Why so few LEED AP Homes Professionals?

By Ryan Sparks

In reviewing the latest statistics on LEED credentialed professionals, I am surprised how few “LEED AP Homes” there are in relation to the other specialty options (247 total compared to 21,000 BD&C professionals). With this tight housing market, you would think more builders would be seeking out this credential as way to distinguish themselves from the competition.

Why so few? In talking with some builders, it turns out there are a number of factors:

• Rating System Requirements: Unlike the other rating systems, LEED AP Homes is the only rating system that requires the involvement of ‘pre-approved’ entities, specifically LEED for Homes Provider and Green Rater.
  
• Competition with the NAHB: The National Association of Home Builders – offers a competing credential called the Certified Green Professional (CGP) for professionals participating in design and construction of high-performance green homes. This rival credential that has managed to attract several more individuals (4,352 more actually) than the LEED AP Homes credential .
  
• Pushing Green can Turn Off Potential Buyers: Many builders feel that getting too technical with the green details can actually overwhelm buyers and discourage sales. As a result, most builders feel they just need to be knowledge of a few features regarding lower operating and maintenance costs, instead of being a LEED expert.
  
• Appraisers Not Seeing the Green Value: Many builders are not seeing appraisers recognize the value that green features add therefore the builders are not investing the time to pursue the credential.
  

Is Your Office Green? PBSJ’s Tampa office is and they have a USGBC award to prove it!

By Vicki Zambito

PBSJ’s new corporate headquarters in Tampa was recently recognized with the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the USGBC’s 2010 LEEDership Commercial Interior “Project of the Year” award.
PBSJ’s Sustainable Building Design Group used a sustainable design to convert 3.5 floors within the building, roughly 90,000 gsf of commercial office space, to meet the requirements for LEED Gold for Core and Shell Building certification. The space houses 350 employees, 146 private offices, open office areas, and 10 conference rooms.

The award recognizes demonstration of a holistic approach toward integrating green building practices and principles into project design, execution, and operation, as well as the development of innovative solutions to regional design challenges.

PBSJ is the largest tenant in MetWest One, a new office building in Tampa’s Westshore business district and Westshore’s first gold certified building under the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

Green Building: Why Wouldn’t You Do It?

By Jeff Nippes

I remember talking to clients several years ago, long before building Green and LEED really picked up the momentum it has now and a question that I used to get asked was “Why do I want to build green?” What they really meant was why do I want to build green if all it does is take away from my profit margin? It was generally thought that building green and to LEED Standards was just an additional expense and wouldn’t provide any additional revenue for the designer, developer, builder and owner. “It’s fine for tree huggers, let them live in a earth shelter house but I work on a bottom line so unless building green is practical and contributes to my bottom line then I’m really not that interested.”

Now, fast forward to 2010 and with more education on the subject and better standards and better overall understanding of what green building is, it is more of the standard than the anomaly. That has a lot to do with aforementioned profit margin. Building to LEED standards today only adds on average 1.8% to the total building cost which can easily be recovered in the first year or two of operation. (See Also Davis Langdon’s The Cost of Green Revisited http://www.davislangdon.com/USA/Research/ResearchFinder/2007-The-Cost-of-Green-Revisited/) LEED Certified buildings have higher occupancy rates and draw higher rents and a higher ROI. As soon as green building became more profitable it became more interesting to a lot of people. When you really look at it, most LEED and green building strategies involve more common sense than money. For example: Landscape with native plants rather than vegetation that is not native to the region and will thus require less water, use a pervious type of pavement so the water goes right back into the water table rather collecting pollutants and running off and polluting another water source, reuse building materials, buy products that have little or no volatile organic compounds, buy wood with the Forrest Stewardship Council (FSC) seal, buy local building materials when possible since they will have consumed far less resources to travel to the building site all seem like no brainers, require little or no extra money to implement and all provide LEED credit points so today the question isn’t really “Why do I want to build green?” it is, “Why wouldn’t you build green?"