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The Geographical Journal, Vol. 179, No. 3, September 2013, pp. 221233, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00493.x

Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system:

case studies on the role of regional
characteristics and adaptive reuse in green
building in Denver and Boulder, Colorado
E ERIC BOSCHMANN AND JESSICA N GABRIEL
Department of Geography, University of Denver, 2050 E. Iliff Ave., Denver, CO 80208-0710, USA
E-mail: eric.boschmann@du.edu
This paper was accepted for publication in September 2012

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the most widely recognised green
building assessment system in the United States but is increasingly criticised for only rewarding
incremental solutions towards sustainability. With differing perceptions of how green building is
best achieved, here we focus on how geographical context and reuse of existing buildings are
rewarded. The conceptual framework for our analysis draws upon a light green/deep green
dichotomy in sustainability and architectural design. While a light green perspective achieves
reduced energy consumption and pollution through technology and green gadgetry, a deep green
approach focuses on local geographic conditions to work with natural climate systems through
design informed by vernacular architecture, as well as the benefits of adaptive reuse. This study
uses a descriptive case study analysis of LEED credit points earned in six certified buildings in
Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Our analysis confirms that LEED rewards more light green
approaches. There is limited motivation in pursuing sustainability through deep green methods, as
recognition of them in LEED is quite minimal. We conclude that the balance against rewarding
deep green design limits more transformative paradigm-shifting advances in sustainability. Rec-
ommendations for improvements to LEED are given, as well as a discussion on emerging local
governance in regulating green building. This paper contributes to the emerging body of literature
focusing on green building as a mechanism of urban sustainability, and draws up the geographic
perspectives of scale, place, and the political and economic linkages between humans and the
environment in cities.

KEY WORDS: Denver, green building, case study, urban sustainability, LEED, place

period, total commercial and institutional building

Introduction
space will expand from 9.9 to 14.8 billion m2, with a

T
he environmental consequences of buildings
are well known. In the United States it is esti-
mated that buildings account for 38.9% of all
energy consumed; annually 170 000 commercial
buildings are constructed and 44 000 commercial
buildings are demolished, resulting in approximately
154 million tonnes of building-related construction
and demolition debris, 61% of which is non-
residential (US Environmental Protection Agency
2009). However, the near future demand for building
construction remains great. Estimates suggest that by
2030 half of the buildings in the United States will
have been constructed since 2000. During this time
combined increase of new space and newly reno-
vated space at 9.0 billion m2 (Nelson 2004). These
figures suggest that 45.5% of future commercial and
institutional growth will come from the renovation of
existing spaces, and 54.5% from new construction.
In response to increased awareness of the role of
human activities in global climate change, the prac-
tice of green building has emerged to create environ-
mentally responsible and resource-efficient structures
(Yudelson 2008). As 76% of greenhouse gas emissions
from commercial buildings come from purchased
electricity, the greatest potential for reducing energy
consumption is in alternative methods for lighting,

The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013 2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
222 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
heating, and cooling occupant spaces (Brown and
Southworth 2008). In terms of standardising and cer-
tifying this process, Leadership in Energy and Environ-
mental Design (LEED) is the most widely recognised
assessment system in the United States (Retzlaff
2009), helps change urban socio-nature relations
(Cidell 2009b), yet fosters a popular, if not narrow
understanding of sustainability through green building
(Guy and Moore 2005). However, such green building
assessment systems are increasingly criticised for
being market driven, one-size-fits-all approaches that
fail to adequately address underlying environmental
sustainability issues (Zimmerman and Kibert 2007).
While green building has become a mainstream plat-
form through which sustainability is pursued, geogra-
phy research has limited work focusing on this form of
sustainable urban development.
In post-industrial neoliberal cities, sustainable
urban development has many manifestations, includ-
ing brownfield redevelopment; mixed land-use,
transit-oriented, and high-density development; green
space, public space and pedestrian space develop-
ment; and green building design (Krueger and Gibbs
2007; Krueger and Buckingham 2012). But research
shows that particular visions of sustainability, which
have become central to urban-economic (re)develop-
ment agendas, tend to fall short of being radical
actions towards environmental protection (While
et al. 2004; Jonas and While 2007). As global and
national concerns of ecological management increas-
ingly falls upon local governments, entrepreneurial
city leaders seek an urban sustainability fix through
which economic growth is pursued along with envi-
ronmental strategies. Thus, urban entrepreneurialism
actively remakes urban environments through such
processes as river clean-up, industrial space regenera-
tion, or infill development, in an effort to re-image the
city as clean, attractive and business friendly. By
making the city both competitive and liveable, these
urban growth policy approaches are celebrated for
being winwin. However, the research also suggests
that these tend to be light green policy actions
meaning they lack incentives for more radical
approaches to environmental urban development and
ultimately are driven by an economic bottom line. It is
within this context where we argue that green build-
ing, particularly through the LEED assessment system,
is another mechanism through which light green sus-
tainability actions are promoted and rewarded.
With notable exceptions (Domosh 1988; Ford
1994) geographers have neglected the impact of
buildings on urban life (McNeill 2005). Not only are
buildings a space where everyday life activities occur,
they help define the spatial form of cities. They are
filled with cultural symbolism, their architecture can
tell stories of local history, and they help create a
sense of place. Some become icons of the global
economy; others embody a citys identity. As cities
come to the fore of the sustainability movement
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
(Krueger and Gibbs 2007), there is a need for geogra-
phers to address the relationship between buildings
and environmental change. While other forms of sus-
tainable urban development are widely researched in
geography, there has been limited attention to green
building within the literature. A Boolean search of the
Social Science Citation Index database for LEED (N =
8,524+) or green building (N = 412) refined by the
Geography subject area returns only three and seven
hits, respectively, including overlapped papers.
Though widely discussed in the literatures of ecology,
landscape architecture, or building construction, the
absence of attention from a geographical perspective
is conspicuous. In this paper we approach green
building with key geographic questions in mind.
From a geographic perspective, a detailed scrutiny
of sustainability is one that incorporates the concepts
of nature, scale, economic change, institutions, and
governance (Krueger and Gibbs 2007). Climate
change and energy consumption is a global-scale
issue. But is a global perspective the appropriate scale
to address green building? Increasingly, scholars
argue that local perspectives which draw upon local
knowledge can devise a unique place-specific under-
standing of sustainability problems and solutions,
moving away from less successful global remedies
(Lake and Hanson 2000). A spatial view of sustain-
ability illustrates how interpretations and solutions
can vary from location to location. That is, especially
in sustainability, place matters. For green building,
are best practices geographically universal, or are
they more place specific? Furthermore, a geographic
perspective integrates the social and environmental
sciences in understanding the relationships between
human activity and the natural environment. We
already know how buildings can negatively affect the
environment and resources. But what are the politi-
cal, social, and economic structures that govern
better practices of green building? If barriers to sus-
tainability are more political than technological (Lake
and Hanson 2000), geography is poised to help
bridge politics with sustainability science (ORiordan
2004) by better understanding the structures that
govern policy and practice.
The above questions pose a broad agenda for the
study of green building and sustainability in geogra-
phy, which is beyond the scope of this research.
Instead, we contribute to the conversation by focusing
on a case study analysis of how green building is
manifest through the LEED assessment system. The
next section introduces the conceptual framework for
our analysis, that in green building there are different
shades of green in ecological design. While the light
green perspective achieves reduced energy consump-
tion and pollution through technology and green
gadgetry, a deep green approach focuses on local
geographic conditions to work with natural climate
systems through design informed by vernacular archi-
tecture, and also highlights the benefits of adaptive
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
reuse. We then introduce the LEED assessment pro-
gramme and summarise key critiques from the litera-
ture. The next section contains descriptive case studies
of six LEED certified buildings in Denver and Boulder,
Colorado and summarises a point-by-point analysis of
how each building earned certification. We find that
LEED currently is more structured to reward light
green approaches to green building, and argue that
regional characteristics of climate, materials, and his-
toric building practices should be better recognised as
integral to the green building process. Further discus-
sion on future research directions for geography is
given, including the role of local governance in devel-
oping urban sustainability policy. Green building is a
multi-disciplinary topic, and this paper weaves
together many existing but not previously integrated
ideas, bringing them to the geography and sustainabil-
ity discussion.
Shades of green in building green
Within the green building movement there are varying
ideologies of what it means to build green. Guy and
Farmer (2001) succinctly outline six competing logics
of sustainable architecture that highlight the multiple
perceptions of how green building is best achieved.
From their work we develop a light green/deep green
dichotomy as the framework of our argument through
which case studies of LEED-certified buildings are
examined. While both perspectives are commonly
concerned with environmental impacts if buildings,
the shades of green suggest differing values and
approaches in achieving similar goals (cf. ORiordan
1989).
Light green
Popular understandings of green building are familiar-
ised through highly visible mechanisms, particularly,
the widely celebrated and marketed LEED assessment
system. Often emphasis of success is placed on a suite
of technological innovations, including cutting-edge
insulation or windows, low-energy lighting, smart
thermostats with state-of-the-art heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, or rooftop pho-
tovoltaic solar panels. This approach can be concep-
tualised as an eco-technic logic, which suggests high
technology is the best way to manage and solve envi-
ronmental problems (Guy and Farmer 2001). This
logic emphasises energy efficiency, adopting universal
and technological design methodologies, is more
global in vision than local, and is overwhelmingly
quantitative in measuring outcomes. It influences a
culture of green building that insists new buildings are
superior to reused and retrofitted older structures (Ele-
fante 2007; Melaver and Mueller 2009; Preservation
Green Lab 2011). This light green (Guy and Moore
2005) perspective of green building places priority on
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
223
the ability to manufacture or produce green outcomes
through technological innovations with a strong bias
toward new construction.
Some argue that the popularity of technological
solutions is a cultural obsession of building and manu-
facturing sustainability that seemingly ignores the
legacy of inherited buildings, technologies, and
knowledge (Elefante 2007). Shelton (2007) identifies
this perspective as non-robust architecture, which
relies on complex technology, meets a narrow range
of performance indicators, but often achieves a vari-
able level of performance, which at times can be quite
high. A wind turbine, for example, can greatly offset a
buildings non-renewable energy consumption, but
has significant front-end costs and is only high per-
forming under the right conditions. In other words,
some green building projects are criticised for relying
more heavily on green gadgetry visible technolo-
gies and mechanisms that uphold the light green solu-
tions to sustainability and environmental issues, but
are limited in holistic outcomes.
Deep green
The deep green perspective places emphasis on low
technologies adapted to regional characteristics.
Rather than manufacturing or producing green out-
comes through new buildings and high technology,
deep green architecture and construction seeks to
design in tandem with local conditions, utilises the
wisdom inherited from building methods of past gen-
erations, retrofits old buildings and adapts buildings to
natural systems, particularly to meet heating, cooling
and lighting needs.
In the eco-cultural and eco-centric logics (Guy and
Farmer 2001) the local natural world is viewed as
fragile, with a dynamic interdependence between
living and non-living things. Sustainable architecture
must therefore be in harmony with nature, reduce
ecological footprints, and generally limit the overall
interference with nature to ensure flourishing biodi-
versity. At the same time, sustainable architecture
must embrace the concept of locality and place. Con-
struction should be informed by the cultural values of
a place and people, including its vernacular building
approaches, and should take cues from the character-
istics of the region. Through better understanding of
the peculiarities of a place, architecture can make
better use of local materials and create a more appro-
priate design to regional climatic conditions. Shelton
(2007) identifies this as a robust approach: design that
is simple, invisible, and non-reliant on complex tech-
nologies. It asks where can natural systems replace
modern systems without sacrificing comfort, particu-
larly in heating/cooling, ventilation and illumination?
This deep green perspective reflects alternative ide-
ologies of green construction practices that emerged
from the post-1960s crises of global population,
natural resource depletion, pollution, and energy
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
224 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
costs. For example, McHargs ground-breaking
Design with nature (1969), Vale and Vale (1991), or
the human settlement guidelines in Agenda 21
(UNCED 1992) all share a similar vision for the
co-existence of cities with natural landscapes empha-
sising local materials, regionally inspired designs and
energy efficiency. Absent is the achievement of
co-existence through advanced technologies and
machinery, taking a longer view that recognises how
history is cautionary toward technological innovation
as a grand solution, but rather a need to balance
technological fixes, resource demands and natural
resource supplies (Grant 2004). Thus, in this paper, we
analyse LEED-certified buildings through the lens of
this deep green perspective. We focus particularly
upon how adaptive reuse and vernacular architecture
as deep green practices are valued in the current
green building movement; we also consider how tra-
ditional building designs are incorporated into new
building projects.
Adaptive reuse and vernacular architecture
Adaptive reuse is the process of refurbishing old struc-
tures to make them suitable for new purposes (Bullen
2007). Claiming that the greenest building is the one
already built (Elefante 2007), adaptive reuse is revered
as the holy grail of the sustainability movement
(Melaver and Mueller 2009, 168) if the building is
properly renovated (Preservation Green Lab 2011). At
its most basic, the retrofitting of old buildings reuses
existing structural materials, reduces demolition
waste, preserves the historical legacy of locally
informed construction practices, conserves already
expended energy, and reduces new carbon emissions.
When buildings are reused, energy and emissions
are reduced in two ways. First, a demolished building
loses its embodied energy. This is the estimated sum
total energy cost of a building from cradle to grave,
including the raw materials and manufacturing of
materials, the transportation of materials and goods to
the building site, the construction assembly process,
operations and maintenance of the building, and
finally, its end of life demolition (Costanza 1980).
Second, contrary to popular belief, a new high-
performance commercial building could take 25-42
years (depending on climate region) to reach the
carbon equivalency of a retrofitted building largely
due to the negative environmental impacts of the con-
struction process and the manufacturing and delivery
of new materials (Preservation Green Lab 2011).
Vernacular architecture poses another advantage to
the adaptive reuse of exist buildings. Referring to
building construction and design practices historically
specific to a particular location, vernacular architec-
ture is also associated with a sense of place as it
reveals the use of local raw materials, and the variety
of cultural influences. Vernacular architecture may
also reflect the traditional practices of building and
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
design that have adapted to local, natural systems of
the environment. Without mechanical or electrical
systems to heat and cool the air, historic building
practices relied on architectural elements that were
responsive to the local climate. Many historic build-
ings contain features that are inherently energy effi-
cient and sustainable, such as excellent cross-
ventilation, operable windows, extensive use of
glazing, and awnings to mitigate solar heat gain
(Farneth 2007, 26). Building with the environment is
seen in vernacular styles throughout North American
architectural history, from the adobe buildings of the
Southwest to the saltboxes of New England. Historic
buildings can provide a blueprint of location-
appropriate building design, and such practical
wisdom with low-technology approaches are central
to the deep green agenda.
As advanced lighting systems and climate-
controlled interior spaces became increasingly
popular in building design, a triumph-over-nature
approach replaced environment-informed construc-
tion. By the post-World War II era, construction tech-
niques and design dramatically changed. With
inexpensive and abundant energy, buildings were
constructed more quickly, out of less expensive and
lower quality materials, and traditional construction
methods and materials gave way to newer and tech-
nologically complex mechanical and electrical
systems (Elefante 2007; Curtis 2008). Thus, technol-
ogy and cheap energy allowed building design to
become divorced from geography. As a consequence,
many commercial buildings were not built using the
same principles as earlier eras, and their per-square-
meter consumption of energy steadily increased with
newer buildings throughout the twentieth century.
Buildings constructed before 1920 have an average
consumption of 7,444 BTU/m2; buildings from the
1970s and 1980s consume nearly 18 580 BTU/m2;
and those constructed in the 1990s declined to
15 793 BTU/m2 (Preservation Green Lab 2011). The
implications are several: energy usage of commercial
buildings has simply increased over time, yet build-
ings, especially pre-1946, were designed to function
more in tandem with the local natural systems, par-
ticularly in terms of heating, cooling and lighting. By
the turn of the twenty-first century, newer technologi-
cal innovations (rather than reduction in demand or
behaviours) became a central feature to reducing
buildings energy use.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
The growth of the green building movement precipi-
tated a need for standardisation and benchmarking in
the process, design and use of materials. Green build-
ing assessment systems assess how buildings . . .
address environmental, economic, and social con-
cerns compared to typical practice and/or to ultimate
goals (Retzlaff 2008, 505). In most cases, these
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
assessment systems are not building codes regulated
by local governments, but are voluntary certification
process. There are numerous green building assess-
ment systems across the globe, and others have cri-
tiqued their individual merits and limitations (Bunz
et al. 2006; Tam 2007; Retzlaff 2008). Here, we focus
only on LEED.
LEED is a green building assessment and certifica-
tion system established by the United States Green
Building Council (USGBC) in 2000 to provide a
framework for identifying and implementing practical
and measurable green building design, construction,
operations and maintenance solutions (USGBC
2011). Eligible buildings are evaluated in five main
criteria areas: sustainable sites, water efficiency,
energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and
innovation and design. By meeting standards of these
criteria, buildings are assessed using credit points and
awarded a level of certification: certified, silver, gold
or platinum. A more thorough description of LEED is
available from Cidell (2009b) or Yudelson (2008).
Over the past decade, LEED has emerged as the
most dominant and widely recognised green building
assessment system in the United States (Retzlaff 2009)
with growing international influence. The LEED pro-
gramme has been successful in raising awareness of
the need for green buildings, providing sustainability
education and creating a commercial demand for
these high-performance buildings. Since the certifica-
tion process is voluntary, various market and publicity
forces motivate clients and developers to adopt the
principles. In a competitive business environment,
LEED has strong brand appeal that is increasingly
necessary for marketing a building and has become
an essential asset to broader business strategies
(Yudelson 2008).
As LEED reaches mainstream status a chorus of
criticism has emerged. If constructive, we see such
criticism as a healthy mechanism that enables the
system to evolve and improve. For example, LEED
faces resistance in adoption due to perceptions of
significantly higher construction and documentation
costs (Yudelson 2008), onerous documentation proce-
dures, a complex self-reporting system, a steep learn-
ing curve for architects and clients (Denzer and
Hedges 2011), and the slow diffusion of green build-
ing knowledge.
In addition to these issues of adoption, LEED faces
more significant criticisms leveraged at the robustness
of the assessment system itself. At an extreme, LEED is
regarded as being more of a public relations tool than
a rigorous green building assessment system. It is cri-
tiqued because it does not penalise unsustainable
building practices, but allows point grabbing and
picking the lowest hanging fruit through green gadg-
etry and devices, rather than rewarding fundamental
green design and construction (Denzer and Hedges
2011). LEED tends to be a one-size-fits-all application
of design assessments that rewards incremental solu-
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
225
tions . . . not major paradigm-shifting advances (Zim-
merman and Kibert 2007, 683). In one study, Garde
(2009) found an imbalance of priority given to easy-
to-obtain credits in 76 LEED-Neighborhood Develop-
ment (LEED-ND) pilot projects. LEED is also criticised
for not adequately considering the lifecycle analysis of
green buildings (Bunz et al. 2006; Denzer and Hedges
2011), particularly the long-term energy and waste
cost benefits of a building from construction and
development, to operation and maintenance, through
demolition and removal (Preservation Green Lab
2011). This failure to sufficiently recognise the envi-
ronmental benefits of reuse and renovation of old
buildings is another key criticism. Despite a long-held
assumption that new buildings are more energy effi-
cient than renovated old buildings (Farneth 2007;
Preservation Green Lab 2011), the need to consider
ecological benefits gained from the reuse of existing
buildings, either through embodied and construction
energy savings, materials reuse or green architectural
designs inherited from the regional vernacular are
gaining momentum.
Finally, the effort by LEED to standardise criteria of
green building across the United States and interna-
tionally has led to one of the most significant cri-
tiques, that LEED does not effectively recognise how
best practices for building green can vary by regional
location including local climate conditions, local
material resources or water availability. One mecha-
nism to acknowledge regional variability categorises
elements into assessment themes and requires users to
select a minimum number of elements from each to
achieve their points. But this approach minimises the
relevance of locality in achieving broader sustainable
goals by coarsely categorising, and perhaps minimis-
ing, elements of local natural environment that ulti-
mately may be significant. In a comprehensive
comparison of US green building assessment pro-
grammes, Retzlaff (2008) found only two pro-
grammes, EarthCraft and the National Association of
Home Builders Green Building, that allowed points to
be earned based on specific adaptation to natural
environmental location. Similarly, a survey of munici-
pal policy administrators identified the lack of flexibil-
ity for local issues as a key flaw in the LEED
assessment system (Retzlaff 2009). Other studies have
shown spatial variations in points earned by specific
criteria (sustainable site, water efficiency, and energy
and atmosphere) across the United States (Cidell and
Beata 2009), or that LEED is not more likely to be
adopted in areas of adverse climate conditions (Kok
et al. 2012). These findings point towards an underly-
ing importance of place not explicitly considered in
the LEED assessment system.
In 2009, the USGBC introduced Regional Priority
Credits (RPCs) to address some concerns of regional
characteristics in green building. However, these
are not new credits, but simply existing credits
that USGBC chapters and regional councils have
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
226 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system

designated as being particularly important for their Table 1 LEED certified buildings in Colorado (USA), 2011
areas (USGBC 2009), and act only as bonus credits
tacked onto the projects overall points. The RPCs Count Percentage
suggest a positive step toward increasing regional
awareness in green building assessment, but whether Year certified
these regional priority credits help achieve deep green 20035 15 4.0
sustainability or act as point grabbers remains 20067 29 7.8
debated. 2008 38 10.2
2009 86 23.1
2010 98 26.3
Research context 2011 106 28.5
If LEED is the dominant and most popular green build- Certification level
ing system, does it credit buildings for pursuing deep Certified 64 17.2
green achievements, as observed through vernacular Silver 119 31.9
architecture and adaptive reuse? If not, what sustain- Gold 171 45.8
ability achievements are promoted through the LEED Platinum 19 5.1
system? Our approach is to critically evaluate LEED LEED version
accreditation through descriptive case studies of six New construction 173 46.4
buildings located in Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Existing building 86 23.1
This region is a geographic cluster of LEED buildings Commerical interiors 61 16.4
and accredited professionals in the United States Core and shell 36 9.7
(Cidell 2009a). Through 2011, there were 373 certi- Other 17 4.6
fied LEED buildings across the state of Colorado Owner type
(Table 1). Most were certified in 2009 (23.12%), 2010 For-profit 161 46.8
(26.34%) or 2011 (28.50%), reflecting the growing Government 121 35.2
popularity by the late 2000s. Most are certified at the Non-Profit 26 7.6
silver (31.9%) or gold (45.8%) levels, and building Individual 20 5.8
owner types tend to be for-profit (46.80%) or govern- Other 16 4.7
ment (35.15%) organisations. New construction Colorado location
(46.4%) and existing building (23.1%) are the most Denver MSA 165 51.1
common versions of certification utilised. Geographi- Northern Front Range 76 23.5
cally, LEED buildings are concentrated in the Denver Southern Front Range 42 13.0
metropolitan area (51.1%) with significant quantities Western/mountains 37 11.5
also in northern and southern front range cities (e.g. Eastern Plains 3 0.9
Fort Collins, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Pueblo).
Approximately 10% of the buildings are located in the Source: The Green Building Certification Institute (www.
well moneyed mountain resort tourist communities; gbci.org), 2011. Compiled by authors
relatively few exist in the remaining rural areas. Some category counts do not equal 373 due to missing data
The Denver and Boulder, Colorado region is or confidential status of building location. Early and pilot
located at a northern mid-latitude with an interior versions aggregated together
continental setting along the foothills of the Rocky
Mountain range, at an average elevation above
1500 m (5000 ft). The region is a semi-arid steppe ern design features of adobe, small windows and
climate receiving 2550 cm (1020 inches) of annual courtyards (Denver Foundation for Architecture
rainfall. The combination of dry conditions, more 2001). These adopted features became the local ver-
intense solar energy and continentality results in large nacular architecture and demonstrate historic low-
seasonal and day-to-night temperature variability technology practices for adaptation to the natural
(Colorado Climate Center 2003), posing challenges to climate systems. We consider these to be prime exam-
building construction in the region. Before the era of ples of deep green building design elements suitable
mechanical and electrical systems, building design for this geographic context.
elements such as operable windows, exterior window For the case studies we selected only LEED gold-
treatments, awnings, overhanging roofs, covered certified buildings, the most common and second
porches and brick construction were used to provide most robust level. When this research was conducted
indoor thermal comfort regulation, moderate heat few retrofitted buildings were certified at this level;
transfer and natural indoor lighting. This vernacular two new building constructions were included for
architecture is historic to Denver, but not unique. The comparison purposes. The final choice of buildings
mining boom of the late 1800s created Denver into an was mitigated by a small selection pool, determina-
instant city and builders adopted more East Coast tion of useful comparison buildings and access to
and Midwestern US styles, rather than the Southwest- detailed LEED accreditation reports. For each building

The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013 2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)
 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system 227

Table 2 Summary of LEED credits earned for six case study buildings

Building (year certified) Earned (possible) points from each LEED criteria category

LEED version SS WE EA MR IEQ IDP Total

4240 Architecture Inc. (2008) 5 (7) 1 (2) 6 (12) 9 (14) 10 (17) 5 (5) 36 (57)
Commercial Interiors v2.0
Rogers Courthouse (2006) 11 (16) 2 (5) 15 (22) 2 (10) 10 (18) 4 (5) 44 (76)
Existing Buildings Pilot
Boulder C.H. Annex (2008) 9 (14) 0 (5) 11 (23) 13 (16) 13 (22) 3 (5) 49 (85)
Existing Buildings v2.0
Boulder Associates (2005) 5 (7) 2 (2) 7 (12) 5 (14) 9 (17) 5 (5) 33 (57)
Commercial Interiors v2.0
Ricketson DU (2005) 8 (14) 4 (5) 8 (17) 5 (13) 9 (15) 5 (5) 39 (69)
New Construction v2.0
EPA Region VIII (2007) 9 (14) 4 (5) 9 (17) 7 (13) 6 (15) 5 (5) 40 (69)
New Construction v2.0/v2.1

Source: Compiled by authors

All buildings were certified at the Gold level
LEED criteria categories: sustainable sites (SS); water efficiency (WE); energy and atmosphere (EA); materials and resources
(MR); indoor environmental quality (IEQ); innovation and design process (IDP)

a point-by-point analysis was conducted, examining if
each LEED credit earned directly or indirectly
rewarded the noted elements of vernacular architec-
ture, as well as for adaptive reuse of the building
structure. Table 2 summarises each buildings earned
LEED credits by category. The next section provides a
brief history of each building and discusses key high-
lights of the credit point analysis.
Case study buildings
4240 Architecture, Inc.
Constructed in 1903 as the Weigele Pipe Foundry, the
4240 Architecture, Inc. building (Figure 1a) today
stands as one of many warehouses along the revital-
ising River North district near downtown Denver. Built
prior to 1920, this is an exemplary adaptive reuse
project that preserves many inherently efficient fea-
tures of a historical building, including operable sky-
lights and windows, brick construction and ample
natural lighting. This project took great pride in its
dedication to creating architectural, planning, and
interior solutions that integrate social, technological,
and aesthetic concerns (BuildingGreen 2009). From
the very initiation of the project, the 4240 Architec-
ture, Inc. team wanted to maintain as many of the
architectural elements of the foundry as possible,
incorporating beams, vents, skylights and cranes into
the fabric of the office space.
This project is an example of a successful adaptive
reuse undertaking; the project used the Commercial
Interiors (CI) certification system instead of Existing
Buildings: Operations and Management (EB:OM). In
2004, LEED introduced its EB:OM certification system
for use with small-scale renovations and building
operations and management. Although it utilises an
existing building, the 4240 Architecture, Inc. project
instead sought certification under the CI system,
which gives the power to make sustainable choices to
tenants and designers, who do not always have
control over whole building operations (USGBC
2011), which was appropriate as 4240 Architecture,
Inc. shares the structure with two separate units whose
owners did not seek certification.
This project earned a total of 36 credits and only
three credits directly or indirectly relate to the reuse of
the historical buildings inherently efficient elements.
The most obvious credit earned relating to the infra-
structure of the building was one point gained for
Building reuse: maintain 40% interior non-structural,
acknowledging the projects reuse of at least 40% of
the interior elements of the foundry aside from the
shell infrastructure of the building. The project also
earned one point for Daylight and views: daylight
75% of spaces, indirectly acknowledging the 28
operable skylights, which allow a natural flood of
daylight into the building, reducing electric lighting
power usage. These operable skylights also allow for
natural ventilation and reduce HVAC system use;
however, credit was not expressly given for this ver-
nacular feature. Finally, the foundry received
acknowledgement for its Innovation in design,
regional materials that applies to the general design
of the project as well as its dedication to utilising
regional materials. While the reuse of the foundry was
not the only design aspect for which the project
earned this credit, the use of the historical building

2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
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228 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
(a)
Figure 1 Sample case study buildings. (a) 4240 Architecture; (b) EPA Region VIII Headquarters
Source: photo credits: Jessica N. Gabriel
was certainly a large part of the project design overall,
and we therefore have associated this credit with the
adaptive reuse aspects of the project. The project uti-
lised the vernacular elements of operable windows
and brick construction, but did not incorporate exte-
rior window treatments, awnings or overhanging roofs
and covered porches.
Byron G. Rogers Courthouse
Unlike the foundry of the 4240 Architecture, Inc.
project, the Byron G. Rogers Courthouse (Figure S1)
was completed in 1965 and represents more problem-
atic aspects of adaptive reuse. Of the approximately
5.02 billion m2 (54 billion ft2) of the existing non-
residential building stock in the United States, 3.34
billion m2 (36 billion ft2) belong to modern-era build-
ings constructed after World War II (Elefante 2007).
The Rogers Courthouse exemplifies the construction
shift from local materials and dependency on passive
lighting and cooling to the increasing popularity of
complex mechanical and electrical systems, less
durable materials, and a heavy reliance on fossil fuels
in the construction and maintenance of buildings. The
original construction design took few cues from the
local environment or regional architectural practices;
the renovation team sought ways to incorporate
climate and vernacular elements, but the original
structure had little to offer. Projects like this are impor-
tant in setting a foundation for best practices in the
renovation and adaptive reuse of these less than ideal,
but ubiquitous, modern-era structures.
The Rogers Courthouse was certified under the pilot
programme for EB:OM, which was chiefly designed to
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
(b)
recognise advances in recycling programs, exterior
maintenance programs, and systems upgrades
(USGBC 2011) of existing buildings. But absent from
the goals of the EB:OM certification system is an
acknowledgment of the importance of whole-building
reuse. Indeed, only one credit concerning the struc-
ture of the building was available in the Continued
existing building use category, but the courthouse did
not meet the minimum requirements to receive this
point.
Instead of the benefits of building reuse, the
Courthouse project gained most of its 44 credits
through Commissioning and maintenance and the
optimisation of energy performance, totalling 15
points in the Energy and atmosphere category.
Commissioning and maintenance includes continu-
ous monitoring and modification of the indoor
atmosphere in addition to standing maintenance
contracts and comprehensive preventative mainte-
nance programs. Ten more credits were earned in
the Indoor environmental quality category, chiefly
through the use of green housekeeping the envi-
ronmental impact of cleaning products, the manage-
ment of chemical storage areas and for the meeting
of indoor air quality standards. While these two cat-
egories were the largest contributors to the Rogers
Courthouses gold certification, no points earned
directly or indirectly addressed the reuse of the
building. The original design of the Courthouse
incorporates limited overhanging roofs and covered
walk and entryways, but it did not receive LEED
credits pertaining to these elements. The project did
not utilise operable windows, exterior window treat-
ments, awnings or brick construction.
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 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
Boulder County Courthouse Annex
In 2008, Boulder County annexed and renovated this
1904 building (Figure S2) to provide the courthouse
with a separate print shop and more administrative
offices. The project placed priority on the buildings
operational efficiency and the needs of the print shop
and occupants. New HVAC and variable air volume
(VAV) systems highlight the measures taken to provide
an old, musty building with high-performance oper-
ating systems and a comfortable indoor atmosphere.
The project earned 49 points, with 13 credits received
each in the Materials & resources and Indoor envi-
ronmental quality categories. Like the Rogers Court-
house, this project did not gain any points that directly
or indirectly addressed the structural reuse of the
building. The courthouse annex project utilised the
original design elements of the building that included
a few overhanging roofs and awnings, operable
windows and brick construction. Absent from the
project were a covered porch and exterior window
treatments.
Boulder Associates Offices
In a project to allow Boulder Associates to practice
what [they] preach (Boulder Associates 2010), this
architecture firm sought to renovate office space
within the old Citizens National Bank Building (Fig-
ure S3) built in 1906 along the Pearl Street Mall in
Boulder, Colorado. The project is unique among these
case studies as it is the only building that is both
located within a National Historic District and is a
local landmark. It was designed by Thomas W. Crock-
ett and was built on the site of a former lumberyard.
After the bank closed in 1931, the building was used
as a post office, dance hall and general commercial
space. Boulder Associates resumes this buildings
tradition of continued use, gaining a LEED gold
certification through the Commercial Interiors v.2.0
program.
Of the 33 points earned in this project, nine credits
were in the Indoor environmental quality category.
Of the two possible points reflecting the direct reuse
of the building, this project failed to achieve any
credit for maintaining 4060% of the interior non-
structural architectural elements. This was the only
direct reference to the reuse of the building in the
certification system. The Boulder Associates project
gained two points for site selection, of which the reuse
of the building must play a part, but is not directly
referenced. According to Boulder Associates website,
this project boasted the use of salvaged pickle barrels,
waste blue jean material, and sunflower seed hulls in
its list of recycled materials, showing a dedication to
the reuse of resources in addition to the infrastructure
of the building. The building is constructed of brick,
utilises operable windows and has a covered entry-
way, but the project did not gain any points that could
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
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229
directly or indirectly be related to these vernacular
design elements. Awnings and an overhanging roof
were not present.
The Ricketson Building: University of Denver, Sturm
College of Law
The University of Denver College of Law was founded
in 1892 and later renamed the Sturm College of Law.
Construction began on the new Ricketson building
(Figure S4) in 2003 on a previously developed site.
With an eye toward longevity, the university sought
LEED accreditation for the new building to promote
both sustainability and the ingenuity the law school
values as one of its guiding principles. The building is
situated facing south to take advantage of passive solar
heating throughout the winter months. The project
took great care in using local building materials,
including locally manufactured brick. Copper roofing
was originally intended to match the existing campus
architectural style, but it became a unique way of
minimising the heat island effect: as the copper ages
and turns green, it becomes less reflective than con-
ventional roofing material and therefore contributes
less heat gains.
This project earned 39 points, with nine credits in
the Indoor environmental quality category. The Rick-
etson project gained one point for site selection by
infilling on a pre-developed lot; no greenfield space
was built upon, and the general infrastructure (water,
sewer and electricity) was already in existence, pre-
serving the embodied energy. The project gained two
credits for water-efficient landscaping by using low-
water indigenous plant species that are adapted to the
unique Colorado climate, which allowed the project
to maintain the landscaping without potable or irri-
gated water. This recognises the regional climate and
addresses a limited water supply, awarding credit to a
deep green action that relies on native plants versus
irrigation technology. Finally, the Ricketson project
gained two credits for the use of local and regional
materials in construction. Although the building uti-
lised partial brick construction, the project did not
gain any points that directly or indirectly could be
related to the vernacular design elements. The project
does not include operable windows, a covered entry-
way or porch, awnings or an overhanging roof.
Environmental Protection Agency Region VIII
Headquarters
This building is the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) headquarters for Region VIII (Figure 1b), serving
six states as well as 27 sovereign tribal nations. Cov-
ering the High Plains of the United States, the EPA
sought to build a project that was informed by the
regional climate and exemplifies the agencys com-
mitment to decreasing environmental impact. As a
government project, the certification process required
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
230 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
close negotiations with the United States General
Services Administration (GSA), and had to comply
with federal regulations regarding security. For
example, these regulations restricted the use of oper-
able windows, one of the easiest and most effective
ways of efficiently regulating indoor thermal comfort.
This project earned 40 points with nine credits
earned in both the Energy & atmosphere and Sus-
tainable sites categories. Like the Ricketson project,
the EPA building gained one point for site selection
and two credits for water-efficient landscaping by
using indigenous plant species, the only credits indi-
rectly related to regionalism in design. The EPA project
also gained two points for the use of local and
regional materials.
Overall, the EPA building relied heavily on light
green methods for its certification. For example, while
some building materials were locally derived, points
were not subtracted for the quarried marble shipped
from India, and credit was given for the bamboo floor-
ing from China given its quality as a highly renewable
resource. The project also earned at least one point for
installing a green roof. This building received three
indirect points for being an infill development project,
one point for site selection and another for brownfield
redevelopment. It also gained a point for development
density; it is located in downtown Denver with easy
access to daily amenities and multiple modes of trans-
portation. The project used partial brick construction
in additional to a covered walkway along the main
entrance side of the building and limited external
window coverings, but as is seen in the previous case
studies, did not receive LEED credit for these ele-
ments. The building uses innovative low-technology
Teflon-coated sails in the buildings atrium to reflect
sunlight nine stories to the lobby floor below, increas-
ing illumination by 22%, naturally, but this innovation
was not credited. As previously mentioned, operable
windows could not be used, and awnings and an
overhanging roof were also absent.
Discussion
Among all six case study buildings only 15 LEED
credit points (out of 241) were earned directly or
indirectly by deep green aspects of vernacular archi-
tecture or efficient qualities of adaptive reuse. Since
building developers seek to obtain enough points for
certification, there is limited motivation to implement
design features inspired by historical-regional archi-
tectural wisdom when recognition of these compo-
nents in LEED is quite minimal. The case study
buildings were nominally rewarded for utilising his-
toric features that work with natural systems for
heating, ventilation, and illumination the largest
energy sinks of most modern buildings. While three of
the oldest buildings contained operable windows,
exterior window treatments, awnings, overhanging
roofs, covered porches or brick construction due to
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
their original construction age, only one building
received credit for having any of these items. The
newer buildings also had some of these features, but
did not receive any credit. At the same time, projects
in this study earned few credits for the reuse of old
building structures. In two projects where the entire
structure underwent renovation, they did not receive
credit for the reuse of an existing building, which
suggests the objective of preserving embodied energy
or mitigating demolition waste is less central to the
LEED mission of green building. Finally, these case
studies agree with the criticisms of LEEDs tendency to
encourage point-grabbing and earning certification
through low-hanging fruit credits. Especially with
reused structures, many of the earned credits were
based on day-to-day building maintenance and opera-
tions, documentation and self-reporting, and design
or technology-driven aspects of particular visibility
and marketable recognition. More than half of the
points gained by the Rogers Courthouse were a result
of commissioning and reporting projects set in place
to assure the efficiency of the green technologies uti-
lised in the project. We find that in assessing green
building success, LEED does not consider geographi-
cal context, and tends to reward high-technology
solutions. This may be in part due to LEEDs original
design to have universal measurable applicability. But
when considering how innovation has always been a
force to drive society forward, the advancements of
building technology through the twentieth century
allowed urban and building design to become devoid
of place specificity and the triumph over nature
approach to building negated the necessity to con-
sider geographical context. Furthermore, part of the
success of LEED is perhaps that in an era of sustain-
ability consciousness technological solutions to green
building allows for a convenient business-as-usual
approach to the use and design of buildings. LEED is
built around rigorous documentation and its suc-
cesses are in seeking to simply reduce the environ-
mental impact of each building, but it is not designed
to meet any specific broader benchmarks in environ-
mental protection (Cidell 2009b). While the many
light green approaches to green building that are
rewarded do help move energy savings and waste
and pollution mitigation in the right direction, our
conclusion is that the balance against rewarding deep
green design approaches limits more transformative
paradigm-shifting advances (Zimmerman and Kibert
2007).
With a significant portion of future office space
coming from existing building stock, one recommen-
dation for LEED is to develop a unique rating system
specific to the repurposing of an old building that
more adequately measures and rewards the greater
long-term environmental savings impact of reused
structures. In this study the reused buildings struggled
to sufficiently fit into the rating systems, many which
favoured newly constructed buildings. In fact, exist-
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
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 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
ing building seems a misleading title, as these rating
system checklist measures are less about reusing and
retrofitting an existing building, but more on the daily
operations and maintenance. Future research could
explore the process by which developers and design-
ers select a particular rating system, and compile rec-
ommendations based on their experiential and local
perspectives. Also, we suggest that the USGBC can
put more value into locally appropriate building
design by working with local USGBC chapters, as
well as historical architects, environmental landscape
planners and urban designers to create design criteria
specific to local conditions. Drawing from the geo-
graphical themes of scale and place, we advocate that
a more effective approach for establishing green
building criteria is one that incorporates more locally
specific measures and objectives.
Beyond recommended improvements to the LEED
system itself, another avenue is to move green build-
ing away from a private, voluntary, large-scale,
market-led model towards localised governance. If, as
some argue, that successful achievement in sustain-
ability is more a problem of politics and there is a
need for more local governance in sustainability
matters (Lake and Hanson 2000; ORiordan 2004;
Otto-Zimmerman 2012), what are the implications for
green building? What are the urban-political proc-
esses that promote green building? Cities already take
initiative in sustainability policies. In the absence of
federal ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, many US
cities themselves are becoming driving forces for
taking local action towards meeting the Protocols
climate protection targets. For example, PlaNYC,
Chicago Climate Action Plan, GreenPrint Denver, and
King County (Seattle) Climate Plan are key examples
of cities comprehensive long-term sustainability
plans with specific local-level goals of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
Within these plans there are a variety of policy
approaches to fostering green building at the local
scale (Sussman 2008). In GreenPrint Denver the city
government mandates new public buildings to be
LEED certified. The King County Climate Plan does the
same but supplements with additional layers to its
green building ordinance requiring the use of local
building materials, enforcing proper recycling prac-
tices of construction waste, requiring adequate
salmon protection, training local staff with the princi-
ples of green building and planning, and establishing
local partnerships with builders, architects, and green
building organisations. Perhaps most progressive is
PlaNYCs Greener, greater buildings plan, which
sees LEED as good for developing innovations, but not
regulation. Thus, instead of using LEED, New York City
takes a rigorous approach through altering and enforc-
ing building, zoning and energy codes for both new
and existing buildings. This allows greater regulatory
power in reducing energy and pollution across the
citys million-plus building stock.
2013 The Authors. The Geographical Journal 2013 Royal Geographical Society
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231
Conclusion
This paper examined the LEED green building assess-
ment system through the lens of light green and deep
green sustainability ideologies. Through a six-building
case study we found the LEED system to be more
effective at rewarding building systems that reduce
energy consumption and emissions through light
green approaches. The system does not significantly
reward deep green building design that is informed by
the local geographic context, such as vernacular
architecture, nor does it reward the reuse of existing
buildings that preserve embodied energy, mitigate
waste or reuse historical-regional building features.
This research contributes to the body of literature by
bridging green building with urban sustainability, and
draws upon the geographic perspectives of scale,
place and the political and economic linkages
between humans and the environment in cities. The
light/deep green framework helps critically evaluate
how sustainability outcomes are pursued in green
building. In other city and sustainability movements,
such as urban agriculture, waste and recycling, or
land use change, more geographic research should
also dissect such actions through the many shades of
green philosophies (ORiordan 1989). This type of
work has begun in urban transport research where
critics argue that alternative energy vehicles provide a
partial solution one that also needs to be addressed
through changes of individual travel behaviour and
urban structure (Banister 2011).
Our research does, however, have limitations. It is a
small detailed study of six buildings within one urban
region of the United States, thus the findings may not
be uniform across other buildings or regions. By
focusing exclusively on LEED, this study does not
examine other green building assessment systems,
which may offer examples in pursuing deep green
outcomes. This research also does not address the
important debates surrounding adaptive reuse, green
building and historic preservation.
Finally, this paper intends to motivate further
research on the intersections of green building and
urban sustainability in geography. More research is
needed that situates green building among the envi-
ronmental motivations of urban growth machines and
sustainable urban (re)development (Jonas and While
2007; Krueger and Gibbs 2007; While et al. 2004).
What are the political and economic forces that
govern green building today? How does green build-
ing and LEED play a role in mainstreaming and per-
petuating a light green view of sustainability in cities
urban-economic redevelopment agendas? Precisely
because buildings are where everyday activities occur
on a grand scale, local government regulations of
building efficiency has a greater potential for positive
impact on global climate change than the LEED
assessment system alone. Thus, more research is
needed on local governance of green building and
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
232 Urban sustainability and the LEED rating system
can look at examples such as New York City for regu-
lation that suits local economies and environments.
What are key barriers to local regulations of green
buildings? Where regulation does occur, do munici-
palities suffer losses of businesses relocating to neigh-
bouring municipalities without strict green building
codes? What benefits are gained through localised
regulation of green building that improves upon
private, voluntary, market-led green building assess-
ment systems?
Since LEED remains a driving force of green build-
ing, more research is needed to investigate pathways
for a multi-scale assessment programme that is rel-
evant and impactful to global issues, but adds locally
specific layers of assessment. Research could explore
similar themes raised in this paper, but through an
in-depth qualitative approach to interview key players
of green building projects to better understand limita-
tions and benefits based on localised experiences.
This could also explore why and how projects choose
between the different rating system options and
whether a new system is needed to better measure the
impact of reusing existing buildings. Since green
buildings are a visible high-impact form of urban sus-
tainable development, geography should also pursue
interdisciplinary collaborations to further explore geo-
graphic contributions in understanding the sustain-
ability science of green building to better advocate
within political and popular arenas (ORiordan 2004).
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers
and Klaus Dodds for their constructive comments on
previous versions of this article.
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Supporting information
Additional supporting information may be found in
the online version of this article:
Figure S1 Byron G. Rogers Courthouse
Figure S2 Boulder County Courthouse Annex
Figure S3 Boulder Associates
Figure S4 Ricketson Building, Sturm College of Law,
University of Denver
The Geographical Journal Vol. 179 No. 3, pp. 221233, 2013
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