and platinum become obsolete, and achieving nothing is both a laudable and reasonable goal.
Jim Taggart, MRAIC Editor .Print this article | Send by e-mail