If you follow anything in green building, you have heard that Henry Gifford has filed a class action lawsuit against the USGBC and its founders on behalf of "consumers, taxpayers, building design and construction professionals." In reviewing the comments and responses to these postings/articles, it is apparent that there are a significant number angry building professionals that are supporting this legal action.
Now, I am not a lawyer, but as a USGBC supporter, I have the following recommendations for the USGBC to help reduce the number of LEED-haters out there:
1. Don’t charge for promotional materials. $0.75 to obtain a brochure to learn more about more about the core values and purpose of USGBC?
And if you are going to charge for a brochure, make the total cost clear and don’t make me wait till I checkout to find the full amount (including shipping and taxes) is $4.98. The fact that the USGBC does not make the brochure easy to find in a downloadable format does not only portray a priority of profit over promotion, it is also not green.
2. Provide a Transparent Financial Information: The About USGBC section of the USGBC provides a link to a 2008 Annual Report, that shows the net assets, end of 2007, but nothing for the following fiscal years.Providing a simple statement of financial activities will go far to reinforce the commitments as a non-profit organization.
3. Acknowledge the lawsuit and reinforce that LEED is consensus driven: Information on the class action lawsuit can be found almost anywhere except on the USGBC website. In fact, as of Oct 26, 2010, the “In the News & Press Releases” section is noticeably empty.
Why not post a simple statement that reinforces the fact that the LEED rating systems was created from “consensus-based decision-making from across an extremely diverse membership” and that the USGBC will review the claims in the same manner? There is no doubt that the lawsuit is attracting a lot of traffic to its website, use this as an opportunity to remind the public that LEED is build based on the experience and wisdom of builders and not a single entity. These are comments from some casual observations. Please share your thoughts.
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