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LEED Principles and LEED Green Associate Study Guide, Third Edition

Copyright © Green Building Education Services, LLC

All rights reserved.

V2.0 | 04.05.2018 | AL
Contents
Chapter 1 – Guiding Principles .......................................................................................................................... 4
Minimum Program Requirements (MPR) ........................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 2 – Integrative Process ......................................................................................................................... 7
Guiding Documents: OPR and BOD ................................................................................................................ 10
Healthcare Prerequisite | Integrative Project Planning and Design ............................................................. 14
Chapter 3 – Location and Transportation ....................................................................................................... 18
LT Credit 1 | LEED for Neighborhood Development Location ...................................................................... 19
LT Credit 2 | Sensitive Land Protection ........................................................................................................... 20
LT Credit 3 | High Priority Site .......................................................................................................................... 24
LT Credit 4 | Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses .................................................................................... 26
LT Credit 5 | Access to Quality Transit ............................................................................................................ 30
LT Credit 6 | Bicycle Facilities .......................................................................................................................... 32
LT Credit 7 | Reduced Parking Footprint ......................................................................................................... 35
Transportation Demand Management ............................................................................................................. 36
LT Credit 8 | Green Vehicles ............................................................................................................................. 37
Chapter 4 – Site Selection ................................................................................................................................. 41
SS Prerequisite 1 | Construction Activity Pollution Prevention ................................................................... 42
SS Prerequisite 2 | Environmental Site Assessment ..................................................................................... 44
SS Credit 1 | Site Assessment .......................................................................................................................... 46
SS Credit 2 | Site Development – Protect or Restore Habitat ....................................................................... 47
SS Credit 3 | Open Space .................................................................................................................................. 50
SS Credit 4 | Rainwater Management .............................................................................................................. 53
SS Credit 5 | Heat Island Reduction ................................................................................................................. 57
SS Credit 6 | Light Pollution Reduction ........................................................................................................... 60
SS School Credit | Site Master Plan ................................................................................................................. 62
SS School Credit | Joint Use of Facilities ....................................................................................................... 63
SS Core and Shell Credit | Tenant Design and Construction Guidelines .................................................... 65
SS Healthcare Credit | Places of Respite ........................................................................................................ 66
SS Healthcare Credit | Direct Exterior Access................................................................................................ 68
Chapter 5 – Water Efficiency ............................................................................................................................ 72
WE Prerequisite 1 | Outdoor Water Use Reduction 30% ............................................................................... 72
WE Credit 1 | Outdoor Water Use Reduction .................................................................................................. 74
WE Prerequisite 2 | Indoor Water Use Reduction 20% .................................................................................. 77
WE Credit 2 | Indoor Water Use Reduction ..................................................................................................... 81
WE Prerequisite 3 | Building-Level Water Metering ....................................................................................... 82
WE Credit 4 | Water Metering ............................................................................................................................ 84
WE Credit 3 | Cooling Tower Water Use .......................................................................................................... 86
Chapter 6 – Energy and Atmosphere............................................................................................................... 93
EA Prerequisite 1 | Fundamental Commissioning and Verification ............................................................. 94
EA Credit 1 | Enhanced Commissioning ....................................................................................................... 101
EA Prerequisite 2 | Minimum Energy Performance ...................................................................................... 106
EA Credit 2 | Optimize Energy Performance ................................................................................................. 111
EA Prerequisite 3 | Building-level Energy Metering ..................................................................................... 114
EA Credit 3 | Advanced Energy Metering ...................................................................................................... 115
EA Prerequisite 4 | Fundamental Refrigerant Management ........................................................................ 118
EA Credit 6 | Enhanced Refrigerant Management ........................................................................................ 118
EA Credit 4 | Demand Response .................................................................................................................... 121
EA Credit 5 | Renewable Energy Production ................................................................................................ 124
EA Credit 7 | Green Power and Carbon Offsets............................................................................................ 126
Chapter 7 – Materials and Resources ............................................................................................................ 134
MR Prerequisite 1 | Storage and Collection of Recyclables........................................................................ 135
MR Prerequisite 2 | Construction and Demolition – Waste Management Planning ................................... 137
MR Credit 5 | Construction and Demolition Waste Management ............................................................... 138
MR Credit 1 | Building Life Cycle Impact Reduction .................................................................................... 142
Building Product Disclosure and Optimization Credit Suite....................................................................... 152
MR Credit 2 | BPDO – Environmental Product Declarations ....................................................................... 154
MR Credits 3 | BPDO – Sourcing of Raw Materials ...................................................................................... 159
MR Credit 4 | BPDO – Material Ingredients ................................................................................................... 163
MR Healthcare Prerequisite | PBT Source Reduction – Mercury ............................................................... 167
MR Healthcare Credit | PBT Source Reduction – Mercury .......................................................................... 167
MR Healthcare Credit | PBT Source Reduction – Lead, Cadmium, and Copper ....................................... 167
MR Healthcare Credit | Furniture and Medical Furnishings ........................................................................ 167
MR Healthcare Credit | Design for Flexibility ................................................................................................ 169
Chapter 8 – Indoor Environmental Quality .................................................................................................... 171
IEQ Prerequisite 1 | Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance .................................................................. 171
IEQ Credit 1 | Enhanced Indoor Air Quality Strategies ................................................................................ 175
IEQ Prerequisite 2 | Environmental Tobacco Smoke Control ..................................................................... 181
IEQ Credit 2 | Low Emitting Materials ............................................................................................................ 182
IEQ Credit 3 | Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan ............................................................. 185
IEQ Credit 4 | Indoor Air Quality Assessment .............................................................................................. 187
IEQ Credit 5 | Thermal Comfort ...................................................................................................................... 190
IEQ Credit 6 | Interior Lighting ........................................................................................................................ 191
IEQ Credit 7 | Daylight ..................................................................................................................................... 195
IEQ Credit 8 | Quality Views ............................................................................................................................ 201
IEQ Prerequisite Schools | Minimum Acoustic Performance ..................................................................... 202
IEQ Credit 9 | Acoustic Performance ............................................................................................................. 204
Key Terms ......................................................................................................................................................... 207
Chapter 9 – Innovation .................................................................................................................................... 208
Chapter 10 – Regional Priority ....................................................................................................................... 213
Chapter 1 – Guiding Principles

LEED’s Goals

The best place to start is to understand ‘why’ undertake the effort to achieve LEED
certification. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) publishes the following 7 goals in
the preface of every reference guide. They are the drivers for the intent and requirements of
all prerequisites and credits.

In addition, these goals inform the weighting of points. If you have ever wondered why one
strategy is worth 5points, but another only 1, it is directly related to these goals. Credits that
offer the greatest benefit toward the most important goals also offer the most amount of
points. The goals are:
▪ To reverse contribution to global climate change
▪ To enhance individual human health and well-being
▪ To protect and restore water resources
▪ To protect, enhance, and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services
▪ To promote sustainable and regenerative material resources cycles
▪ To build a greener economy
▪ To enhance social equity, environmental justice, community health, and quality of
life

Minimum Program Requirements (MPR)

Building upon the goals, the second set of guiding principles are the Minimum Program
Requirements (MPRs). These 3 requirements are the mandatory conditions that make a
project eligible to pursue LEED certification.

The MPRs are not part of the rating system, and project teams do not have to document
them. Acknowledgment that your project meets the MPRs is taken during the registration
process.

MPR 1 | Permanent Location on Existing Land

The first MPR is that the project must be in a permanent location on existing land. The idea
is, if you are going to measure the building energy and water use, it must be from a
consistent location to trend patterns over time. Therefore, boats and mobile homes are
excluded from LEED certification. Prefabricated structures are acceptable as long as they are
not broken down or moved after initial occupancy.

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 In addition, a project may not construct new piers, jetties, infill, or other manufactured
structures over water exclusively for the LEED project. Your project may be located on
such structures only if they were previously developed.

MPR 2 | Reasonable Site Boundary

The second MPR is a project must use a reasonable site boundary. This makes sure the
building and features primarily used by its occupants are accurately evaluated. The site
includes hardscapes, parking, stormwater treatment, and landscaping. The boundary should
be contiguous land delineated by ownership, management, or lease. Gross floor area of the
project building should be no less than 2% of the gross land area within the boundary.

MPR 3 | Project Size Requirements

The third MPR is a project must comply with the project size requirements. The size
requirements are all different based on the type of rating system. Make sure you check the
rating system or reference guide to make sure you know what the minimums are for your
project type.

As an example, a BD+C project must include a minimum of 1,000 square feet (93 square
meters) of gross floor area. An ID+C project must include a minimum of 250 square feet
(22 square meters) of gross floor area.

Selecting a Rating System

Project teams are empowered to select the rating system and adaptation that best fits their
project building’s program. There are lot of online resources to help you make the best
selection, including this fun, interactive graphic (http://www.usgbc.org/discoverleed/). The
rating system adaptations covered in this study guide are as follows:

▪ LEED BD+C: New Construction and Major Renovation. New construction or

major renovation of buildings that do not primarily serve K-12 educational,
retail, data centers, warehouses and distribution centers, hospitality, or healthcare
uses. New construction also includes high-rise residential buildings with 9 stories or
more.
▪ LEED BD+C: Core and Shell Development. Buildings that are new construction or
major renovation for the exterior shell and core mechanical, electrical, and
plumbing units, but not a complete interior fit-out.
▪ LEED BD+C: Core and Shell is the appropriate rating system to use if more than
40% of the gross floor area is incomplete at the time of certification.
▪ LEED BD+C: Schools. Buildings made up of core and ancillary learning spaces
on K-12 school grounds.
▪ LEEDBD+C: Schools may optionally be used for higher education and non-academic
buildings on school campuses.

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 ▪ LEED BD+C: Retail. Buildings used to conduct the retail sale of consumer
product goods. Includes both direct customer service areas (showroom) and
preparation or storage areas that support customer service.
▪ LEED BD+C: Data Centers. Buildings specifically designed and equipped to meet
the needs of high-density computing equipment such as server racks used for data
storage and processing.
▪ LEED BD+C: Data Centers only addresses whole building data centers (greater
than 60%).
▪ LEED BD+C: Warehouses and Distribution Centers. Buildings used to store
goods, manufactured products, merchandise, raw materials, or personal
belongings, such as self-storage.
▪ LEED BD+C: Hospitality. Buildings dedicated to hotels, motels, inns, or other
businesses within the service industry that provide transitional or short-term
lodging with or without food.
▪ LEED BD+C: Healthcare. Hospitals that operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and
provide inpatient medical treatment, including acute and long-term care.
▪ LEED BD+C: Homes and Multifamily Lowrise. Single-family homes and
multifamily residential buildings of 1 to 3 stories. Projects 3 to 5 stories may choose
the Home’s rating system that corresponds to the ENERGY STAR program in
which they are participating.
▪ LEED BD+C: Multifamily Midrise. Multifamily residential buildings of 4 to 8
occupiable stories above grade. The building must have 50% or more residential
space. Buildings near 8 stories can inquire with USGBC about using Midrise or
New Construction, if appropriate.

Key Terms | Guiding Principles

MPR
Previously Developed
Hardscape
Site Boundary
Rating System

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Chapter 2 – Integrative Process

Integrative Process

The integrative process is a foundation in LEED v4 and uses the knowledge of team
members to find the best solutions for a project. LEED has encouraged for many years
integrated project teams, but now in LEED v4, it is actually rewarding projects for
documenting the process.

The first thing you will notice is this credit is not part of any category. It isn’t found under
Sustainable Sites, Innovation in Design, or any other category. The credit stands alone. There
is also a prerequisite for Integrative Project Planning and Design, exclusively for the
Healthcare rating system. Because the idea behind this credit impacts every LEED credit, it
was not put in a category by itself, nor was it added to an existing credit.

The Integrative Design credit is optional for all rating systems except LEED for Healthcare.
But smart teams will follow the guidance and easily earn the point with straightforward
documentation of the teamwork that adds value to their project. The goal is to uncover
opportunities that might be missed in a more traditional process.

The Integrative Process credit in LEED v4 asks design teams to explore energy- and water-
related improvements early in design. Moreover, it asks teams to use energy modeling to
explore synergies and cost impacts across interrelated systems to perform holistic
investigations rather than the targeted, credit-specific calculations.

IP vs. IPD

Integrated/Integrative—what’s in a name?

The terms ‘integrated’ and ‘integrative’ are often used interchangeably. Originally the term
integrated was used to describe this collaborative design process, but Bill Reed, president of
the Integrative Design Collaborative and a principal of Regenesis Development, has
championed the use of the term integrative because it is a verb in present tense and the work of
this iterative, ongoing process is never done. Appreciating this distinction, many organizations
in the sustainability movement have adopted the term integrative, although both terms are still
in use.

Another point of confusion is the overlap with the AIA’s Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
Guide. AIA’s IPD is a contractual agreement with the owner, designer, and contractor
where all these parties share the benefits and risks of a development project.

7
 Using the Integrative Process (IP) to steer Integrated Project Delivery is a natural fit. Just
remember IP is the process and IPD is the contract.

The USGBC official definition of the integrative process is “…an iterative, collaborative
approach that involves a project’s stakeholders in the process from visioning through
completion of construction and throughout building operation.”

It has to be collaborative; having a dialog between participants. The challenge is working

under a project budget and schedule. The timeline includes everything from the initial
visioning charrette through building operations. Building professionals need to look at a
project through different lenses—not just design or construction. To fully understand what
impact the building operations will have, teams must consider how the design process affects
both the construction and the operations together. It’s great if a LEED project has a very lofty
goal for energy performance, but if the facility managers can’t operate the building when it’s
done, it doesn’t matter how good the design was.

What is the Building’s Purpose?

Essentially, the integrative process needs to first and foremost understand the purpose of the
project. Who it is serving, and what is the mission. Engage everyone to understand what their
needs are, what their wants are, and what their expectations are for the building’s
performance. You have to establish what the drivers are for the project; to set the rules for the
project that will not be broken. Why are you building this building? If you understand the
purpose, the mission, and the drivers, you can create the elements that are important to the
stakeholders by measuring the value—that is what integrative design is all about.

Integrative Project Team

Who is in the integrative project team? You are inviting everyone with particular areas of
expertise. There are a lot of team members with varying responsibilities.

▪ Owner’s capital budget manager

▪ Architect or building designer
▪ Mechanical engineer
▪ Structural engineer
▪ Energy modeler
▪ Equipment planner
▪ Acoustical consultant
▪ Telecommunications designer
▪ Controls designer
▪ Food service consultant

8
 ▪ Infection control staff
▪ Building science or performance testing agents
▪ Green building or sustainable design consultant
▪ Facility green teams
▪ Physician and nursing teams
▪ Facility managers
▪ Environmental services staff
▪ Functional and space programmers
▪ Commissioning authority
▪ Community representatives
▪ Civil engineer
▪ Landscape architect
▪ Ecologist
▪ Land planner
▪ Construction manager or general contractor
▪ Life cycle cost analyst; construction cost estimator
▪ Lighting designer
▪ Other disciplines appropriate to the specific project type

By getting feedback from everyone early on and having the stakeholders interact together, all
phases of the project benefit. Resources get used more efficiently, costs are reduced, change
orders are reduced, and a higher value building is achieved.

Discovery and Implementation

With this new credit, LEED rewards projects for using an integrative process. The credit
focuses on the discovery portion of the integrative process: preparation, evaluation, and
conceptual design. This is the very earliest part where project team members are getting an
understanding of the unique needs and challenges of their projects, an understanding of the
project goals, what the owner ultimately wants, and what their priorities are.

The idea is you are at least looking at water and energy analysis during two early phases. The
discovery phase is commonly referred to as schematic design, pre-design, or performance
analysis. The implementation phase is the actual design, once you get into the construction
details, and eventual construction.

The discovery process is very important because the performance analysis is going to tell you
exactly how the building should perform. It’s going to give you great insight into not only how
the building performs (outputs) but what the drivers are (inputs) to make it

9
 perform in a certain way and to be able to manage that building. The building’s outputs, i.e.,
energy use, water use, etc., are going to define the environmental footprint of that building.
It’s really important to be able to understand what the systems, or drivers, are and their
sensitivities so the whole team can optimize the inputs.

The purpose here is to really take all of that information, put it together and make early
design decisions that help the project in its execution and in its operation. Ideally, projects
will lessen the number of decisions that are changed as the project team goes through
construction, or at least lessen the number of challenges faced along the way because the
right things were considered upfront, including budget and schedule.

To make this credit more attainable to project teams the focus was placed on ways to get the
project team to develop valuable documentation that would help with building performance
rather than submitting meeting notes and project goals. The credit includes worksheets that
walk the project team through the iterative analysis associated with their energy and water
related systems. Documentation is done by completing a worksheet and providing a simple
box energy model result.

The big issue with the integrative process is getting the owner to understand that it’s going to
take some time and require everyone to get involved and meet for a day. Everyone agrees on
the priorities, and then everyone continually checks in to ensure that the goals and priorities
stay in focus as the project moves along.

Guiding Documents: OPR and BOD

Every LEED project is supposed to be guided by two documents, the Owner’s Project
Requirements (OPR) and Basis of Design (BOD), which define the project goals and
strategies for meeting them. The BOD is the information necessary to accomplish the OPR,
including system descriptions, indoor environmental quality criteria, design assumptions,
and references to applicable codes, standards, regulations, and guidelines.

These documents are required as part of the basic commissioning process, which has long
been mandatory in LEED. Basic commissioning doesn’t begin until the design documents
are 50% completed, however—and project teams, being deadline driven, all too often fail to
produce the OPR and BOD until that time.

The integrative process credit defines steps that must happen before design gets underway to
inform the content of those documents. You have to address positions early in the process.
You can’t decide at 50% construction that you’re going to collect all your rainwater in your
building. You cannot decide at 50% construction that you are going to change the systems in
your building. You have to do it much earlier in the process.

10
 Beginning in discovery and continuing throughout the design phases, identify and use
opportunities to achieve synergies across disciplines and the building’s energy and water
related systems. Use the analyses to inform the OPR, BOD, design documents, and
construction documents.

Energy Modeling Analysis

What would you want to do for energy in the discovery phase? Collect information in order
to establish a baseline. Every decision made going forward will be compared to the baseline.
You can’t establish your baseline half way through the construction. By then you have
designed your building and there is no opportunity to make changes in the design.

Perform a preliminary ‘simple box’ energy modeling analysis before the completion of
schematic design that explores how to reduce energy loads in the building and accomplish
related sustainability goals by questioning default assumptions. Assess at least two potential
strategies associated with each of the following:

▪ Site conditions, such as assessing shading from surrounding buildings

▪ Massing and orientation, and their impacts on HVAC loads, energy use, and
renewable energy
▪ Envelope attributes, such as insulation levels, glazing ratios, and shading
▪ Lighting levels, in occupied spaces and interior surface reflectance
▪ Thermal comfort ranges, including expanding the comfort zone
▪ Plug and process load reductions
▪ Programmatic and operational settings, such as schedules, occupancy, and
required square footage

Some software packages allow you to do a very quick model on the schematic design and
frankly those interactions are really critical. Often by the time the full energy model is done
it’s too late to make significant changes. The decisions need to be made early before
anything moves forward, especially trying to balance the relationships among systems. A lot
of new buildings are still including a lot of glass curtain walls and you start to wonder
whether it is possible to optimize the energy efficiency of the design with that kind of form.

11
Energy Documentation

For credit documentation, demonstrate how the analysis informed design and decisions in
the project’s OPR including the following, as applicable:

▪ Building and site program

▪ Building form and geometry
▪ Building envelope and façade treatments on different orientations
▪ Elimination and/or significant downsizing of building systems (e.g., HVAC,
lighting, controls, Exterior materials, interior finishes, and functional program
elements); and
▪ Other systems

Water Budget Analysis

Water improvement is the next part of the integrative process. Can you get non-potable
sources for sewage conveyance? Will waterless urinals be acceptable for the occupants? If
it’s a hotel project, what is the lowest shower flow rate the owner will allow?

For water related systems, perform a preliminary water budget analysis before the completion
of schematic design that explores how to reduce potable water loads in the building and
accomplish related sustainability goals. By just documenting what project teams are planning,
projects can earn this credit and have big water savings.

A water budget is a project-specific method of calculating the amount of water required by

the building and associated grounds. The budget takes into account indoor, outdoor, process,
and makeup water demands, including any on site supply like rain or greywater. Water
budgets are associated with a specified amount of time, such as a week, month, or year and a
quantity of water.

It’s like your personal budget at home. Take into account your water related income, from
supply sources such as rainwater and graywater, and compare it to the water expenditures:
toilets, irrigation, and cooling towers.

Assess and estimate the project’s potential non-potable water supply sources and water
demand volumes, including the following:

▪ Indoor water demand. Assess flow and flush fixture design case demand
volumes, calculated in accordance with WE Prerequisite Indoor Water Use
Reduction.
▪ Outdoor water demand. Assess landscape irrigation design case demand volume
calculated in accordance with WE Credit Outdoor Water Use Reduction.

12
 ▪ Process water demand. Assess kitchen, laundry, cooling tower, and other
equipment demand volumes, as applicable.
▪ Supply sources. Assess all potential non-potable water supply source volumes,
such as on-site rainwater and graywater, municipally supplied non-potable water,
and HVAC equipment condensate.

Water Documentation

And again, you need to document how the analysis informed design and equipment
selection decisions in the project’s OPR and BOD and the eventual design of the project,
including the following, as applicable:

▪ plumbing systems
▪ sewage conveyance and/or on-site treatment systems
▪ rainwater quantity and quality management systems
▪ landscaping, irrigation, and site elements
▪ roofing systems and/or building form and geometry; and other systems

Using the USGBC Worksheet

The Integrative Process worksheet supplied by USGBC can help project teams organize the
information required for credit documentation. Looking at the form, the steps are to:

▪ Describe the baseline assumptions for each component.

▪ Describe at least two potential load reduction strategies that were assessed for each
aspect through the simple box energy modeling before the completion of schematic
design.
▪ Describe how research and analysis uncovered through the discovery influenced
the project building program, form, geometry, and/or configuration.
▪ Provide a brief explanation of how the research and analysis uncovered through
discovery influenced the project design and/or resulted in system downsizing. If
applicable, give reasons for not addressing topics.
▪ Describe how this process informed changes made to the OPR and BOD.

You don’t have to use the worksheet, but it’s helpful if you don’t want to create your own
system.

Timeline

When are you going to work on this credit? The requirements make it pretty clear: before the
completion of schematic design, your energy and water analysis budgets need to be
completed. The owner and most of your lead designers are going to be involved in providing
input into these two primary building systems: water and energy.

13
Healthcare Prerequisite | Integrative Project Planning and Design
The healthcare adaptation has an Integrative Project Planning and Design prerequisite. It is
the only rating system adaptation that has this prerequisite. The intent is to maximize
opportunities for integrated, cost-effective adoption of green design and construction
strategies, emphasizing human health as a fundamental evaluative criterion for building
design, construction, and operational strategies. We’ll review the prerequisite requirements
because the process for the prerequisite reinforces the same process we just discussed to have
a successful integrative design.

Health Mission Statement

Prepare an OPR document. Develop a health mission statement and incorporate it in the OPR.
The health mission statement must address ‘triple bottom line’ values: economic,
environmental, and social. Include goals and strategies to safeguard the health of building
occupants, the local community, and the global environment, while creating a high-
performance healing environment for the building’s patients, caregivers, and staff.

If you work on a non-healthcare project, the OPR should have a mission statement that would
be related to the project type or goals. In the case of a healthcare project, this OPR will of
course be specific to the hospital’s mission.

Preliminary Rating Goals

As early as practical and preferably before schematic design, conduct a preliminary LEED
meeting with a minimum of 4 key project team members and the Owner or Owner’s
Representative. As part of the meeting, create a LEED action plan that, at a minimum:

▪ Determines the LEED certification level to pursue (Certified, Silver, Gold, or

Platinum);
▪ Selects the LEED credits to meet the targeted certification level; and
▪ Identifies the responsible parties to ensure the LEED requirements for each
prerequisite and selected credit are met.

Again, this is something project teams need to do anyway for a LEED project. You’re going
to sit down with the project team and discuss what credits we can achieve, what our target
certification level is, and who is going to be responsible for those credits we work toward.

Design Charrette

As early as practical and preferably before schematic design, conduct a minimum 4-hour,
integrated design charrette with the project team as defined above. The goal is to optimize the
integration of green strategies across all aspects of building design, construction, and
operations, drawing on the expertise of all participants.
14
 This should be starting to sound familiar if you have worked on a LEED project or one
with an integrative design. Write a mission statement, develop performance goals, vet
materials, and identify desired occupant experiences.

Selecting a Team

A lot of big firms are doing this process already, but what if it’s new territory? Some owners
may be used to hiring an architect and having the architect take care of everything else, like
hiring the consulting engineers, and other team members. That might not work to get
optimum results.

What if the project team has one LEED v4 expert and that person finds a new job, and
everyone else doesn’t have a clue what’s going on or why they are doing it. That’s a
problem too.

The lighting design is usually going to play a critical role in many areas of the project, so
what happens if the lighting consultant or the lighting designer isn’t well versed in
integrative design. Another problem.

Picking the right team members is a critical decision. Do they have experience, do they buy
into the process, do they understand the why and the how? You need to have buy-in from
the team, and make sure there is more than one expert, or better still, junior staff who can
shadow the expert and learn.

If you’re project goal is a Gold or Platinum level certification, you’ll probably want a team
that thinks outside the box as well, so they can come up with creative solutions to earn the
maximum number of points available by having synergies between credits.

IP Case Study

Clearly the integrative process is a dynamic and creative venture for all involved. Just as it
evolves individual projects from conventional practice to sustainable to regenerative, the
integrative process itself will evolve to meet the ever-new and demanding opportunities in the
design of our built environment. Only by learning and evolving with it will we be able to
create the sustainable future we envision for our children.

We’ll close this presentation with an example of what can be achieved through the
integrative process.

This is the Bullitt Center, a super-efficient office space at 1501 East Madison Street,
designed to become the world’s largest functioning, commercial Living Building, using an
estimated 83% less energy than a typical Seattle office building and achieving Net Zero
Energy and Net Zero Water.

15
The building reaches these goals through a variety of systems such as:

▪ A high-performance building envelope

▪ A layout designed to optimize natural light, an estimated 82% of the Center’s
spaces are lit by natural sunlight
▪ Careful coordination with tenants to reduce their ‘plug loads’ by over 75% through
the use of high-efficiency monitors, copiers, laptops, zero clients, and cloud-based
servers
▪ 26-bore, 400-foot-deep geo-exchange HVAC system that harvests energy from the
earth to provide efficient heating and cooling
▪ Radiant floor system to efficiently heat and cool office spaces
▪ 242 KW rooftop photovoltaic array to provide all the net energy needed for the
building
▪ Rainwater and greywater reclamation systems including a 56,000-gallon cistern to
capture rainwater and a constructed wetland to treat greywater
▪ Foam flush, composting toilets reduce toilet water consumption by 96%

Each week there was a meeting with the architects, owner, and contractor, as well as
subcontractors as needed. Working closely with the engineers, every change the architects
made had to move closer to the performance target. The engineers examined the performance
impact of each design change to understand its impact on the building performance. It is a
systems-based design approach, both organic and science-based.

Margaret Sprug noted that this was more of an integrated process with the engineers than on
any other Miller Hull project she had worked on in her office, and Brian Court commented
that this project is the first purely performance-driven design for the firm.

“The attention-getting elements of the Bullitt Center—100% onsite renewable energy, water
and waste management, as well as a safe, naturally day-lit and ventilated work environment
built to last 250 years—follow from an equally exciting integrated design process that enabled
us to move beyond the traditionally linear design, engineering and construction process to
orchestrate a diverse team targeting the seemingly impossible together, right from the start,”
said Craig Curtis, design partner with The Miller Hull Partnership. “In considering first and
foremost how to design a building with essentially no environmental footprint, it was
energizing to identify imaginative and elegant ways to beautifully express the building’s core
performance functions through design strategies using a mix of existing and new technologies,
systems, and materials. While in one sense we had to do more with less, we happily found that
designing to high-performance targets actually opened up numerous formal design
opportunities.”

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Key Terms | Integrative Process

Integrative
Holistic
IPD
Iterative
OPR
BOD
Simple box energy model
Envelope
Water budget
Health Mission Statement
Charrette
Regenerative

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Chapter 3 – Location and Transportation

New Category

Let’s get started with the Location and Transportation (LT) credit category. This is a new
credit category for LEED. While it is a new credit category, most of the credits were
extracted out of the sustainable sites category from the prior version of LEED. If you worked
on a LEED for New Construction project under LEED 2009, these credits should look
familiar to you.

Community Relationships

Why the division? The credit categories were divided to separate a building’s relationship to
its community versus its relationship to its site and the site ecosystem.

To be successful with the credits in the LT category, a project team is going to need to be
familiar with the surrounding areas of the site and the public transportation that is available.

Synergy with Neighborhood Development Projects

The LT credit category has 8 credits and no prerequisites.

▪ LT Credit 1: LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND) Location

• Can earn up to 16 points. That is a huge number of points and emphasizes
how LEED is trying to push sustainable neighborhoods and the alignment
between the other rating systems and the LEED ND rating system, so they
all become a more cohesive family of rating systems.
▪ LT Credit 2: Sensitive Land Protection; can earn 1 point
▪ LT Credit 3: High Priority Site; can earn 2 points
▪ LT Credit 4: Surrounding Density and Diverse Areas; can earn up to 5 points
▪ LT Credit 5: Access to Quality Transit; can earn up to 5 points
▪ LT Credit 6: Bicycle Facilities; can earn up to 1 point
▪ LT Credit 7: Reduced Parking Footprint; can earn 1 point
▪ LT Credit 8: Green Vehicles; can earn 1 point

What is interesting to note here is if you add up the points from credits 2 through credits 7,
they come out to a total possible of 16 points. That is the same as the maximum for the

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 LEED ND location credit. What’s happening here is if you locate a project in a LEED ND
development, your paperwork gets streamlined and just went down significantly. This was
one of the goals for LEED v4. By tying the rating systems closer together, the paperwork
gets reduced.

Project teams may only submit either credit 1 solely, or any combination of credits 2-7 to
achieve the maximum of 16 points. Of course, if locating your project in a LEED ND
location isn’t possible, you still have the option of earning up to 16 points by attempting the
other credits in this category. It will just take more documentation to do so.

LT Credit 1 | LEED for Neighborhood Development Location

Let’s start with the credit for LEED ND Location. The intent of this credit is to avoid
development on inappropriate sites, to reduce vehicles miles or kilometers traveled, and to
enhance livability and improve human health by encouraging daily physical activity. This is a
new credit and encourages selection of a LEED ND certified site. This credit is designed to
give project teams a streamlined path to earn points.

Must be a LEED ND certified project

The requirements are to locate the project within the boundary of a development certified
under LEED ND (Stage 2 or Stage 3 under the Pilot or 2009 rating systems, Certified Plan or
Certified Project under the LEED v4 rating system). Your project team needs to find a LEED
ND project to site the building in.

As we mentioned in the introduction, if a project attempts this credit then the project is not
eligible to earn any of the other LT credits.

Point Distribution

The number of points a project can earn varies based on the project type, and the
certification level of the LEED ND project. The possible point totals are listed in this table.

Certification Points Core Points

Points NC Points School
Level and Shell Healthcare
Certified 8 8 8 5
Silver 10 12 10 6
Gold 12 16 12 7
Platinum 16 20 15 9

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 This table is going to be handy during your preplanning. Don’t just assume that putting your
project in a LEED ND location is going to earn you the most points in this category. It’s
possible that by achieving credits 2 through 7 individually or in some combination that your
project could earn more points than attempting the LEED ND location credit.

Review Question

True or False: Project teams that attempt LT Credit LEED ND Location can also attempt
other credits in the LT category.

Answer is: False. Your project can either attempt this credit or attempt one or more of the
other credits were going to be discussing next. If you pursue this credit, your documentation
is easier.

LT Credit 2 | Sensitive Land Protection

The intent is to avoid the development of environmentally sensitive lands and reduce the
environmental impact from the location of a building on a site. This credit is the evolution
of the Sustainable Sites Credit Site Selection in LEED 2009. This credit addresses wetlands,
water bodies, floodplains, and prime farmland.

2 Options

There are 2 options for this credit. The first option is to develop on previously developed
land. The second option is to develop on previously developed land or land that does not
meet the criteria for sensitive land. Each option can earn 1 point, and you pick one option or
the other.

Option 1: Previously Developed Land

Option 1 requires locating the development footprint on land that has been previously
developed. There are some key terms here that are important for this requirement.

The development footprint is the total land area of a project site covered by buildings, streets,
parking areas, sidewalks, and other typically impermeable surfaces constructed as part of the
project. It’s not just the building itself, but the entire sum of all physical development. It’s
not enough to put the building on a previously developed area and put the parking lot next
door in a greenfield.

And what does previously developed mean? It is land that has been altered by humans, such
as paving, construction, and/or land use that would typically have required regulatory
permitting to have been initiated (alterations may exist now or in the past). If 100% of the
land within your LEED boundary is previously developed, you may build

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 anywhere. If 40% of the area within the LEED project boundary is previously developed,
your project team has to prioritize that 40% of the site for new development. The date of
previous development permit issuance constitutes the date of previous development but
permit issuance in itself does not constitute previous development.

So, it’s a bit of a technical definition to determine if your site is previously developed, rather
than just looking at an empty paved parking lot and saying, “OK, this is a previously
developed site.”’ In prior LEED versions, there would be projects on huge greenfields and a
tiny portion of the land was developed, and the project team would say, “Oh; previously
developed.” That is not the case anymore.

Land that is not previously developed and landscapes altered by current or historical
clearing or filling, agricultural or forestry use, or preserved natural area use are considered
undeveloped land. By developing on previously developed land, we can conserve and
preserve undeveloped land, which promotes natural habitats for species diversity and
stormwater infiltration.

Option 2: Avoid Land Meeting Sensitive Criteria

Option 2 applies to undeveloped land, or greenfield conditions. The intent is avoiding

building on land that meets one of the sensitivity criteria.

Do not develop on portions of sites that meet any of these criteria. When it says, “Do not
develop,” think carefully about what development means.

Development means not just the building. It’s also hardscapes, roadways, and sidewalks,
which are all parts of the building project. When it says don't develop, the requirements
mean all of those.

Prime Farmland

Do not develop on prime farmland. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) defines
prime farmland. In addition, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) maintains
detailed maps with soil data identifying soil as prime, unique, or of state significance.

Floodplains

Do not develop on undeveloped floodplains. What if there was somewhere in New Orleans
that falls into a flood plain, but it previously had a building on it? If I develop there, am I
still eligible to receive this credit? And the answer is yes. It’s only new developments or
previously undeveloped areas that aren’t allowed within this limit.

However, developed areas are OK. Flood hazard maps must delineate areas with a 1% or
greater chance of flooding in any given year. FEMA is the referenced standard used to
determine floodplains.

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Habitat

Protect habitats for endangered species. Remember there are both endangered plant and
animal species. There are several standards used for identifying endangered species. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sponsors both the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the
NatureServe Heritage Program. The act lists threatened and endangered animals.
NatureServe classifies habitats that are home to species identified as GH (possibly
extinct), G1 (critically imperiled), or G2 (imperiled).

Water Bodies

Do not develop land within 100 feet (30 meters) of a water body such as a stream (including
intermittent streams), arroyo, river, canal, lake, estuary, bay, or ocean. It does not include
irrigation ditches. This buffer is generous because if human impacts affect the water body
from stormwater runoff, it will quickly end up in the ocean or our drinking water supply.

Wetlands

Do not develop land within 50 feet (15 meters) of any wetlands. Wetlands are areas
inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to
support a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.
This buffer is smaller than water bodies because the primary purpose of a wetland is to
filter water of contaminants! That doesn’t mean you can pollute at will, but if you need a
metaphor, wetlands are nature’s water filter.

International Projects

For international project teams, you may need to identify local equivalencies from many
reference standards. Working with a qualified biologist or ecologist may be necessary to
identify those local equivalencies. Organizations likely to have qualified members include
the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, the Institute of Ecology
and Environmental Management, and the Institute of Environmental Management and
Assessment.

Implementation

The credit does allow for making minor improvement within the wetland and water body
buffers if these improvements are for the betterment of the site. Improvements include:

▪ Bicycle and pedestrian pathways no more than 12 feet wide (3.5 meters), of
which no more than 8 feet (2.5 meters) may be impervious
▪ Activities to maintain or restore native natural communities and/or natural
hydrology

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 ▪ One single-story structure per 300 linear feet (90 linear meters) on average, not
exceeding 500 square feet (45 square meters)
▪ Grade changes necessary to ensure public access
▪ Clearings, limited to one per 300 linear feet (90 linear meters) on average, not
exceeding 500 square feet (45 square meters) each
▪ Removal of the following tree types:
• Hazardous trees, up to 75% of dead trees
• Trees less than 6 inches (150 millimeters) diameter at breast height
• Up to 20% of trees more than 6 inches (150 millimeters) diameter at breast height
with a condition rating of 40% or higher.
• Trees under 40% condition rating
▪ The condition rating must be based on an assessment by an arborist certified by the
International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) using ISA standard measures, or local
equivalent for projects outside the US.
▪ Brownfield remediation activities

As you consider that list, you can visualize how each of those improvements does indeed add
to the user experience of the site. Allowing your project occupants to visually connect with
natural habits can increase their awareness of how special these ecosystems are to the
broader community. Minor improvements align with the triple bottom line that respects
people and the planet as equally valuable to your building’s profit.

Sample Question

A technology firm is deciding on a location to build a new data center. Which of the
following sites would be most appropriate?
A. Developed site 30 feet (9 meters) from a fishing stream
B. Land with a species classified as possibly extinct by NatureServe
C. Undeveloped land in a flood plain as defined by FEMA
D. Undeveloped land that is 40 feet (12 meters) from a stream
E. Brownfield that is 80 feet (24 meters) from a wetland
F. Organic tree nursery defined as prime farmland

E is the correct answer.

Focus on the word ‘most.’ First prioritize conservation of greenfields; B, C, and D are off-
limits. Now there are 3 choices remaining; all previously developed sites: A, E, and F. A is
too close to the stream; development should be at least 100 feet from a body of water. F is
classified as prime farmland, which meets the definition of sensitive site and will not earn
the credit. E is highly desirable for a LEED project. It is a brownfield, so it is previously
developed, and it is more than 50 feet from the wetland.

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LT Credit 3 | High Priority Site
The next LT Credit is High Priority Site. The intent is to encourage project location in areas
with development constraints and promote the health of the surrounding area.

This credit merges the Brownfield Redevelopment credit from LEED 2009 along with a
credit that is in the LEED ND rating system into this new credit for LEED v4. The credit
encourages project teams to select sites with difficult development constraints.

Three Options

▪ Option1 is to locate the project on an infill site in a historic district. 1 point for
BD&C, 2 points for CS.
▪ Option 2 is to locate the project in an area with a priority redevelopment
designation. 1 point for BD&C, 2 points for CS
▪ Option 3 is brownfield remediation. 2 points for BD&C, 3 points for CS

Historic Districts

A historic district is a group of buildings, structures, objects, and sites that have been
designated or determined to be eligible as historically, culturally, or architecturally
significant, and categorized as either contributing or non-contributing to the historic nature of
the district. These districts are usually designated by a local or national group or agency. A
100-year-old neighborhood doesn’t automatically qualify as historic just because its old—it
has to be designated as such. In the United States, we have the National Register of Historic
Places that has the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation.

An infill site is a site where at least 75% of the land area, exclusive of rights-of-way, within
½ mile (800 meters) of the project boundary is previously developed. A street or other right-
of-way does not constitute previously developed land; it is the status of property that matters.
Developing on an infill site contributes to the overall health and livelihood of a neighborhood
by reducing vacant space for crime and blight. Layering this benefit over a historic district
ensures the longevity of the social character and regional vernacular. These can be very
desirable places to live or work.

Priority Designation

This option is where you find the rating system working on the economic and social nature
of the LEED rating systems. They are trying to get projects to move into underserved
neighborhoods and areas to promote growth.

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 Locate the project on one of the following:

▪ a site listed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National
Priorities List
▪ a Federal Empowerment Zone site
▪ a Federal Enterprise Community site
▪ a Federal Renewal Community site
▪ a Department of the Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions
Fund Qualified Low-Income Community
▪ a site in a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Qualified
Census Tract (QCT) or Difficult Development Area (DDA)

Note that the project will qualify as a priority designation if only part of the site is located
within one of the priority designations. In the LEED documentation the project team will need
to include a site map that indicates the portion of the site in the priority area. Projects outside
the US can use a local equivalent program administered at the national level.

Brownfield Remediation

The definition of brownfield is property reuse which may be complicated by the presence,
or potential presence, of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. For this option
projects locate the building on a brownfield where soil or groundwater contamination has
been identified, and where the local, state, or national authority (whichever has jurisdiction)
confirms its remediation.

Your team is either going to remediate the site, or you can locate on a site that has already
been remediated and designated as a brownfield. Contaminated sites can be identified by
two different processes. The owner may perform a phase two environmental site
assessment to demonstrate that contamination is present. Sometimes, a site is designated as
a brownfield by local, state, or federal government agencies. Either one of these counts as a
brownfield redevelopment.

Remediation is the process of cleaning up a contaminated site by physical, chemical, or

biological means. Remediation processes are typically applied to contaminated soil and
groundwater. Project teams have to perform remediation to the satisfaction of the identified
authority.

Environmental Site Assessment

A phase two environmental assessment tells you what the problems are and perhaps
suggests what remediation is needed. Then the remediation experts would come in to
help you identify what needs to be done. The scope of work varies based on type and

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 magnitude of contamination. It could be safely demolishing existing structures or treating
soil and groundwater.

New technologies can minimize site disruption, treat contamination, and monitor the site
factors like air and water to ensure contaminants do not return.

Case Study: Tassafaronga

Tassafaronga in Oakland, California earned LEED for Homes Platinum Certification and
LEED ND Plan Gold. The project is an apartment building with supportive housing units,
medical facility, and townhouses. The project size is 7.5 acres with a budget of $58 million.

Tassafaronga was originally founded in 1945 by the U.S government as temporary housing
for wartime workers in Oakland’s shipyards. In 1964, the Oakland Housing Authority
(OHA) acquired the property and replaced the original structures with 87 concrete low-rise
public housing units. Tassafaronga Village, as the project was quaintly and optimistically
christened, devolved into a breeding ground for drug and gang crime. Deep fissures in the
concrete and seismic issues added to the deteriorating scenario. For decades, Tassafaronga,
in Oakland, California, sat in a blighted condition, continually declining, and the home of
crime and drug lords. It was a dangerous brownfield, tainted with asbestos, lead, and toxic
insecticides.

Creative financing and environmentally enlightened development strategies brought about

transformation. In 2007, OHA secured permission to demolish the project, officially deemed
‘severely distressed.’ Tassafaronga Village was ultimately dismantled and rebuilt with 97%
of its waste materials recycled, many reused on site, including existing concrete foundations
ground up for the project's new road base.

LT Credit 4 | Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses

The intent of this credit is to conserve land and protect farmland and wildlife habitat by
encouraging development in areas with existing infrastructure and social benefits. Density
promotes walkability, transportation efficiency, reduces vehicle distance traveled, and
improves public health by encouraging daily physical activity.

Two Options

While this is really 1 credit, it offers two distinct and different options for point
achievement. The first option is surrounding density which can earn 2 to 3 points. The
second option is diverse uses, which can earn 1 to 2 points. Projects may pursue both
options.

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Surrounding Density

The goal is to locate the project on a site whose surrounding density within ¼ mile (400
meters) meets the following thresholds for either combined, or separate residential and non-
residential densities.

Combined Separate Residential and Points BD+C Points Core

Density Non-residential (except CS) and Shell
SF/acre Densities
DU/acre FAR
22,000 7 0.5 2 2
35,000 12 0.8 3 4

Residential density is measured by dwelling units per acre or hectare. Non-residential

density is measured by floor area ratio. If the number of dwelling units cannot be
determined, combined density calculations are the best path. For mixed-use building, apply
a weighted average.

Density Calculations

For documentation, you’ll need a map of your project site with a ¼ mile or 400-meter
radius drawn around the project site. If a building falls halfway within the radius, it is still
counted in the calculations. You count the entire building, not just the percentage that
falls within the radius.

You can find out the size of the buildings from the local tax assessor’s office. Start with
what you think are the most-dense buildings first. If the dense buildings are enough to meet
the credit requirements, then you can stop calculating the rest of the buildings because
you’ve met the requirements at that point.

Include all properties in the density calculations except for undeveloped public areas such as
parks and water bodies. Also, do not include public roads and right-of-way areas. You do
have to include any unused, buildable land within the radius. Do not include the project
building, or non-habitable space, such as parking garages.

Diverse Uses

The goal is to locate the project within a ½ mile (800-meters) walking distance of diverse
uses. The key here is walking distance, not a fixed radius. Meaning it can’t be on the other
side of the freeway which is within ½ mile ‘as the crow flies,’ but is inaccessible without
walking more than ½ mile. Proximity to 4 to 7 uses earn a project 1 point, or 2 points for 8
or more.

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Use Types and Categories

A use type is something the public would use, like a library or a bank. That’s key—it has to
be a publicly available use—not a private club. It also has to exist at the time of submitting
the LEED certification documents. Uses that are planned but not completed don’t count.

LEED defines the following use categories:

▪ Food retail include supermarkets and other food stores with produce sections
▪ Community serving retail, which include
• Convenience store
• Farmers market
• Hardware store
• Pharmacy
• Other retail
▪ Services, which include
• Bank
• Family entertainment venue such as a theatre or sport place
• Gym, health club, exercise studio
• Hair care
• Laundry, dry cleaner
• Restaurant, café, diner (excluding those with only drive-thru service)
▪ Civic and community facilities, which include
• Government office that serves public on-site
• Medical clinic or office that treats patients
• Place of worship
• Police or fire station
• Post office
• Public library
• Public park
• Social services center
▪ Community anchors uses, like a commercial office, or housing

There are some restrictions on counting the uses:

▪ A use counts as only one type (e.g., a retail store may be counted only once even
if it sells products in several categories).

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 ▪ No more than 2 uses in each use type may be counted (e.g., if 5 restaurants are
within walking distance, only 2 may be counted).
▪ The counted uses must represent at least 3 of the 5 categories, exclusive of the
building’s primary use.

Diverse Use Calculations

On a map, draw a ½ -mile walking distance from the building’s main entrance. Mark all the
uses. You can do this with Google maps or a similar mapping program. Show that the uses are
easily walk accessible. If there were any obvious obstacles, like rivers or freeways, it would
show how those would be crossed. The review staff are quite particular in the documentation
as to if there is a safe pedestrian path, or sidewalk that lets people access the services safely.

Rating System Adaptation

For healthcare projects, either option may earn just 1 point for achieving the lowest density
thresholds (22,000 SF/ac, 7 DU/ac, 0.5 FAR) or 7 uses.

A warehouse, as you might expect, isn’t likely to be located near diverse uses or in dense
areas, so the options are completely different. Warehouse Option 1 is renamed, Development
and Adjacency, which can earn 2 to 3 points. Construct or renovate the project on a
previously developed site that was used for industrial or commercial purposes. (2 points). Or
project teams can construct or renovate the project on a site that is both a previously
developed and an adjacent site. The adjacent sites must be currently used for industrial or
commercial purposes (3 points).

Warehouse Option 2 is renamed, Transportation Resources, which can earn 1 to 2 points.

For this option, construct or renovate the project on a site that has two or three (1 point) or
four (2 points) of the following transportation resources:
▪ The site is within a 10-mile (16 kilometer) driving distance of a main logistics
hub, defined as an airport, seaport, intermodal facility, or freight village with
intermodal transportation.
▪ The site is within a 1-mile (1600-meter) driving distance of an on-off ramp to a
highway.
▪ The site is within a 1-mile (1600-meter) driving distance of an access point to an
active freight rail line.
▪ The site is served by an active freight rail spur.

In all cases, a planned transportation resource must be sited, funded, and under construction
by the date of the certificate of occupancy, and complete within 24 months of that date.

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LT Credit 5 | Access to Quality Transit
The intent of this credit is to encourage development in locations shown to have multimodal
transportation choices or otherwise reduced motor vehicle use, thereby reducing greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution, and other environmental and public health harms
associated with motor vehicle use.

Stops and Service

This credit has two requirements. First, locate any functional entry of the project within a
¼-mile (400-meter) walking distance of existing or planned bus, streetcar, or rideshare
stops, or within a ½-mile (800-meter) walking distance of existing or planned bus rapid
transit stops, light or heavy rail stations, commuter rail stations or ferry terminals. This is
the establishment portion of the credit. Planned stops and stations may count if they are
sited, funded, and under construction by the date of the certificate of occupancy and are
complete within 24 months of that date.

In addition to proximity, the transit services need to meet trip minimums. This is the
performance portion of this credit. Each transit routes must have service in opposite
directions, however, only trips in one direction are counted toward the threshold. Transit
must meet the minimums for both weekend and weekday to count. The next page displays a
table identifying the multiple thresholds to reward increased frequency of service.

Minimum Daily Service for Multiple Transit Types (bus, streetcar, light rail, ferry)
Points BD+C Points
Weekday Trips Weekend Trips
(except CS) Core and Shell
72 40 1 1
144 108 3 3
360 216 5 6

Minimum Daily Service for Commuter Rail or Ferry Service Only (long distance)
Points all
Weekday Trips Weekend Trips
projects
24 6 1
40 8 2
60 12 3

Projects served by two or more routes where neither route provide greater than 60% of daily
rides may earn an additional point for diversity of service.

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Temporary Detours

If existing transit service is temporarily rerouted outside the required distances for less than
two years, the project may meet the requirements, provided the local transit agency has
committed to restoring the routes with service at or above the prior level. This can be an
issue with construction projects where traffic is detoured while the construction is going on.

Documentation

Similar to the Density and Diverse Uses credit, compliance is verified by locating your
project building on a map that identifies all transit stops and pedestrian walking distance
from building entries.

In addition, teams must count aggregate trips available at all qualifying transit stops.
Compliance can be demonstrated by any combination of bus, rail, etc. to meet the minimum
daily stops. Timetables or service-level documentation must be provided to verify available
trips.

Example Transit Service Summary

Weekend Weekend Weekend
Weekday
Day A Day B Average
Bus #1 100 75 25 50
Bus #2 80 60 30 45
Light Rail 25 18 10 14
Total 205 109
Point
Threshold 3 3

Example Route Diversity Summary

Weekend
Weekday Total
Average
Bus 80 60 137 (80%)
Light Rail 25 10 32 (20%)
Total Service 105 67 172
This example does not meet 60% for extra point.

Rating System Adaptations

The school adaptation has two options. Option 1 is Transit-Served location. It’s similar to
what we just discussed except there are no weekend trip requirements, just weekday only.
The walking distance and minimum trip numbers are all the same from the base credit. The
point totals for mixed transit types are 1, 2, or 4.

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 Option 2 is Pedestrian Access. Show that the project has an attendance boundary such that
the specified percentages of students live within no more than a ¾ mile (1200-meter)
walking distance (for grades 8 and below, or ages 14 and below), and 1-1/2-mile (2400
meters) walking distance (for grades 9 and above or ages 15 and above) of a functional entry
of a school building. If 50% of students are within walking distance, the project earns 1
point; 2 points for 60%, and 3 points for 70% or more.

To document pedestrian access, use mapping software to create a walkshed boundary based
on appropriate radius. The walkshed conveys a representation of walkability that is
customized to the school address. Overlay the walkshed boundary with an attendance
boundary map and estimate what percentage of students are within the walkshed boundary.

The Healthcare rating system also has an adaptation that requires weekend trips but offer
limited points—only 1 or 2 based on the first two thresholds of daily rides.

Exemplary Performance

Double the highest transit service point threshold for an additional point in the Innovation
category (except Schools Option 2).

LT Credit 6 | Bicycle Facilities

The intent of this credit is to promote bicycling and transportation efficiency and reduce
vehicle distance traveled, and to improve public health by encouraging utilitarian and
recreational physical activity.

New to LEED v4 is the addition of a bicycle network requirement. In the past, projects just
had to install bicycle storage and shower rooms. It was considered an easy point to get, but
the intent to promote health and reduce vehicle miles was missed. By requiring the project
to be located near a bicycle network, LEED is trying to get more people to actually ride
their bikes to work by having part of the requirements be proximity to a safe and reliable
bike lane or path.

Bicycle Network

First, we’ll look at the bicycle network requirements—if you don’t have this, you can’t earn
the credit. A bicycle network is a continuous network consisting of any combination of the
following:

▪ physically designated on-street bicycle lanes at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide

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 ▪ off-street bicycle paths or trails at least 8 feet wide for a two-way path and at
least 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide for a one-way path
▪ streets designed for a target speed of 25 mph (40 kmh)

The bicycle network must connect one of the following: 10 diverse uses, access to
quality transit, or a school or employment center (if 50% or more residential). All
destinations must be within 3 miles of the project. Planned lanes or trails may be counted
if fully funded by date of occupancy and scheduled for completion within one year.

Bike Storage and Showers

The requirements vary by building type, but they all require both long and short-term
bicycle storage, minimum 4 each (8 total), and at least one shower with changing facility.

Case 1 is for commercial or institutional projects

Provide short-term bicycle storage for at least 2.5% of all peak visitors, but no fewer than 4
storage spaces per building.

Provide long-term bicycle storage for at least 5% of all regular building occupants, but no
fewer than 4 storage spaces per building in addition to the short-term bicycle storage spaces.

Provide at least one on-site shower with changing facility for the first 100 regular building
occupants and one additional shower for every 150 regular building occupants thereafter.
Visitors not included in this calculation because they are assumed to stay for only short
visits.

Case 2 is for residential projects

Provide short-term bicycle storage for at least 2.5% of all peak visitors but no fewer than 4
storage spaces per building.

Provide long-term bicycle storage for at least 30% of all regular building occupants, but no
less than one storage space per residential unit in addition to the short-term bicycle storage
spaces.

Case 3 is for mixed-use projects

Meet the Case 1 and Case 2 storage requirements for the non-residential and residential
portions of the project, respectively.

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Storage Accessibility

For all projects, short-term bicycle storage must be within 100 feet (30 meters) walking
distance of any main entrance. This could be near the main lobby where a visitor or guest is
going to arrive and conveniently park their bike for quick entry, like a courier delivering a
package.

Long-term bicycle storage must be within 100 feet (30 meters) walking distance of any
functional entry.

Note the slight difference there. Short-term storage must be near a main entrance, long-term
storage may be near any functional entry. Long-term storage could be in a covered parking
deck or at the back of the building near secure entry reserved for employees only.

Sample Calculation

How many bike storage spaces and showers are required for an office building with:
▪ 100 occupants working 8 hours per day
▪ 20 part-time employees in the building working 4 hours per day
▪ 50 daily average visitors, 30 peak time visitors.

1) Calculate the full-time equivalents (FTE) to identify regular occupants for long-term
storage.
100 FTE + ((20 part-time x 4 hours) / 8 hours per day) = 110 FTE or regular building
occupants.
2) Select peak visitors to identify short-term storage requirements. Note: ‘daily average’
refers to the number of visitors over a 24-hour period; ‘peak’ is the number of visitors
measured at highest occupancy. We will use 30 visitors in this example.
3) Calculate storage required for regular occupants at 5% of total:
110 x 0.05 = 5.5, round up to 6, verify it meets minimum of 4 – yes
Provide 6 long-term bike storage spaces
4) Calculate storage required for visitors at 2.5% of total:
30 x 0.025 = 0.75, round up to 1, does not meet minimum of 4
Provide 4 short-term bike storage spaces.
5) Calculate showers required with the following equation:
If regular occupants > 100; 1 + [(regular building occupants – 100) / 150] = showers 1
+ [(110-100)/150] = 1.067, round up to 2
Provide 2 showers.

Summary:
Provide 6 long-term bike storage spaces for 110 regular occupants.
Provide 4 short-term bike storage spaces for visitors.
Provide 2 showers to regular occupants.

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 Advocacy

When the project team is considering site locations, don’t eliminate sites that don’t have
access to a bicycle network without trying to work with the local government. They might
be willing to work with by adding bike lines, lowering the street speed limit, or helping in
other ways.

LT Credit 7 | Reduced Parking Footprint

The intent of this credit is to minimize the environmental harms associated with parking
facilities, including automobile dependence, land consumption, and rainwater runoff. The
implication is if there’s less parking, people are motivated to walk, get a bus, get a bike, or
do something other than drive.

Requirements

The referenced standard used in this credit is the Institute of Transportation Engineers’
Transportation Planning Handbook, third edition (http://www.ite.org/). To earn the credit,
project teams must not exceed local code, and provide parking capacity that is either 20% or
40% less than the baselines adapted from the ITE guidance. The LEED reference guide
offers over 70 use types and associated parking ratios in units like space/SF, space/DU, or
space/seat. In addition, projects must provide preferred parking for carpools for 5% of total
parking spaces after the reduction.

Reduction based on LT Credit Synergy

If your project has not attempted any points under Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses
credit or Access to Quality Transit credit, Case 1, projects must achieve a 20% reduction
from the base ratios.

If your project anticipates earning 1 or more points under Surrounding Density and Diverse
Uses or Access to Quality Transit, Case 2, projects must achieve a 40% reduction. This
increased threshold encourages projects in dense neighborhoods to employ rigorous design
strategies to support transit ridership and open space at ground level.

5% Preferred Parking

LEED defines preferred parking as the parking spaces closest to the main entrance of a
building (exclusive of spaces designated for handicapped persons). For employee parking,
it refers to the spaces that are closest to the entrance used by employees.

Preferred parking is not required if no off-street parking is provided. Do not count spaces
for fleet vehicles.

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 Implementation

Projects with no off-street parking automatically achieve credit compliance and do not
require preferred parking spaces. To reduce parking below code minimums, work with local
zoning officials and apply for a waiver if needed. Designers should also work with future
occupants to estimate parking needs and select a site that balances transit infrastructure with
parking reduction goals.

Ensure that the design does not just displace parking; instead of actually reducing it. If
everyone parks on the street instead of a private lot, it creates the same problems as having a
big parking lot, potentially even more.

Transportation Demand Management

Especially in the United States, the concept of reducing parking lot size can be met with
opposition and uncertainty. Creating a Transportation Demand Management Plan is a great
strategy to overcome barriers to reducing parking, however, it is not required for credit
achievement.

Beyond locating near mass transit, building owner or managers can initiate programs to
alleviate the need for parking. Physical programs could be sharing parking with neighboring
buildings or providing shuttles between the project building and transit hubs. Social
programs could be allowing telecommuting, compressed work weeks, or providing transit
subsidies. Residential buildings can consider renting or selling parking separately from the
dwelling unit.

Calculation Example

Let’s say your project is a major renovation of a 10,000-square-foot health club in an

existing property with 100 parking spaces. The project is also attempting LT Credit:
Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses. How should they redesign their parking lot to
achieve LT Credit: Reduced Parking Demand?

1) Calculate baseline parking capacity using the table in the reference guide. For
health clubs, the baseline is 7 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet.
(10,000 / 1,000) x 7 = 70 parking space is the baseline for this project.
2) Calculate parking reduction based on LT credit synergies. Since the project is also
attempting Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses, it must achieve a 40% parking
reduction.
70 x 0.04 = 28 space reduction
3) Arrive at target space count but subtracting the reduction from the baseline.
70-28 = 42 spaces in final design
4) Designate 5% of total as preferred parking.

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 42 x 0.05 = 2.1, round up to 3. Three spaces should be marked with signage near
the main entry as reserved for carpools.
5) Create a plan to renovate existing parking lot. Since 100 spaces already exist on the
site, but we can only have 42 to earn the credit, the project must demolish 58 spaces.
Since the building already exists, we cannot design the footprint to go on top of these
demolished spaces. Instead, the next best function of that area is a permeable,
vegetated use to promote water infiltration and reduce the heat island effect synergies
with the Site Selection category. Since it is a health club, you may even consider a
community vegetable garden.

Exemplary Performance

To achieve exemplary performance, triple or double the parking reduction from the baseline
capacity. Case 1 must demonstrate a 60% reduction and Case 2 must demonstrate an 80%
reduction.

LT Credit 8 | Green Vehicles

The intent of this credit is to reduce pollution by promoting alternatives to conventionally
fueled automobiles. This credit requires two components to promote green vehicle ownership:
providing preferred parking and providing fueling stations. Parking spaces that include fueling
stations must be provided separate from, and in addition to, preferred parking spaces for green
vehicles.

The first thing we need to know is what’s a green vehicle? LEED’s definition is vehicles
achieving a minimum green score of 45 on the American Council for an Energy Efficient
Economy (ACEEE) annual vehicle rating guide. International project teams must use a local
equivalent that addresses fuel economy and vehicle emissions ratings, including particulate
matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide (CO), and present
a side-by-side comparison.

5% Preferred Parking

To incentivize building users to purchase and drive cars like a low-emission vehicle (LEV),
designate 5% of all parking spaces as preferred parking for green vehicles. Distribute
preferred parking spaces proportionally among various parking sections (e.g., between short-
term and long-term spaces). A discounted parking rate of at least 20% for green vehicles is
an acceptable substitute for preferred parking spaces. The discounted rate must be publicly
posted at the entrance of the parking area and permanently available to every qualifying
vehicle.

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2% Alternative-Fuel Fueling Stations

To encourage building users to invest in green vehicles like a hybrid or zero emission
vehicle (ZEV), install alternative fuel stations. Consider the legal, technical, and safety
issues when selecting the type of fuel to provide on-site, and choose one of the following
two options.

Option 1 is electrical vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Clearly identify and reserve these
spaces for the sole use by plug-in electric vehicles.

The EVSE must:

▪ Provide a Level 2 charging capacity (208 to 240 volts) or greater
▪ Comply with the relevant regional or local standard for electrical connectors
▪ Be networked or internet addressable and be capable of participating in a
demand-response program or time-of-use pricing to encourage off-peak charging

That last requirement is key because it’s not something you would normally think of—the
charger has to be connected to the Internet. You can do that via Wi-Fi, cellular, or a hard
line to the project’s network. This requirement is a synergy with energy and atmosphere
credit demand response (DR).

Option 2 is for liquid, gas, or battery facilities. Examples of low-polluting, non-gasoline fuels
include hydrogen, propane, compressed natural gas, liquid natural gas, and ethanol. Install
liquid or gas alternative fuel fueling facilities or a battery switching station capable of
refueling a number of vehicles per day equal to at least 2% of all parking spaces.

When providing alternative fueling stations, poll future building occupants to see what fuel
they need. Compare the environmental and economic costs and benefits of alternative fuels,
and research local codes and standards for fueling stations in the area. Project teams also
need to learn about the safety and maintenance issues associated with alternative fuels

Rating System Adaptations

Schools have an additional option to provide green buses and school-owned vehicles in lieu
of preferred parking and fueling stations. One hundred percent of school buses must meet
emissions standards within 7 years of the building’s certificate of occupancy.
▪ NOx emissions of 0.50 grams or less per brake horsepower-hour
▪ particulate matter emissions of 0.01 grams or less per brake horsepower-hour
▪ 100% of all other non-bus fleet vehicles must achieve a green score of 45 or
more

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 For Warehouse projects there are two different options.

Option 1 is to purchase at least one yard tractor that is powered by electricity, propane, or
natural gas, and a refueling station for the tractor. Yard tractors are trucks that move trailers
around a warehouse yard. Think of it like one of those small vehicles that are used to push
around big airplanes at the airport.

The second option for warehouse projects is to reduce truck idling. Provide outlets for at
least 50% of loading dock doors so drivers can operate in-cab features without leaving their
truck engines idling at the dock. An example of this would be a refrigerated trailer containing
perishable produce. The truck needs to stay running to keep the contents cool. Instead of
leaving the truck idling while it’s waiting to be unloaded, the trailer could be hooked up to
electricity from the loading dock, so the truck engine can be turned off while the trailer
contents are kept cold.

Location and Transportation Synergies

Schools have an additional option to provide green buses and school-owned vehicles in lieu
of preferred parking and fueling stations.

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Key Terms | Location and Transportation

wetlands
water bodies
floodplains
flood hazard maps
prime farmland
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
endangered species
NatureServe Heritage Program
greenfield
previously developed
stormwater infiltration
arborist
International Society of Arboriculture (ISA)
National Register of Historic Places
infill site
brownfield
remediation
phase II environmental assessment
density
dwelling units per acre (DU/ac)
floor area ratio (FAR)
non-habitable space
walking distance
main logistics hub
freight rail spur
Transit-Served location
walkshed boundary
bicycle network
peak visitors
Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Transportation Planning Handbook
preferred parking
Transportation Demand Management Plan
American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE)
green score of 45
green vehicles
zero emission
vehicles (ZEV)
electrical vehicle supply equipment (EVSE)

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Chapter 4 – Site Selection

Overview

The Sustainable Sites credit category has 6 common credits between the BD+C Rating
Systems. There are 5 other credits for different LEED adaptations. There is one common
prerequisite, and one prerequisite specific to Schools and Healthcare.

▪ SS Prerequisite 1 | Construction Activity Pollution Prevention

▪ SS School Prerequisite 2 | Environmental Site Assessment
• only required for School and Healthcare projects
▪ SS Credit 1 | Site Assessment
• can earn 1 point for all BD&C rating systems
▪ SS Credit 2 | Site Development Protect or Restore Habitat
• can earn 1 to 2 points for all BD&C rating systems, except for
Healthcare which can earn 1 point
▪ SS Credit 3 | Open Space
• can earn 1 point for all BD&C rating systems
▪ SS Credit 4 | Rainwater Management
• can earn 1 to 3 points for all BD&C rating systems, except for
Healthcare which can earn 1 to 2 points
▪ SS Credit 5 | Heat Island Reduction
• can earn 2 points for all BD&C rating systems, except for Healthcare
which can earn 1 point
▪ SS Credit 6 | Light Pollution Reduction
• can earn 1 point for all BD&C rating systems

It’s worth remembering which credits have multiple points associated with them. The
implication there is that they have a greater environmental benefit. The Architects of LEED
v4 have weighted credits based on their contributions to the 7 goals mentioned in chapter
one of this study guide.

We can see in this section that Rainwater Management is inherently more important than,
Light Pollution Reduction. In addition, School and Healthcare projects have extra
sensitivities, which require Environmental Site Assessments, whereas that approach is
optional for other rating systems.

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 These next credits are specific to certain rating systems.

▪ SS School Credit | Site Master Plan

• can earn 1 point for Schools
▪ SS School Credit | Joint Use of Facilities
• can earn 1 point for Schools

▪ SS Core & Shell Credit | Tenant Design and Construction Guidelines

• can earn 1 point for Core & Shell

▪ SS Healthcare Credit | Places of Respite

• can earn 1 point for Healthcare
▪ SS Healthcare Credit | Direct Exterior Access
• can earn 1 point for Healthcare

Bear in mind that, in the end, all rating systems have a total of 110 points, but they distribute
them based on what’s important. You’ll hear it over and over again—it’s important to start
early with these credits as they affect the size and shape of the footprint of your building.

SS Prerequisite 1 | Construction Activity Pollution Prevention

This prerequisite applies to all of the BD&C rating systems. The intent is to reduce
pollution from construction activities by controlling soil erosion, waterway
sedimentation, and airborne dust.

The thing you need to remember is that construction activity pollution refers to erosion and
sedimentation. More explicitly, erosion of top soil harms ecosystem services, and
sedimentation, or silt in stormwater runoff, impairs waterways. To avoid these negative
impacts of construction, teams are required to produce and follow an erosion and
sedimentation control plan (ESC).

What if your project site receives little rainfall? If so, then it probably produces a lot of dust,
so your pollution source is airborne, and your pollution prevention plan must address dust
rather than stormwater sedimentation.

Reference Standard

The ESC plan must comply with the 2012 EPA construction general permit or local
standards and codes, whichever is more stringent. The EPA’s guidance is a really

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 common approach in LEED because it’s a national system adopted by many municipalities.
Of course, LEED says if the local codes or standards are more stringent, you have to follow
those. If the local jurisdiction requires a construction general permit (CGP) based on
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), then using the CGP is a
streamlined path and no additional ESC plan is required. Let’s look at these standards more
closely.

Stormwater discharges from construction activities (such as clearing, grading, excavating,

and stockpiling) that disturb one or more acres, or smaller sites that are part of a larger
common plan of development or sale, are regulated under the NPDES stormwater program.
Prior to discharging stormwater, construction operators must obtain coverage under an
NPDES permit, which is administered by either the state (if it has been authorized to
operate the NPDES stormwater program) or EPA, depending on where the construction site
is located.

Where EPA is the permitting authority, construction stormwater discharges are almost all
permitted under the CGP. The CGP requires compliance with effluent limits and other permit
requirements, such as the development of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP). If
you have driven by a construction site before you may have seen a SWPPP permit posted on
the perimeter right near the entrance to the project. The government takes these very seriously,
and if a project is found to be in violation of the plan, the local agency may shut down
construction until the issues are remedied.

For international projects, you’ll need to find a local equivalent code.

Prevention Activities

Three different categories of action identified within the CGP must be followed for every
project: erosion and sedimentation control, stabilization, and pollution prevention.

Erosion and sedimentation control

▪ Providing natural buffers
▪ Installing perimeter controls
▪ Minimizing sediment track-out
▪ Controlling discharges from stockpiled sediment or soil
▪ Minimizing dust
▪ Minimizing the disturbance of steep slopes
▪ Preserving topsoil
▪ Minimizing soil compaction
▪ Protecting storm drain inlets
▪ Maintaining control measures

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 Stabilization
▪ Deadlines for initiating and completing stabilization
▪ Criteria for stabilization

Pollution Prevention
▪ Prohibited discharges
▪ General maintenance requirements
▪ Pollution prevention standards
▪ Emergency spill notification
▪ Fertilizer discharge restrictions

Project teams should start by evaluating the site-specific needs. Pay attention to slope,
rainwater management control (like existing storm sewers), weather conditions, and
entrances to local roads. Every project will require different strategies to achieve the above
stated actions. For example, you could stabilize the soil through temporary seeding,
permanent seeding, or mulching. Larger structural controls like an earth dike, terracing,
riprap, and a silt fence are frequently used.

You may have driven by a construction site and seen hay bales around sewer drains or next
to sidewalks, this prevents sedimentation in runoff water. In addition, gravel at the
construction entrance helps keep soils on the site and off the roads. Sometimes vehicles are
even washed prior to entering the public right away from a muddy jobsite.

These concepts are not just for LEED compliance. The property owner can be fined for
overburdening the public infrastructure and impacting stable environmental conditions.
Weekly inspections from the local municipality enforce the ESC plan. The ESC plan is
created by a civil engineer and included in the drawing set used by contractor.

SS Prerequisite 2 | Environmental Site Assessment

This one is for schools and healthcare only, which are what you would call sensitive types
of occupancy. The intent is to protect the health of vulnerable populations by ensuring that
the site is assessed for environmental contamination and that any environmental
contamination has been remediated. The assessment shall cover soil, groundwater, and
surface water.

Process

The project team will start with a phase one environmental site assessment (ESA). This
assessment is superficial and limited and identifies whether contamination is suspected. If
the conclusion is, “There was a drycleaner here at some point,” that would mean one

44
 can suspect some contamination. The report may state no contamination if the prior use was
a greenfield or daycare.

If contamination is suspected, then a phase two environmental assessment is required,

including specific and in-depth analysis of soil and water conditions. If contamination is
found or perceived to be on the site, then you are mandated to remediate the site.

Referenced Standard

The Phase I ESA must comply with ASTM E1527-05 procedures. Typical actions include
review of historical records, site visit, interviews, and a full report documenting findings.
No collection of physical samples or chemical analysis is done. LEED considers a Phase I
ESA valid for 180 days. If the assessment is between 180 days and one year old, certain
updates must be made to different sections of the assessment. An assessment older than one
year must be redone.

A Phase II ESA must comply with ASTM E1903-11 procedures. It is an investigation that
collects original samples of soil, groundwater, or building materials to analyze in a
laboratory for quantitative values of various contaminants. Typical findings include:
petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy metals, pesticides, solvents, asbestos, and mold. Sites
previously occupied for industrial or manufacturing use commonly have residual
contamination.

Remediation

If a site is contaminated according to a Phase II ESA, then it must be remediated prior to

reuse. Strategies vary depending on scope and type of contamination. Common remediation
activities include:

▪ Pump and treat

▪ Solar detoxification
▪ Using bioreactors
▪ Land farming
▪ In-situ remediation
▪ On-going monitoring

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SS Credit 1 | Site Assessment
This site assessment is about everything else besides contaminants. The intent is to observe
site conditions before design and evaluate sustainable options to inform major decision. You
can think of it as the integrative process for the site design. Project teams will need to
document a site survey or assessment of the site’s characteristics.

Project teams need to ask: What is happening on the site in terms of soil, habitat, what are
the options for space preservation, what are the human uses of the facility? This credit
encourages project teams to maximize natural qualities of the site to take advantage of
passive water and energy opportunities.

Elements of a Site Assessment:

▪ Topography. Contour mapping, unique topographic features, slope stability risks

▪ Hydrology. Flood hazard areas, delineated wetlands, lakes, streams, shorelines,
rainwater collection and reuse opportunities, TR-55 initial water storage
capacity of the site (or local equivalent for projects outside the US)
▪ Climate. Solar exposure, heat island effect potential, seasonal sun angles,
prevailing winds, monthly precipitation, and temperature ranges
▪ Vegetation. Primary vegetation types, greenfield area, significant tree mapping,
threatened or endangered species, unique habitat, invasive plant species
▪ Soils. NRCS soils delineation, U.S. Department of Agriculture prime farmland,
healthy soils, previous development, disturbed soils (local equivalent standards
may be used for projects outside the US)
▪ Human use. Views, adjacent transportation infrastructure, adjacent
properties, construction materials with existing recycle or reuse potential.
▪ Human health effects. Proximity of vulnerable populations, adjacent
physical activity opportunities, proximity to major sources of air pollution

Timeline

Like the integrative design credit, site assessment is done very early on in the process, so the
findings can influence the design decisions of the project. It begins prior to the conceptual
design, which makes sense, the goal is to have the site influence the design of the project,
such as where it is sited on the property, the building orientation, etc. The architect,
landscape designer, civil engineer, and owner will need to work closely together early on to
gather information and make informed decisions.

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 Research and Documentation

USGBC provides a spreadsheet project teams can use for the site inventory. The reference
guide includes a list of sources for each of the categories to consider. For example, the
vegetation sources on the project you might bring in someone to physically identify the
plant species, aerial maps from google maps for determining the boundaries on the site
where vegetation is, species lists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered
Species list, local land use and zoning maps to locate stream buffers and wetlands, etc.

For the other categories consider topographical maps, soil surveys, previous site
assessments, and climate data.

In your final narrative, project teams should identify the design opportunities impacted by the
site analysis. An example might be, “The northwest corner of the property is at a lower
elevation where water was more likely to run off, so we located our retention pond in that
quadrant. Additionally, a soil analysis and plant inventory guided the landscape architect to
create a plan to restore the natural habitats for local bird populations.”

SS Credit 2 | Site Development – Protect or Restore Habitat

The intent of this credit is to conserve existing natural areas and restore damaged areas to
provide habitat and promote biodiversity. All of the BD&C rating systems can earn 1 to 2
points for this credit, except for Healthcare which can earn 1 point.

What’s new in LEED v4 is the setback requirements from LEED 2009 have been replaced
with standards for preservation, and percentages to preserve and restore.

Approach

This credit has multiple approaches based on pre-existing site condition. All projects must
preserve and protect 40% of the greenfield site condition from development and construction
activity.

In addition, projects can choose either: restore on-site 30% of previously developed total
area, or financial support of a land trust off-site.

Option 1: On-Site Restoration

If you’re on a previously developed site, the goal is to restore 30% of the total site area,
including building footprint, with native or adaptive plants. You can’t use non-native plants
or invasive plants, and you have to restore the soil as well to bring the land closer to its
original ecosystem before it was developed.

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 The soils have to meet the following criteria:

▪ Soils (imported and in situ) must be reused for functions comparable to their
original function. Imported topsoil or soil blends designed to serve as topsoil may
not include the following:
▪ soils defined regionally by the NRCS web soil survey (or local equivalent for
projects outside the U.S.) as prime farmland, unique farmland, or farmland of
statewide or local importance; or
▪ soils from other greenfield sites unless those soils are a byproduct of a
construction process.
Restored soil must meet the criteria in categories 1 to 3 below, as well as meet either
category 4 or 5:
1. organic matter
2. compaction
3. infiltration rates
4. soil biological function
5. soil chemical characteristics

In the beginning of the project, you might have to bring in a local soil expert or conduct
some soil analysis to see what type of soils exist around the site.

Alternative Landscapes

Projects that achieve a density of 1.5 floor-area ratio (FAR) may include vegetated roof
surfaces in this calculation if the plants are native or adapted, provide habitat, and promote
biodiversity.

Project teams may exclude vegetated landscape areas that are constructed to accommodate
rainwater infiltration from the vegetation and soils requirements, provided all such rainwater
infiltration areas are treated consistently with SS Credit Rainwater Management.

Option 2: Financial Support

If a project team chooses not to restore the site or faces other barriers, the building owner can
write a check to a land trust. This option is not providing land, or a donation of land, but
money for land. It meets the intention of preserving habitat for the life of the building.

Project teams must provide financial support equivalent to at least $0.40 per square foot (US
$4 per square meter) for the total site area (including the building footprint). Financial
support must be provided to a nationally or locally recognized land trust or conservation
organization within the same EPA Level III ecoregion or the project’s state.

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 For US projects, the land trust must be accredited by the Land Trust Alliance. For projects
outside of the US, the financial support must be provided to a land trust within 100 miles of
the project (160 kilometers).

Strategies

Meet local zoning requirements, or if not needed, apply for a waiver. Identify areas for
vegetation. Replace paved areas with landscaped areas. That’s the key for this credit—that
you’re restoring a previously developed site to a native habitat condition. On a greenfield
site, you would establish non-disturbance boundaries during construction. That’s saying,
“Okay, general contractor, where can you stage your equipment, your trailer, your debris
bins so they’re not going to encroach on the existing habitat?” That’s part of reducing
disturbance of construction activity. Heavy machinery compacts soil and weakens its ability
to perform its role of filtration in the ecosystem. Consider using paved areas for staging.

Furthermore, think about the building’s placement (if you have that opportunity) and
even the building plan. Look at things like stacked program, tuck-under parking, or
sharing facilities with neighboring buildings.

Calculation Examples

Scenario 1
If you had a 20,000-square-foot site that was 10,000 square feet previously developed and
10,000-square-foot greenfield, the requirements apply to both portion. First, protect 40% of
the 10,000-square-foot greenfield area, or 4,000 square feet. In addition, for the previously
developed portion of the site, 30% of it must be restored, or 3,000 square feet. Altogether,
the project will contain 7,000 square feet of native and adaptive landscaping, or 35% of total
site area. That leaves 13,000 square feet for the building footprint, parking, hardscapes, and
roads. Remember, if a site contains both greenfield and previously developed conditions, it
must meet both requirements.

Scenario 2
A project site is 10 acres (4 hectares). Five acres (2 hectares) of the site have been
previously developed, including a 1 acre (0.4 hectare) building footprint. How much
money must be contributed to a land trust? (Hint: There are 43,560 square feet in an acre,
and 10,000 square meters in a hectare.)

10 x 43,560 sq. ft. x 0.4$/sq. ft. = $174,240 or 4 ha x 10,000 x 4$/ha = $160,000. For large
projects, it will be more cost effective to restore on-site.

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 Rating System Adaptations

In the schools rating system, dedicated athletic fields that are solely for athletic uses are
exempted from the soil restoration criteria. These areas may not count toward the minimum
required area.

Case Study

Ball Horticultural Company wanted to set an example for other corporations by restoring
areas on their corporate headquarters in West Chicago to an ecologically stable landscape.

This included improving erosion control, wildlife habitat, diversity, aesthetics, and air and
water quality. In planning the project, the property was divided into a wetland mitigation
area, south woods, west woods, Oak savanna, existing lawn, tall-grass prairie, and an old
field.

To gain acceptance within the community the company began restoration of the tall-grass
prairie. This area needed the least amount of invasive plant removal and gave the quickest
results with flowers blooming the following spring. To connect the prairie to the wetland, the
west woods and old-field were restored next. With the opening of the canopy in the west
woods, more sunlight reached the ground stimulating the growth of native trees, shrubs,
wildflowers, and grasses. Seed and woody plants were installed within the woods to enhance
the remnant populations.

The wetland mitigation area was vegetated in a year later, and it required a DuPage County
Stormwater permit. A new detention basin and the existing lawn were seeded with native
species, while clearing and seeding began in the South woods as well.

After installation was complete, interpretive signs were installed as well as houses for Blue
Birds, Wood Ducks, and Tree Swallows.

SS Credit 3 | Open Space

The intent of this credit is to create exterior open space that encourages interaction with the
environment, social interaction, passive recreation, and physical activities.

It’s crucial that you differentiate credits with similar names. The last credit was called
protect or restore habitat; this one is open space. What’s the difference?

Both are vegetated landscapes. Open space is a generic description for any kind of tree,
shrub, groundcover, water, and minimal pavement. Habitat is a specific type of landscape
that supports the native ecology and habitats for indigenous plants and animals. Habitat is
generally for the animals and not people. Open spaces must be usable to the project, as
defined by the intent of the credit.
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Space Requirements

The first requirement is the outdoor space must be greater than or equal 30% of the total site
area, including the building footprint.

A minimum of 25% of that outdoor space must be vegetated or have overhead vegetated
canopy.

Turf grass does not count as vegetation for this credit. Artificial turf doesn’t count, or tiny
pieces of open space in the middle of a parking lot that divides rows of parking.

Quality Requirements

The outdoor space must be physically accessible and be one or more of the following:

▪ a pedestrian-oriented paving or turf area with physical site elements that

accommodate outdoor social activities
▪ a recreation-oriented paving or turf area with physical site elements that
encourage physical activity
▪ a garden space with a diversity of vegetation types and species that provide
opportunities for year-round visual interest
▪ a garden space dedicated to community gardens or urban food production
▪ preserved or created habitat that meets the criteria of SS Credit Site
Development—Protect or Restore Habitat and also includes elements of human
interaction

Alternative Spaces

For projects that achieve a density of 1.5 FAR, extensive, or intensive vegetated roofs can
be used toward the minimum 25% vegetation requirement if they are physically accessible.
In addition, qualifying roof-based physically accessible paving areas can be used toward
credit compliance.

Wetlands or naturally designed ponds may count as open space if the side slope gradients
average 1 to 4 (vertical: horizontal) or less and are vegetated.

Campus Projects with Master Plans

If the project is part of a multitenant complex or part of a master-planned location, the open
space can be part of the master development or adjacent to the building as long as it won’t
be developed in the future. This is an option if the open space is shared with the

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 whole plan, such as a park or another outdoor space. The open space also doesn’t have to be
one area. It can be a combination of adjacent open space, and other open spaces around the
master plan.

Strategies for Implementation

These implementations aren’t necessarily linear; they’re a laundry list of things that you
would do.

Minimize the development footprint by stacking floor plans and analyzing the program
needs to design only what is needed.

Choose a location where construction disturbance might be minimized.

It is important that the team consider how much a site and building location may affect other
credits in the LEED rating system. Consider:
▪ Building orientation
▪ Significant drainage
▪ Daylighting
▪ Existing green corridors
▪ Heat island effect
▪ Rainwater runoff
▪ Any other possible green impacts

Design the site to preserve open space and provide connections to adjacent ecosystems.

For multitenant complexes, open space does not have to be adjacent to the building but must
be preserved for the life of the building.

In urban sites, make the hardscapes pedestrian oriented. Provide for recreation opportunities
including pocket parks, roof decks, and courtyards.

For sites using green roofs, the green roofs will require special attention to the following
areas:
▪ Support
▪ Waterproofing
▪ Drainage

Green roofs have a membrane, drainage system, filter cloth, growing medium, and plants.
Consider that some modular green roof systems can be purchased prefabricated.

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 Calculations

The calculations are going to be the trick for this credit. You have two percentages to keep
track of: 30% of the total site must be outdoor space, and 25% of that area must be
vegetated.

Take the total site area and multiply it by 30%. That value is how much open space the
project needs. If you had a 10-acre (4 hectare) project site, 3 acres (1.2 hectares) must be
open space.

25% of 3 acres is 0.75 acres or 0.4 hectares that must be vegetated (but no turfgrass).

SS Credit 4 | Rainwater Management

The intent of this credit is to reduce runoff volume and improve water quality by replicating
the natural hydrology and water balance of the site, based on historical conditions and
undeveloped ecosystems in the region.

Sites under their natural land cover conditions have a natural water balance that has evolved
over millennium. While the precipitation amount remains constant, development alters the
natural water balance. Much of our soil has been sealed and covered with impervious
surfaces and rainwater is converted into runoff. This credit attempts to restore that balance.

By managing rainwater with low impact development and green infrastructure (GI/LID),
project teams can restore and reestablish the natural site water balance that existed prior to
development.

Two Options

Option 1 – Percentile of rainfall events

Option 2 – Natural land cover conditions

Option 1: Percentile of Rainfall Events

There are 3 paths for option 1, and this path is best suited for urban projects with little open
space. The resulting impact is little to no runoff.

Path 1, 95th percentile can earn 2 points, except for healthcare which can earn 1 point.

Path 2, 98th percentile can earn 3 points, except for healthcare which can earn 2 points.

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 Path 3 is for zero lot line projects only. Managing the 85th percentile can earn 3 points
except for healthcare which can earn 2 points.

What is the 95th percentile rainfall event? The measured precipitation depth accumulated
over a 24-hour period for the period of record that ranks as the 95th percentile rainfall depth
based on the range of all daily event occurrences during this period. Meaning, only 5% of all
recorded events had more rain. In general, at least a 20- to 30-year period of rainfall record
is recommended for such an analysis. This raw data is readily available and collected by
most airports across the country.

For each of these paths, project teams are trying to get into the higher percentiles of regional
or local rainfall events using GI/LID, by managing on site runoff from the development
while replicating the natural site hydrology.

Path 3 is for zero lot line projects, or projects that essentially have no ground cover on the
site. The minimum density is a floor area ratio of 1.5 or greater.

Implementation

Use daily rainfall data and the methodology in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) Technical Guidance on Implementing the Stormwater Runoff Requirements for
Federal Projects under Section 438 of the Energy Independence and Security Act to
determine the 95th percentile amount.

The 95th percentile storm would be represented by a number such as 1.5 inches, and this
would be the design storm. The designer would then select a system of practices that
infiltrate, evapotranspire or harvest and use this volume multiplied by the total area of the
project footprint. Retaining all storms up to and including the 95th percentile storm event is
analogous to maintaining or restoring the predevelopment hydrology with respect to the
volume, flow rate, duration, and temperature of the runoff for most sites.

Option 2: Natural Land Cover Conditions

Manage on site the annual increase in runoff volume from the natural land cover
condition to the post-developed condition.

Option 2 is really more for project teams that have a lot of green space and open space. In
that case, you are looking at predevelopment and postdevelopment and managing the
difference. The project team is managing the quantity and quality, where the quantity is
really just the volume.

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 For example, if prior to development, 25% of the annual rainfall runs directly into the
stream and the remainder infiltrates into the ground or is evapotranspired into the air, then
the postdevelopment goal should be to limit runoff to 25% of the annual precipitation while
maintaining the correct aquifer recharge rate. This has the benefit, in most cases, of
delivering water to the stream at approximately the same rate, volume, duration and
temperature as the stream had naturally evolved to receive prior to development. The result
will be to eliminate or minimize the erosion of streambeds and streambanks, significantly
reduce the delivery of many pollutants to water bodies and retain historical instream
temperatures.

Implementation

The volume of runoff to manage is determined by the option and path the project uses.

GI/LID approaches are a set of management approaches and technologies that utilize and/or
mimic the natural hydrologic cycle processes of infiltration, evapotranspiration, and use.
GI/LID practices include green roofs, trees and tree boxes, rain gardens, vegetated swales,
pocket wetlands, infiltration planters, porous and permeable pavements, vegetated median
strips, reforestation and revegetation, and protection of riparian buffers and floodplains.

These practices can be used almost anywhere soil and vegetation can be worked into the
urban or suburban landscape. They include decentralized harvesting approaches such as rain
barrels and cisterns that can be used to capture and reuse rainfall for watering plants or
flushing toilets. Some of these are engineered practices that may require specialized design
assistance from landscape architects or civil engineers.

Many of these strategies you are probably already familiar with, and they can help with
other LEED credits. A vegetated roof is one of the best examples—it reduces rainwater, it
counts as open space, it reduces energy use.

Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure (GI) is a soil- and vegetation-based approach to wet weather

management that is cost-effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly. GI
management strives to infiltrate, evapotranspire, capture and reuse stormwater to
maintain or restore natural hydrologies. Design approaches and technologies preserve
rainwater flows, reduce impervious areas, and minimize and mitigate rainwater runoff.
Recovered rainwater can be used to replace potable water for:
▪ irrigation
▪ fire suppression
▪ toilet flushing
▪ custodial uses

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 In in urban setting projects can’t replicate natural hydrology. What project teams have to do
is remove the excess volume from the runoff. Rainwater harvesting techniques allow the
water to be removed and not directed downstream to where it would cause problems.

Site Design

If a project team is targeting a specific rainfall amount, say 2 inches of rainfall, the first step
is to determine what that rainfall does when it lands on the site. This credit ties into the Site
Assessment credit to understand the hydrology of the site, and analyzing the site: the
typography, vegetation, soils, etc. This information helps to understand how the site worked
in its natural form to help decide how the rainwater can be managed.

When planning the site use, preserve as much of the existing natural site as possible.
Rainfall that lands on the natural areas is being captured onsite—it’s one less raindrop to
worry about. Protect the site’s steep slopes so rainwater doesn’t come rushing down it.
During development, consider how to preserve the soils from being compacted and
protecting the existing trees and vegetation.

Think about how to minimize the development footprint in your design phase—clustering the
development, building up instead of out, reducing frontage and setbacks. The most popular
low impact development strategy is pervious pavement. Parking lots are huge barriers to
natural infiltration and installing permeable concrete or open-grid paving would reduce
runoff compared to traditional parking lots.

Case Study

Portland, Oregon. A 27-acre site with 95% impervious area. If the 95th percentile rainfall event
(1.0 inches) occurred on the existing site (i.e., no control measures), 0.86 inches of runoff
would be generated and require management.

Given these site conditions, there was not enough pervious area to manage the entire runoff
volume discharged by the 95th percentile rainfall event with bioretention. As a result, other
practices were evaluated and selected. The practices integrated into the design included a
green roof, cisterns, and porous pavement. Based on the technical considerations of
constructing and maintaining control measures at the site, it was assumed that approximately
30% of the available pervious area could be converted into bioretention cells; 20% of total
rooftop area could be converted into green roofs; 40% of paved area could be converted into
paver blocks; and 50,000 gallons of total volume could be captured in cisterns for use on
this urbanized site. Using this system of 4 different practices, all runoff for the 95th
percentile rainfall event would be retained.

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SS Credit 5 | Heat Island Reduction
The intent of this credit is to minimize effects on microclimates and human and wildlife
habitats by reducing heat islands.

The idea is that the built environment retains a great deal of heat from the sun, and that
negatively impacts your building’s energy performance, in addition to creating an
uncomfortable outdoor space. When the horizontal hardscape retains heat, it also radiates
heat onto nearby vertical surfaces like walls. When the sun’s rays hit your building’s roof,
heat transfers into your building and requires more energy to cool. It’s a vicious cycle of
heat transfer.

Two Options

The heat island reduction credit has two options, and project teams may pursue both.

Option 1 – Non-roof and Roof, addresses horizontal surfaces and requires reflective
hardscape or roof materials.

Option 2 – Parking Under Cover, addresses the undesirability of surface parking lots.

Option 1: Non-roof and Roof

Option 1: Non-roof and Roof requires project teams to use any combination of strategies that
reduce heat islands. The surface area of compliant strategies gets plugged into a spreadsheet
to see if the goals are met. Your strategies span 3 types: the area of the non-roof measures,
area of high-reflectance roof, and area of vegetated roof, the sum of which needs to be
greater than or equal to the total site paving area and total roof area.

Are of non‐roof Area of high Area of

Total site Total roof
measures reflectance roof vegetated roof ≥ +
paving area area
0.5 + 0.75 + 0.75

You can see by the equation greater weight is given to the roofing areas (75% versus 50%).
Keep that in mind when you are doing your design.

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Non-Roof Strategies

What are some of the non-roof measures a project team should consider?
▪ Minimize hardscape
▪ Use the existing plant material or install plants that provide shade over paving
areas (including playgrounds) on the site within 10 years of planting. Install
vegetated planters. Plants must be in place at the time of occupancy permit and
cannot include artificial turf.
▪ Provide shade with structures covered by energy generation systems, such as
solar thermal collectors, photovoltaics, and wind turbines.
▪ Provide shade with architectural devices or structures that have a 3-year aged solar
reflectance (SR) value of at least 0.28. If 3-year aged value information is not
available, use materials with an initial SR of at least 0.33 at installation.
▪ Provide shade with vegetated structures.
▪ Use paving materials with a 3-year aged SR value of at least
0.28. If 3-year aged value information is not available, use materials with an initial
SR of at least 0.33 at installation.
▪ Use an open-grid pavement system (at least 50% unbound).

Roof Strategies

Use roofing materials that have a solar reflective index (SRI) equal to or greater than the
values in this table.

Slope Initial SRI 3‐yr. ages SRI

Low‐sloped roof ≤ 2:12 82 64
Steep‐slope roof > 2:12 39 32

Additionally, the requirements want you to seek out products that have an aged SRI value.
While a nice shiny new white roof may have an initial SRI of 82, after 3 years of being in the
sun, being rained on, collecting dust and dirt, the SRI may decrease.

Since some projects might not have this information published, if 3-year aged value
information is not available, use materials that meet the initial SRI value. You can still use
the product if the 3-year aged value is not available, but the performance of the roof might
not be what you think it should be 3 years down the road. This is why, when you are
reviewing products, try to find one with a 3-year SRI value.

Projects can also install a vegetated roof to help meet the requirements.

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Option 2: Parking Under Cover

The second option is to place a minimum of 75% of parking spaces under cover. Parking
underground, under deck, or under building complies with the intent. Motorcycle parking
counts as a vehicle parking space, while bicycle spaces do not. Any roof used to shade or
cover parking must:
▪ Have a 3-year aged SRI of at least 32 (if 3-year aged value information is not
available, use materials with an initial SRI of at least 39 at installation)
▪ Be a vegetated roof
▪ Be covered by energy generation systems, such as solar thermal collectors,
photovoltaics, and wind turbines

Implementation

Use a combination of strategies, starting with minimizing the development footprint.

▪ Limit the amount of impervious hardscape
▪ Utilize light-colored paving surfaces
▪ Include a building parking deck or underground parking
▪ Plant vegetation that will provide shade
▪ Open grid paving

There are a lot of measures to use to earn this credit, and since they can be used in
combination with each other, it should be a no-brainer to try to attempt this credit. If an area
meets one or more criteria, you would only count the area once

Use durable high reflective and emissive materials. Check the manufacturing data carefully
for information on the material. Manufacturer data is preferred for submission for this
credit. Also refer to the LBNL Cool Roofing Material Database. Note that reflective roofs
may increase the heating costs of a building in cooler weather.

A vegetated roof absorbs heat and provides insulation. These types of roofs require
semiannual inspection (2 times yearly), but they tend to last longer than conventional roofs.
Green roofs can absorb stormwater and the thermal insulation also help reduce HVAC
and cooling costs.

Calculation Example

A site has 100,000 square feet in hardscapes, and 25,000 square feet of the hardscapes have
been replaced with pervious pavement that has an initial SR of 0.33. The same 25,000
square feet will also be shaded with new trees. The building has a 30,000-square-foot low-
sloped roof with an initial SRI of 85. Will the project as designed earn Sustainable Sites
Credit, Heat Island Reduction?

The key here is the compliant hardscape surfaces are the same 25,000 square feet.

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 Compliant surfaces: (25,000 / 0.5) + (30,000 + 0.75) = (50,000 + 40,000) = 90,000
Total surfaces: 100,000 + 30,000 = 130,000

Compliant surfaces are not greater than or equal to total surfaces, therefore, this project
cannot earn the credit as designed.

SS Credit 6 | Light Pollution Reduction

The intent of this credit is to increase night sky access, improve nighttime visibility, and
reduce the consequences of development for wildlife and people. Light pollution due to
uplighting or trespass can cause annoyance, discomfort, distraction, or loss of visibility. This
credit is a champion for the bats and possums and all nocturnal creatures to thrive just as we
humans do in daytime.

Exterior Lighting Factors

This credit addresses 3 exterior lighting factors: uplighting, light trespass, and internally
illuminated signs. Uplighting is any light emitted above the horizontal plane of the fixture.
Light trespass is light extending beyond the lighting boundary. Both are considered obtrusive
illumination that is unwanted because of quantitative, directional, or spectral attributes.

There are two options to comply with the first two factors: calculations or the prescriptive
path. The prescriptive path allows teams to demonstrate compliance by selecting luminaires
with an appropriate BUG rating and placing them appropriately. These optional paths do not
require point-by-point calculations. Many projects can achieve the credit by simply selecting
luminaires with an appropriate BUG rating.

The signage requirement specifies two levels of luminance allowed for either daytime or
nighttime hour.

BUG Method

The BUG acronym stands for Backlight, Uplight, and Glare. BUG is a luminaire
classification system that classifies luminaires in terms of back-light (B), uplight (U), and
glare (G) (taken from IES/IDA Model Lighting Ordinance).

Designers using this option will be looking through light fixture specifications for BUG
ratings that master lighting zone, allowing them to avoid spending time with these
complicated photometric plans. The BUG method is a luminaire classification system

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 that uses subdivided zones and outdoor luminaires for providing a standard for measuring
and reporting fixture data for compliance of light pollution and restrictions.

Your BUG option is going to be much easier: you purchase luminaires that have certain
ratings and install them in appropriate places. It’s like doing prescriptive requirements for
energy, almost like a checklist that doesn’t require somebody with a specialty to be on the
team. The calculation method is going to require someone to do lighting measurements and
calculations and takes a lot more time to do.

Project teams can use different options for the uplight and light trespass, meaning you can
use the BUG method for uplight, and then use the calculation method for trespass, or vice
versa.

Lighting Zone

The referenced standard just mentioned is the IES/IDA Model Lighting Ordinance, which is
where the BUG method is taken from.

The lighting zone of the project property (at the time construction begins) must be classified
using the lighting zones definitions provided in the Illuminating Engineering Society and
International Dark Sky Association (IES/IDA) Model Lighting Ordinance (MLO) User
Guide.

Lighting Zone Definition Description

LZ0 No ambient lighting Wilderness
LZ1 Low Single-family residential
LZ2 Moderate Commercial business
LZ3 Moderately high Shopping mall
LZ4 High ambient lighting Times Square, NY, NY

Each zone is going to have its own set of requirements for illumination. Look at the list and
you can see that as the quantity or density of people in an area increases, the greater the
amount of light trespass is allowed in the area. Be careful with your lighting zone selection.
You need to back up your selection to the LEED reviewers, because you might be questioned
on it. Some project teams in the past have picked a lighting zone that wasn’t appropriate for
the site.

Establish Scope

After you identify your lighting zone, you need to determine your lighting boundary.
Typically, it is identical to the LEED project boundary, but in certain cases, it can be moved
to the center line of an adjacent street for safety purposes. Next, inventory all

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 exterior lights, including mounting heights. Collect data on fixture characteristics like:
manufacturer, model, lamp type, orientation, tilt angle, and input wattage.

Then, determine and document any exempt fixtures. Project teams may exempt fixtures for
purposes like: emergency lighting, government-mandated roadway lighting, theatrical
lighting, and lighting of the national flag. Finally, decide whether the project will pursue the
calculation or BUG method of compliance.

All projects must provide a site lighting plan.

Uplighting Compliance

Based on lighting zone, meet the requirements identified in the reference guide for
maximum percentage of total lumens emitted about the horizontal. Manufacturer data or
cutsheets will provided the necessary information. In general terms, look for fixtures
classified as ‘full cutoff’ meaning that there is a shield over the bulb which directs the light
at the ground rather than up into the clouds.

Trespass Compliance

When using the BUG option, do not exceed the luminaire and backlight and glare ratings as
defined in IES TM-15-11, Addendum A. There is a table in the reference guide that lists the
allowed ratings depending on the MLO lighting zone.

For the calculation method of light trespass, create a photometric site plan and do not
exceed vertical illuminance thresholds at the lighting boundary. Calculation points may be
no more than 5 feet apart and must extend 33 feet above grade level.

SS School Credit | Site Master Plan

This credit applies to schools only and is worth 1 point. The intent of this credit is to ensure
that the sustainable site benefits achieved by the project continue, regardless of future
changes in programs or demographics.

A site master plan, by the LEED definition, is an overall design or development concept for
the project and associated (or potentially associated) buildings and sites. The plan considers
future expansion of structures, parking, landscape, and demolition. The site master plan is
typically illustrated, with building plans (if applicable), site drawings of planned phased
development, and narrative descriptions.

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 Requirements

For this credit your project must achieve at least 4 out of these 6 credits:
▪ LT Credit: High Priority Site
▪ SS Credit: Site Development – Protect or Restore Habitat
▪ SS Credit: Open Space
▪ SS Credit: Rainwater Management
▪ SS Credit: Heat Island Reduction
▪ SS Credit: Light Pollution Reduction

All of the credits must be recalculated using the data from the master plan. The plan needs
to be developed in collaboration with the school board or other decision-making body and
include not only the current construction but plans for any future construction as well. You
need to consider how student enrollment is going to grow 5 or 10 years from now and into
the future. The master plan development footprint must include parking, paving, and
utilities.

Master plans should consider plans for community centers, fields, libraries, parks, wetlands,
and other major projects. Strategically develop a master plan to evaluate future expansion.
Involve decision makers and local municipalities during early stages. Review geographic and
demographic information to determine factors that may affect expansion. Incorporate
flexibility in the master plan to accommodate for a range of scenarios

Calculations

The calculations are the same as for the 4 credits that your project will achieve to earn the
credit. For example. if your project earned SS Credit Heat Island Reduction, you would run
the calculations for the entire area of the site master plan, not just the project building’s area.
For example, if the master plan is 100 acres (40 hectares), but the project building area is
only 20 acres (8 hectares), the heat island calculations would be done using 100 acres (40
hectares).

SS School Credit | Joint Use of Facilities

This credit applies to Schools only and can earn 1 point. The intent is to integrate the school
with the community by sharing the building and its playing fields for non-school-sponsored
events and functions. This credit covers how a school can share facilities with the
community and vice versa. What that does is share existing facilities, reducing the demand
for more construction, thus preserving natural resources.

Imagine Boy and Girl Scouts meeting in elementary school classroom after hours. Imagine
the high school swim team using a university pool for practice. Joint use is already
happening, and this LEED credit promotes its longevity.

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Three Options

▪ Option 1 is to make the LEED building space open to the general public.
▪ Option 2 is to contract with specific organizations to share space within the
LEED building.
▪ Option 3 is for the LEED building to use shared space owned by other
organizations.

Option 1: Share On-site Facilities

Option 1 is to share school spaces with the community. Sports fields are great examples of
spaces that get underused at most schools. Most schools do not have games on the
weekends, and practice ends around 5 PM during the weekdays. There is a lot of idle time
fields have.

The school would need to make available at least 3 of the following:

▪ Auditorium
▪ Gymnasium
▪ Cafeteria
▪ One or more classrooms
▪ Playing fields and stadiums
▪ Joint parking

Option 2: Share Space with Third Party

Option 2 is to contract with specific organizations to share building space. If you are
designing a new school, you may consider putting in a space for a community service,
such as a police station. For this option a contract is required that provides at least 2
dedicated-use spaces such as:
▪ Commercial office
▪ Health clinic
▪ Community service centers
▪ Police offices
▪ Library / media center
▪ Parking lot
▪ One or more commercial sector businesses

Option 3: Share Off-Site Facilities

The third option is to find services off of the school property and enter into an agreement
that would provide student access. Why build a natatorium onsite when there could be a
YMCA or health club down the street that already has a swimming pool available for use?
Two of the following 6 spaces are needed:

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 ▪ Auditorium
▪ Gymnasium
▪ Cafeteria
▪ One or more classrooms
▪ Swimming pools
▪ Playing fields and stadiums

These require pedestrian access from the school. An example might be a community center
that is in walking distance from the school and provides the students access to an auditorium
after school, so the students can practice for the upcoming play.

Requirements

Prior to selecting a site, get agreements with the community to share facilities. It may be
possible to share construction costs. The security of the school needs to be a priority if public
access is going to occur. Restrooms must be available at the school if the community will be
coming to the school to access the facilities.

To find out more about joint use agreements that apply to Option 1, the state of California has
published a toolkit for increasing physical activity through joint use agreements. You can
google the title of the document shown on this slide.

SS Core and Shell Credit | Tenant Design and Construction

Guidelines
This credit applies to core and shell only and is worth 1 point. The intent is to educate tenants
in implementing sustainable design and construction features in their tenant improvement
build-outs. The goal of establishing Tenant Design and Construction Guidelines is for future
tenants to complete their interior fit-out with LEED compliant features, and if desired,
streamline pursuit of LEED Commercial Interiors certification.

The guidelines also serve to educate tenants about how to take advantage of the sustainable
features of the core and shell building host. If you didn’t know that the electrical
infrastructure was designed for enhanced controls or HVAC zoning, you may not design your
space to utilize its full potential.

It is essentially a user-friendly manual that tells you all the design and construction team has
done to achieve LEED certification, and all the steps they have done that will help you
achieve LEED Commercial Interiors certification.

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 Keep in mind that a tenant sales and lease agreement is not enough to satisfy the requirements
of this credit. You must write guidelines specifically referencing LEED and the requirements
in this credit. The guidelines only have to be provided to all tenants.

The tenants do not actually have to comply with the guidelines unless you build that into your
lease agreement. For the purposes of this credit, the guidelines need only be created and
distributed.

Requirements

The guide assists tenants to understand the building systems and capitalize on what has been
done already. The reference guide contains a list of 20 specific credits that must be referenced.
The guidelines must cover the base building systems:
▪ Water use
▪ Optimizing energy performance
▪ Lighting power
▪ Lighting controls
▪ HVAC
▪ Energy use and metering

The guide needs to be an illustrated document, with descriptions, recommendations,

examples, products, materials, and services. When you discuss indoor water use reduction in
the guide, include some product recommendations that will reduce indoor water use.

The guidelines can include product and material recommendations. If the project team has
built out the lobby of the building and installed particular LED lightbulbs, a particular brand
of toilet in the common areas, or used a specific carpet in the lobby, those are all products that
can be recommended.

SS Healthcare Credit | Places of Respite

This credit applies to healthcare only and is worth 1 point. The intent is to provide patients,
staff, and visitors with the health benefits of the natural environment by creating outdoor
places of respite on the healthcare campus.

The natural environment displays a cycle of life that brings life’s beginnings, events, and
closures into perspective. Seasonal cycles of plant life, cycles of the sun and moon, and life
cycles, often evade our notice. Interaction with these natural cycles of life is a proven
relaxant in times of stress, including many of the experiences commonly associated with the
hospital environment of care.

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 The physical and mental health of medical staff and clinicians is key to successful patient
outcomes. The environment of care plays a role in staff health and may be leveraged as both
a recruitment and retention tool. Reducing staff stress and fatigue through a healing and
supportive environment may be achieved through application of evidence-based concepts
such as places of respite in health care design.

Space Requirements

Provide places of respite that are accessible to patients and visitors, equal to 5% of the net
usable program area of the building.

Provide additional dedicated places of respite for staff, equal to 2% of the net usable
program area of the building.

The key here is a dedicated portion just for staff; that’s 7% total.

The net usable program area is the sum of all interior areas in the project available to house
the project's program. It does not include areas for building equipment, vertical circulation,
or structural components.

Types of Place

Places of respite can be outdoors, such as:

▪ Healing gardens
▪ Meditative gardens
▪ Restorative, rehabilitative, and enabling gardens
▪ Green roof and rooftop gardens
▪ Staff gardens with sitting areas
▪ Space for Programs of Care, such as horticultural therapy, group, and physical
therapy
▪ A quiet green space with a bench

Or, be located indoors, such as:

▪ Interior atria and greenhouse gardens
▪ Wide corridors that offer seating with views of nature and seasonal variations
▪ Places to pause with seating adjacent to destination points
▪ Display areas of flora and fauna
▪ Family consultation spaces with views
▪ Meditation spaces, chapels, or grieving rooms
▪ Resource areas and libraries with seating
▪ Exercise and therapy spaces
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 Such interior spaces may be used to meet up to 30% of the required area, if 90% of each
qualifying space’s gross floor area achieves a direct line of sight to unobstructed views of
nature.

Quality of Place

All areas must meet the following requirements:

▪ The area is accessible from within the building or located within 200 feet (60
meters) of a building entrance or access point.
▪ The area is located where no medical intervention or direct medical care is
delivered.
▪ Options for shade or indirect sun are provided, with at least one seating space per
200 square feet (18.5 square meters) of each respite area, with one wheelchair
space per 5 seating spaces.
▪ Horticulture therapy and other specific clinical or special-use gardens unavailable
to all building occupants may account for no more than 50% of the required area.
▪ Universal-access natural trails that are available to visitors, staff, or patients may
account for no more than 30% of the required area, provided the trailhead is within
200 feet (60 meters) of a building entrance.

Additionally, outdoor areas must meet the following requirements:

▪ A minimum of 25% of the total outdoor area must be vegetated at the
ground plane (not including turf grass) or have overhead vegetated canopy.
▪ The area is open to fresh air, the sky, and the natural elements.
▪ Signage must meet the 2010 FGI Guidelines for Design and Construction of
Health Care Facilities
▪ Places of respite may not be within 25 feet (7.6 meters) of a smoking area (see
IEQ Prerequisite Environmental Tobacco Smoke Control).

SS Healthcare Credit | Direct Exterior Access

This credit applies to Healthcare only and can earn 1 point. The intent is to provide patients
and staff with the health benefits associated with direct access to the natural environment.
This credit goes is complimentary with the previous credit, Places of Respite. The difference
in Direct Access is that patients are provided with an outdoor opportunity adjacent to their
room.

Direct access means entering an exterior space without having to leave the floor or pass
through another patient's room, dedicated staff space, service or utility space, or major

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 public space. Patients' and public circulation corridors, common sitting areas, and waiting
and day space may be part of a direct access route.

Requirement

The total size of the space depends on the number of patients the hospital can accommodate
and must provide direct access to an exterior courtyard, terrace, garden, or balcony. The
space must be at least 5 square feet (0.5 square meters) per patient for 75% of all inpatients
and 75% of qualifying outpatients whose clinical length of stay (LOS) exceeds 4 hours.

Calculation Example

A hospital has 50 hospital beds for inpatients and can accommodate 50 outpatient procedures
whose length of stay exceeds 4 hours. How much exterior access is necessary to earn SS
Credit Direct Exterior Access?

The requirements call for 5 square feet (0.5 square meters) per patient for 75% of all
inpatients, and 75% of qualifying outpatients whose clinical length of stay exceeds 4 hours.

[(50 x 0.75) + (50 x 0.75)] x 5 sq. ft/ = 375 sq. ft.

Case Study

Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, Austin, TX

The 169-bed, 455,000 square foot Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, on the
750-acre brownfield site of the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, is striving to
become the first hospital in the world to achieve platinum-level LEED certification. The
project design incorporates outdoor places of respite in two ways: several enclosed
courtyards and a 3-acre healing garden surrounding the Inpatient Units that was fully
funded by outside sources.

The healing garden offers a multifunctional experience for a variety of users. These include
areas for private solace and elements for reflection and communication, such as the
Reflecting Pond and the Labyrinth. Several areas also provide exterior exposure for patients
in beds with telemetry. Walking paths for exercise and larger gathering areas for social
interactions support the physical and social needs of the healing environment. The design
intent for the healing garden emphasized views of seasonal and day/night changes,
highlighting dimensional variations and areas of interest through discrete low-level lighting.
The use of regional, indigenous plants and materials allowed for a xeriscape landscape
design to limit the irrigation requirements within the garden.

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 The healing courtyard is a large, 4-level exterior space within the footprint of the facility used
as a place of respite and as a wayfinding orientation element. This courtyard is both visible and
accessible from public spaces and viewed from the patient towers. In addition, every level of
the hospital has bed access to one of the 4 levels of this courtyard. The central focal design
feature, a 4-level waterfall, provides sound and movement throughout the courtyard. Materials
on each level reflect geology of regions of Central Texas served by the Children’s Hospital.
Landscaping also reflects the typical plantings found in these geologic regions, a source of
comfort to patients and their families. One of the smaller courtyards is dedicated to Outpatient
Physical Therapy. Accessed from the department, this courtyard features a walking path with
varied surfaces, ramps, and steps for gate therapy and training. The Physical Therapy
swimming pool also opens onto this courtyard.

Sustainable Site Synergies

Let’s look at some synergies between credits and prerequisites. Synergies are single actions
you can take that help you achieve more than one prerequisite or credit. USGBC wants to
know your ability to recognize synergies. It is especially important to know the related credits
for every prerequisite and how there may be synergies between them since the prerequisites
are required for your project.

First consider SS Prerequisite Construction Activity Pollution Prevention. It’s important to

think of which credits these are related to. If you are asked to do some type of analysis,
you're going to show well-rounded knowledge of a particular prerequisite or credit. In this
case, you would be showing how this credit may overlap with another.

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Key Terms | Sustainable Sites

Erosion Turf Grass

Sedimentation Pedestrian-Oriented Paving
Ecosystem Services Side Slope Gradients
Erosion and Sedimentation Control Plan Roof Membrane
EPA Construction General Permit Growing Medium
(CGP) Natural Hydrology
National Pollutant Discharge Impervious Surfaces
Elimination System (NPDES) Zero Lot Line
Stormwater Pollution Prevention Natural Land Cover Condition
Plan (SWPPP) Evapotranspire
Track-Out Riparian Buffers
Stabilization Vegetated Swales
Fertilizer Discharge Low-Impact Development (LID)
Earth Dike Heat Island
Terracing SRI
Riprap Solar Thermal Collectors
Silt Fence Open Grid Paving
Phase I ESA Uplighting
Pump and Treat Light Trespass
Solar Detoxification BUG Rating
Using Bioreactors IES/IDA Model Lighting
Land Farming Ordinance
In-Situ Remediation Lighting Zone
Human Health Effects Tilt Angle
In Situ Input Wattage
Organic Matter Full Cut-Off
Compaction Tenant Design and Construction
Infiltration Rates Guidelines
Land Trust Atria
EPA Level III Ecoregion Horticulture Therapy
Direct Access

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Chapter 5 – Water Efficiency

Overview

Water efficiency (WE) relates to not only water consumption and potable water but also
indirectly to saving energy, water recycling, and feedback mechanisms. The WE credit
category has 3 prerequisites and 4 credits. Three of the credits build upon the prerequisite
requirements and offer points for increased levels of achievement.

▪ WE Prerequisite Outdoor Water Use Reduction

• WE Credit Outdoor Water Use Reduction can earn up to 2 points
▪ WE Prerequisite Indoor Water Use Reduction
• WE Credit Indoor Water Use Reduction can earn up to 6 points
▪ WE Prerequisite building-level water metering
• WE Credit Water metering can earn 1 point
▪ WE Credit Cooling Tower Water Use can earn up to 2 points.

WE Prerequisite 1 | Outdoor Water Use Reduction 30%

This is a new prerequisite in LEED v4, and shows LEED’s commitment to transforming the
built environment. The intent is to reduce outdoor water consumption for landscaping needs.
The prerequisite has two options: Option 1 – No Irrigation Required and Option 2 – Reduced
Irrigation.

Option 1: No irrigation

The big idea for Option 1 is to design your landscape to not require permanent irrigation
system. This reduces your water demand by 100%. Projects are allowed to install a
temporary system for up to 2 years to allow the plants to get established.

Option 2: 30% Reduction

Option 2 requires reducing the project’s landscape water requirements by at least 30% from
the calculated baseline for the site’s peak watering month. Reductions are calculated using
the EPA WaterSense Budget Tool.

The nice thing about this new prerequisite is all projects are going to be held to the same
standard. In the past, projects would create their own baseline and prepare their design

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 based on that, and it would have been easier to massage the numbers to get more points.
Now the EPA WaterSense Budget Tool is used which calculates your baseline for you.

Plant Selection Strategies

To design a landscape that doesn’t require irrigation, you must utilize the practices of
Xeriscaping to design efficiency into the site from day one. Xeriscaping is offered as a
course in the GBES catalog if you are interested to go deep into the principles and strategies
of designing a landscape that uses little to no water.

The primary driver for efficiency is choosing appropriate plant species for the climate the
building is in because those are the types of plants that will thrive under the local soil
conditions and weather patterns. Planting native and adaptive plant species, and no turf grass,
are your best choices. In cooler climates turf grass can be installed that would do well
without watering. If you compare the northern United States to the southern United States,
you’ll find a lot more outdoor sprinkler systems installed in commercial and residential
properties in the south. In the warmer climates, there are greater opportunities for reducing
outdoor water use.

Irrigation Design Strategies

For Option 2, reductions must be achieved through plant species selection and irrigation
system efficiency. Note that for the prerequisite, reductions using alternative water sources
such as rainwater, gray water, or recycled water are not part of the reductions. Alternative
water sources can be used for reductions in the credit calculations, which we will see
coming up.

Non-native plants and even invasive plants can be used to achieve this credit, but they are
not good choices. You could actually plant the entire property with a single species of turf
grass, as long as the watering is done with non-potable water. This credit doesn’t restrict
your plant choice like SS Credit Site Development does when restoring habitat.

For your irrigation system, choose micro or drip irrigation. Sensors and timers should be
used to water when the landscape needs it, rather than on a fixed schedule. Conventional, i.e.,
wasteful systems are known by names such as conventional spray or circular irrigation
systems.

Process

This prerequisite should be part of the water analysis of the Integrative Process credit if
project teams are pursuing that credit. The landscape and irrigation team members will take
the lead role in coming up with ideas of how best to implement this credit for your particular
site and the region it is located in. The EPA WaterSense Budget tool can be

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 used to test the landscape design to see how it performs and what kind of water reduction can
be achieved with different strategies.

When using the tool, only include vegetated areas. Exclude hardscapes and non-vegetative
softscapes, such as mulch paths. The calculator will ask teams to select low, medium, or
high-water demand for each plant type. This information can be found in local plant guides,
state agricultural extension services, or nurseries. If a portion of the landscape area requires
no irrigation, then the calculator must be completed separately for the irrigation section and
the non-irrigated section. Then the results must be added together.

Sample Question

What is allowed to be used to reduce a project’s landscape water requirement for WE

Prerequisite Outdoor water use reduction? Choose 2 answers.

A. Smart scheduling technologies

B. Rainwater
C. Plant species
D. Irrigation system efficiency

This prerequisite requires reducing the project’s total potable water requirement by at least
30% from the calculated baseline for the site’s peak watering month. Reductions can only be
achieved through plant species selection and irrigation system efficiency, which reduce total
water demand, not just potable water consumption.

The correct answers are C and D.

You may have thought about selecting choice A, smart scheduling technologies. While
scheduling can help reduce outdoor water use, it isn’t a consistent reduction of demand based
on landscape design. The efficiency of an irrigation system is different than the scheduling of
when the system is run. A system that is smart enough to know not to run until 48 hours have
lapsed after the last rain event may still not have an efficient watering system.

WE Credit 1 | Outdoor Water Use Reduction

This credit builds upon the prerequisite and has two options. Option 1 No irrigation required
can earn 2 points, except for Healthcare which can earn 1 point. Option 2 Reduced irrigation
can earn 1 to 2 points, except for healthcare which can earn 1 point.

Option 1: No Irrigation

The requirements for Option 1 are the same as for the prerequisite. Project teams that show
the landscape has no permanent irrigation system, beyond the 2-year maximum for
establishment, have met the requirements for both the prerequisite and credit, and can then
earn the points for the credit.
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Option 2: 50% Reduction

The prerequisite requirement of a 30% reduction must be achieved through plant

selection and irrigation efficiency only.

Above and beyond the 30% for the prerequisite, project teams can use a combination of design
efficiency, alternative water sources, and scheduling technologies. That’s going to be key in
your implementation to earn this credit properly. The first 30% comes from plant selection
and design, beyond that it can be alternative sources of water, like rainwater or graywater, and
smart scheduling technologies.

Project teams that have a 50% reduction can earn 1 point. Projects that have a 100%
reduction of potable water can earn 2 points (except for Healthcare).

Alternative Water Sources

Use non-potable water to earn this credit, such as graywater and rainwater. Non-vegetated
surfaces, such as permeable or impermeable pavement, should be excluded from landscape
area calculations. Athletic fields and playgrounds (if vegetated) and food gardens may be
included or excluded at the project team’s discretion.

When using alternative water sources one of the concerns that should be tested for is
salinity, which in arid regions can cause salt buildup, and eventually harming the soil.

Scheduling Technologies

WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers, which act like a thermostat for your sprinkler
system telling it when to turn on and off, use local weather and landscape conditions to tailor
watering schedules to actual conditions on the site. Instead of irrigating using a controller
with a clock and a preset schedule, WaterSense labeled controllers allow watering schedules
to better match plants' real-time water needs. With proper installation, programming, and
maintenance, owners can use WaterSense labeled controllers instead of standard clock-timer
controllers on their existing systems, and no longer worry about wasted water.

When smart irrigation controls are used that meet WaterSense criteria, they automatically
result in a 15% reduction from the baseline water use. This makes it easier to get to the 50%
reduction. The prerequisite requires a 30% reduction, and if you use WaterSense smart
irrigation systems you are already at a 45% reduction for the credit without doing anything
else.

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Sample Question

What area should be excluded from landscape area calculations for WE Credit Outdoor
Water Use Reduction?

A. Permeable pavement
B. Food garden
C. Vegetated playground
D. Athletic field

Non-vegetated surfaces, such as permeable or impermeable pavement, should be excluded

from landscape area calculations. Athletic fields and playgrounds (if vegetated) and food
gardens may be included or excluded at the project team’s discretion.
Choice A is the correct answer.

Case Study

When the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel opened its doors in 1993, it was reported to use
more water than any other property on the strip. When the water usage was investigated, they
found that the amount of water the guests were using was actually quite modest in
comparison to other properties. The largest consumer of water was found to be the
landscaping. It was easy to understand as over 85% of the property was covered with turf,
plants, and flowers requiring 60 gallons of water per square foot per year. As Nevada is one
of the driest and drought prone areas of the country, the facility converted to xeriscaping.

Following the principles of Xeriscaping, architects created a detailed plan. In considering

the path of the sun, workers relocated plants from the southern and western exposures that
were requiring more water and experiencing high water loss. Appropriate desert plants and
ground materials were chosen based on their low need for water. The hotel removed more
than 20,000 square feet of turf, converting it to rock mulch. All parking lot planters were
replaced with water-wise landscape.

Managers of the project also took several other xeriscaping principles under consideration
when implementing the changes to the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel. Plant slope and grade
of property were taken under consideration during the design phase. Large efforts to prepare
the soil in an appropriate manner aided in supporting healthy plant life as well as ensuring
the soil had a proper balance of soil clusters, sand, and pore spaces to optimize water usage.
To ensure efficient irrigation and ease of continued maintenance, an irrigation system was
installed that would allow the plants to thrive without wasting water. Over 1.5 acres of
shrub-landscaped areas were converted from spray irrigation to drip irrigation in an effort to
save 80% of the water being used. They further increased their WE by using 2 water wells to
supply water to the cooling tower for air conditioning, irrigate the landscape and operate its
water feature, amounting to about 120 million gallons of water per year.

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 Currently more than half of the total acreage at the MGM Grand and the surrounding land
owned by parent company MGM Mirage has been converted to xeriscaping. Their efforts
are largely successful. Follow-up water audits have revealed a 2/3 reduction in water use,
from 60 gallons to 20 gallons of water per square foot per year.

WE Prerequisite 2 | Indoor Water Use Reduction 20%

This prerequisite has requirements for building water use, appliance and process water
use, and standards for processes. Specifically, it concerns restroom fixtures inside the
building, water heating appliances, as well as cooling towers and condensers. The
prerequisite requires a 20% reduction beyond a baseline.

Requirement

All eligible newly installed toilets, urinals, private lavatory faucets, and showerheads
must be WaterSense labeled.

Referenced Standards

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 set the rates
for comparison of the baseline fixtures and fittings.

All newly installed toilets, urinals, private lavatory faucets, and showerheads that are
eligible for labeling must be WaterSense labeled (or a local equivalent for projects
outside the US). WaterSense is a partnership program sponsored by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency that helps consumers identify and choose water-
efficient products. WaterSense labeled products are verified to be high-performing,
water-efficient fixtures and exceed the IPC standards.

For projects outside of the US, look for acceptable substitutes that have equivalent
performance.

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Two Compliance Paths

There are two paths for the prerequisite: a prescriptive path and a usage-based calculation. If
your project is going to attempt to earn points under the corresponding credit, you will have
to do the calculations. The prescriptive path is intended for projects to just meet the
prerequisites. As long as each fixture does not exceed the WaterSense maximum levels,
your project would comply with the prescriptive requirements.

For the calculations of the building water use, fixture selection must demonstrate 20% less
water use than the baseline. That’s the key term here: baseline. In fact, if you were building
a new building, you would have to have a baseline because you don’t know how much
water this building uses since it hasn’t been built. The process is to define a baseline case,
and then build a design case based on the fixtures you’re going to install.

Calculations must aggregate all of the fixtures to get a 20% reduction. It’s OK if some of the
fixtures are over, as long as in total, there is a 20% reduction. This allows a bit more flexibility.

Baseline Fixture Usages Rates

Your baseline use of water consumption for fixtures and fittings is shown in this table here.
It addresses toilets, urinals, faucets, and showerheads. The baselines are given in both IP
units and SI units for projects in other countries. You should be familiar with these values
for your exam.

Fixture and Fitting Baseline (IP units) Baseline (SI units)

Toilet (water closet)
Urinal
Public Lavatory (faucet)
Private Lavatory (faucet)
Kitchen Faucet
Showerhead
1.6 gpf 6 lpf
1.0 gpf 3.8 lpf
0.5 gpm (at 60 psi) 1.9 lpm (at 415 kPa)
2.2 gpm (at 60 psi) 8.3 lpm (at 415 kPA)
2.2 gpm (at 60 psi) 8.3 lpm (at 415 kPA)
2.5 gpm (at 80 psi) 9.5 lpm (at 550 kPa)

Note that in your documentation a private lavatory faucet is private only in reference to
hotels or when a hospital room has a private restroom. Everything else is considered public.
What happens in some projects is the CEO or the dean of a school has a restroom that is just
for their use with their own sink, and while it may be a private restroom for just that person,
LEED considers it a public restroom. It’s public because the private baseline is a lot higher
and not intended for use in those circumstances. Not making that distinction can end up
jeopardizing the project’s 20% baseline.

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Equipment and Process Requirements

For appliance and process water use, install appliances, equipment, and processes within the
project scope that meet the requirements listed in the table. For most of these appliances
LEED is looking for ENERGY STAR labels or an equivalent.

Appliance Requirement
Residential Clothes Washer ENERGY STAR
Commercial Clothes Washer CEE Tier 3A
Residential Dishwasher ENERGY STAR
Prerise Spray Valve ≤ 1.3 gpm (4.9 lpm)
Ice Machine ENERGY STAR

When applicable meet the following standards for processes.

▪For heat rejection and cooling, don’t use once-through cooling with potable water for
any equipment or appliances that reject heat.
▪Cooling towers and evaporative condensers must be equipped with makeup water
meters, conductivity controllers and overflow alarms, and efficient drift
eliminators.

For the process water reduction this really ties back into the integrative process credit and the
initial water model. When you have all of the stakeholders together you can set your agenda
and focus on the drivers of the project. What decisions can be made that meet the intent of
the credit, and will result in a better building?

Energy Synergy

Water usage may not intuitively connect to energy consumption. However, treating, heating,
and transporting water all takes energy. Reducing the amount of water that is wasted and
reducing the energy to heat it can improve your savings. Set water temperatures only as hot
as necessary (120 degrees F). Water heaters are often set to 140 by manufactures which is
much hotter than necessary and causes energy waste. Water heater timers can be installed to
be off during low times of occupancy.

Implementation

Ultra-low-flow showerheads
In the United States, a standard shower in a typical building can use up to 2.5 gallons of
water per minute, while ultra-low-flow showerheads use 1.5 gallons of water per minute, or
less. Some models currently available on the market use as little as 0.5 gallons of water per
minute.

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These little savings add up, generating significant reductions in the overall buildings’ water
consumption. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has calculated what savings from
ultra-low-flow showerheads can generate for a 20,000-square-foot model office building.
The results show that at an extra cost of $4.99 per unit (or $0.50 per 1,000 square feet) these
devices can produce savings of $0.33 per 1000 square feet. The simple payback time for the
investment is only 1.5 years. For hotels, the payback time can be even shorter.

Ultra-low-flow faucet aerators

Current standards say that kitchen faucets cannot exceed 2.5 gallons per minute, and
bathroom faucets: 2.2 gallons per minute. The EPA has calculated that using 1.0 gallons per
minute faucet models for both kitchens and restrooms, for a 20,000-square-feet model
building can generate savings of $8.14 per 1000 square feet. At the incremental first cost of
$5.87 per faucet, the simple payback for the investment is years only.

Dual-flush toilets and flushometers

Current regulations require that toilets must not exceed 1.6 gallons of water per flush. Dual-
flush toilets are designed to provide liquid flushing at 0.8 gallons per flush and solid flushing
at 1.6 gallons per flush.

For its model 20,000-square-feet building, the EPA calculated that the incremental first cost
for installing dual-flush toilets versus standards models was $50.00 per toilet. The
calculated annual cost saving per 1000 square feet was $3.58 and the simple payback for the
investment was 2.8 years. Industry experts claim that switching to dual flush toilets typically
reduces water consumption in the building by 10%.

Waterless urinals
Waterless urinals are designed to treat waste chemically instead of using water. The device
contains a chemical cartridge in its drains that traps odors while allowing the urine to pass
through.

Waterless urinals have been installed in several federal sites, such as: military bases, post
offices, and national parks, recording very good performance. For example, the North Island
Naval Air Station, in San Diego, California has over 200 waterless urinals installed on site.

The study carried out by the University of California, Los Angeles, compared waterless
urinals with traditional 3 gallons per flush ones. No odors or clogs were detected during the
testing period, and the chemical cartridge was sufficient for over 7,000 uses with no
maintenance problems recorded.

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 Waterless urinals did not display greater bacterial growth in comparison with traditional
models, and no significant difference between the ammonia levels in the vicinity of the two
urinals was recorded. The economic analysis demonstrated a simple payback for waterless
urinals of less than 3 years and annual return in the range of 37% to 61% (depending on the
building type).

Strategy

Installing waterless urinals generates immediate cash savings and contributes to the
majority of your performance efficiency. In the EPA model building study, waterless
solutions generated savings of $4.53 per 1,000 square feet per year. Moreover, there was
no incremental first cost included, as waterless units were $282 cheaper than traditional
ones. Typically, waterless urinals generate a 14% reduction in building water use,
according to the industry experts.

The United States Department of Energy estimates that in the office and administrative
buildings, plumbing fixtures in the restrooms are responsible for 60% of the overall water
consumption.

When combining waterless urinals with ultra-low-flow toilets and ultra-low-flow faucets, the
building can easily achieve over a 40% reduction in the overall water consumption and
qualify for points under WE Credit Indoor Water Use Reduction.

WE Credit 2 | Indoor Water Use Reduction

Designing efficiency beyond the prerequisite, WE Credit Indoor Water Use Reduction can
earn up to 6 points. The points available for reducing water use depend on the percent
reduction and the rating system used. As an example, the highest percent reduction for the
credit (50%) can earn 6 points for a New Construction project and 12 points for a Commercial
Interiors project.

Alternative Water Sources

This credit is similar to Outdoor Water Use Reduction in that the additional savings can be
achieved through other methods. In this case, it is using alternative water resources.
Remember that the first 20% has to come from using efficient fixtures. Any savings beyond
20% can come from efficient fixtures, or alternative water sources.

The prerequisite and the credit have the exact same calculations, standards, and
implementation.

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 Rating System Adaptation

For Core and Shell projects, the project earns the prerequisite if no eligible fixtures and
appliances are installed as part of the scope of work. For credit achievement, calculate what
plumbing fixtures would be necessary to meet occupant needs. If the project team creates a
lease agreement that includes requirements of tenants purchasing certain fixture with
maximum flush and flow rates, this can be used to earn points for the credit.

For school projects, the annual use is assumed to be 195 days of the year due to summer
break, school vacations, and holidays.

Retail, healthcare, and school projects can earn additional points for meeting the requirement
of one or two of the appliance and process water tables requirements.

Hospitality projects can earn a point for meeting the requirements of one of the appliance and
process water tables requirements.

Case Study

The Proximity Hotel, Greensboro, North Carolina, earned LEED Platinum under LEED for
New Construction. The hotel was built with high efficiency plumbing fittings, able to save the
hotel 2 million gallons of water annually (compared with standard fixtures). This achievement
is imperative in the Greensboro area, where water resources are limited.

About 1/3 of a gallon of water is saved per each flush, compared to regular toilets. The
strategy does not compromise guests’ comfort and satisfaction level. The hotel has not
recorded any complaints and guests do not seem to notice any difference.

As a result of high efficiency plumbing features installed on site, the hotel enjoys a $14,000
lower annual water bill. Water-saving plumbing fittings cost the hotel $7,000. The simple
payback for this investment was 6 months only.

WE Prerequisite 3 | Building-Level Water Metering

Traditionally, we put a lot of focus energy consumption, but we often overlook the amount of
domestic water that people are using in their buildings. This metering prerequisite helps
project teams verify predicted reductions and enables facility managers to better manage their
building’s water consumption. New to v4, whole building level is required to measure, track,
and report total water use.

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Equipment Requirement

Install at least one permanent water meter that measures the total potable water use for the
entire building and associated grounds. This is known as a whole-building water meter. It
can be owned and installed by the utility company or the building owner. The goal is to
isolate the LEED project from other properties.

Of course, submetering is recommended, and we will talk more about that later. Some
projects may require multiple meters if there is more than one source of potable water, such
as an on-site well or on-site water treatment system in addition to the public water supply.

Reporting Requirement

It’s not enough to just know how much water a building uses. The real benefit is tracking the
data over time and analyzing trends. Therefore, meter data must be compiled into monthly
and annual summaries. Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager is a great tool to collect this
information in one place and synergizes with your energy use tracking and reporting.

The meter readings can be manual or automated but in either case, the data must be shared
with USGBC. All projects must commit to sharing with USGBC the resulting whole-project
water usage data for a 5-year period beginning on the date the project accepts LEED
certification or typical occupancy, whichever comes first.

Implementation

For this credit, you are going to have to identify all the sources of potable water end uses in
the building and the grounds: plumbing, irrigation, cooling towers, etc. The sources might
include a public water supply or some type of well installed onsite. Based on the types of
water, that is going to determine what you need to meter. If you have both public water and a
well, they both have to be metered if they are separately connected to the project. If both of
those sources are routed together before they arrive at your building intake, then you only
need the single meter. The type of meter you choose doesn’t matter as long as it is
permanent. It can be manual or a wireless-based system that feeds into your building
operations system.

Once the building is occupied or certified you have to start tracking the water use and sharing
it with USGBC. An extra meter or two isn’t going to add a whole lot of cost to the building
project, and the data metering yields will be invaluable. The saying you hear repeatedly by
LEED practitioners is, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” If your landscape design
called for using 20,000 gallons of water for irrigation per year, but it ends up using 100,000,
you wouldn’t find that out very quickly unless you metered the grounds, as the prerequisite
requires. The types and locations of the meters are decisions the facility manager and
Maximum Energy Professionals (MEP) designers can figure out quickly early on in the
process. Consider this another item to add to the integrative design.

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WE Credit 4 | Water Metering
Projects must include permanent water meters for two or more of the following water
subsystems, as applicable to the project: irrigation, indoor plumbing fixtures and fittings,
domestic hot water, boilers, reclaimed water, and other process uses.

Irrigation

Meter water systems serving at least 80% of the irrigated landscaped area. Calculate the
percentage of irrigated landscape area served as the total metered irrigated landscape area
divided by the total irrigated landscape area. Landscape areas fully covered with xeriscaping
or native vegetation that requires no routine irrigation may be excluded from the calculation.

Indoor Plumbing Fixtures and Fittings

Meter water systems serving at least 80% of the indoor fixtures and fitting described in WE
Prerequisite Indoor Water Use Reduction, either directly or by deducting all other measured
water use from the measured total water consumption of the building and grounds.

Domestic Hot Water

Meter water use of at least 80% of the installed domestic hot water heating capacity
(including both tanks and on-demand heaters).

Boilers

Boilers with aggregate projected annual water use of 100,000 gallons (378,500 liters) or
more, or a boiler of more than 500,000 BTUH (150 kW). A single makeup meter may
record flows for multiple boilers.

Reclaimed Water

Meter reclaimed water, regardless of rate. A reclaimed water system with a makeup water
connection must also be metered so that the true reclaimed water component can be
determined.

Other Process Water

Meter at least 80% of expected daily water consumption for process end uses, such as
humidification systems, dishwashers, clothes washers, pools, and other subsystems using
process water.

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Philosophy

Why submeter? Installing a submeter doesn’t reduce the amount of water used, or does it?

Metering can be employed at several different scales and is used to support effective
management of a building’s systems, including management of comfort, energy and water
consumption, delineated cost burdens, and investment decisions in the short- and long-term.
Historically, utility metering has occurred on an aggregate basis, with measurements taken
for whole buildings or campuses roughly once per month. While this model has supported
utility cost-recovery and billing practices, in recent years, the utility sector has looked to
greater integration of information technologies as potential sources of resource conservation
and economic savings.

Thus far, among consumer-focused smart grid technologies, smart meters have received the
bulk of public attention and funding, with less emphasis placed on submeters or the metering
of resources not related to energy. Whereas advanced meters generate more temporally
resolved longitudinal data, submeters provide more spatially resolved measurements for
individual areas, systems, or equipment. Moreover, while utility companies have led smart
meter deployments, submetering requires involvement of and investment by individual
building owners as well as more detailed tailoring to specific building configurations.
Advanced metering may provide data at hour- or minute-long intervals at a full building
scale, but submetering is capable of providing data at near-continuous time resolution and at
a sub-building scale.

Resource conservation is achieved through improved operation and maintenance practices

and/or occupant behaviors such as reducing unnecessary lighting or heating loads and
reprogramming energy control systems. Metrics for both efficiency and conservation
require knowledge of current resource use and practices, generally at the sub-building level,
but the temporal scales for the data may be different. Retrofits for resource efficiency can
sometimes be identified through snapshot data such as those obtained through an energy or
water audit. While helpful, audits are of limited use in that they provide data only for one
specific period of time.

Submetering, on the other hand, can drive long-term and deeper efficiency and conservation
improvements by introducing a localized, continuous timescale. This refined timescale
provides insight into daily, weekly, or seasonal operations issues, occupant behaviors,
performance of installed equipment (e.g., HVAC and lighting), and verification of installed
efficiency technologies. A time-series approach to analysis also provides the necessary
insight to drive conservation through changes in occupant behaviors or continual
improvements to building operating procedures as conditions change over time. Moreover,
these refined data points may reveal other system problems or potential efficiency measures
that were not immediately apparent with snapshot data.

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 This gets back to the old saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” If you don’t
know how much water a subsystem is using, there is no way you can reduce that water use
and quantify the reduction.

Rating System Adaptation

There is a healthcare adaptation for this credit. Healthcare projects meter an additional 5 of
the following systems:

▪ purified water systems (reverse-osmosis, deionized)

▪ filter backwash water
▪ water use in dietary department
▪ water use in laundry
▪ water use in laboratory
▪ water use in central sterile and processing department
▪ water use in physiotherapy and hydrotherapy and treatment areas
▪ water use in surgical suite
▪ closed-looped hydronic system makeup water
▪ cold-water makeup for domestic hot water systems

WE Credit 3 | Cooling Tower Water Use

Originally pilot credit, cooling tower water has been brought into the water consumption
equation in LEED v4. In addition to meeting the American Society of Heating,
Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 189 cooling tower requirements,
points will be awarded for projects which perform a chemical analysis of the blowdown
water and maximize water cycles to the cooling tower based upon this analysis.

Cooling towers regulate temperature by dissipating heat from recirculating water used to
cool chillers, air-conditioning equipment, or other process equipment. Heat is rejected from
the tower primarily through evaporation. Therefore, by design, cooling towers consume
significant amounts of water.

Beyond evaporation, cooling tower eliminate water daily in a process known as blowdown.
When the water within the system cycles through the pipes, it accumulates contaminants and
microparticles. This buildup is not ideal for system performance and a portion must be bleed
out of the system and new, clean water added to make up the difference. Saving water that
gets lost through blowdown is the major emphasis in this credit in recognition that thousands
of gallons of water can be saved cycling back non-contaminated water.

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 Because of the sheer magnitude of water used to operate a cooling tower, implementing a
successful water management program and automatic controls can have a much greater
overall impact on your building’s WE than retrofitting indoor plumbing fixtures. Depending
on your local water rates, it can also bring your project significant cost savings.

Projects have to conduct a one-time potable water analysis in order to optimize cooling
tower cycles.

Requirements

The analysis has to measure at least 5 of the control parameters listed here, verifying they do
not exceed the maximum concentrations:

Parameter Maximum Level

Calcium (CaCO3) 1,000 ppm
Total alkalinity 1,000 ppm
Silicon dioxide 100 ppm
Chlorine 250 ppm
Conductivity 2,000 µ S/cm

Project teams calculate the number of cooling tower cycles by dividing the maximum
allowed concentration level of each parameter by the actual concentration level of each
parameter found in the potable makeup water. Limit cooling tower cycles to avoid
exceeding maximum values for any of these parameters. For a project to earn 1 point, the
setup can’t exceed 10 cycles, without exceeding any filtration levels or affecting operation
of condenser water systems.

For 2 points, increase the level of treatment or use a minimum of 20% recycled non-potable
water.

Terminology

The thermal efficiency and longevity of the cooling tower and equipment used to cool
depend on the proper management of water recirculated through the tower. Water leaves a
cooling tower system in any one of 4 ways:

Evaporation: This is the primary function of the tower and is the method that transfers heat
from the cooling tower system to the environment. The quantity of evaporation is not a
subject for WE efforts (although improving the energy efficiency of the systems you are
cooling will reduce the evaporative load on your tower).

Drift: A small quantity of water may be carried from the tower as mist or small droplets. Drift
loss is small compared to evaporation and blowdown and is controlled with baffles and drift
eliminators.

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 Blowdown or bleed-off: When water evaporates from the tower, dissolved solids (such as
calcium, magnesium, chloride, and silica) are left behind. As more water evaporates, the
concentration of dissolved solids increases. If the concentration gets too high, the solids can
cause scale to form within the system or the dissolved solids can lead to corrosion problems.
The concentration of dissolved solids is controlled by blowdown. Carefully monitoring and
controlling the quantity of blowdown provides the most significant opportunity to conserve
water in cooling tower operations.

Basin leaks or overflows: Properly operated towers should not have leaks or overflows.
Check float control equipment to ensure the basin level is being maintained properly and
check system valves to make sure there are no unaccounted-for losses.

The sum of water that is lost from the tower must be replaced by makeup water:

Makeup equals Evaporation plus Blowdown plus Drift.

Efficiency

A key parameter used to evaluate cooling tower operation is ‘cycles of concentration’

(sometimes referred to as cycles of concentration ratio). This is calculated as the ratio of the
concentration of dissolved solids (or conductivity) in the blowdown water compared to the
makeup water. Since dissolved solids enter the system in the makeup water and exit the
system in the blowdown water, the cycles of concentration are also approximately equal to
the ratio of volume of makeup to blowdown water.

From a WE standpoint, you want to maximize cycles of concentration, which will minimize
blowdown water quantity and reduce makeup water demand. However, this can only be
done within the constraints of your makeup water and cooling tower water chemistry.
Dissolved solids increase as cycles of concentration increase, which can cause scale and
corrosion problems unless carefully controlled.

Alternative Water Sources

In addition to carefully controlling blowdown, other WE opportunities arise from using

alternate sources of makeup water. Water from other equipment within a facility can
sometimes be recycled and reused for cooling tower makeup with little or no pretreatment,
including the following:

▪ Air handler condensate (water that collects when warm, moist air passes over the
cooling coils in air handler units). This reuse is particularly appropriate because the
condensate has a low mineral content, and typically is generated in greatest
quantities when cooling tower loads are the highest.
▪ Water used in a once through cooling system

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 ▪ Pretreated effluent from other processes, provided that any chemicals used are
compatible with the cooling tower system
▪ High-quality municipal wastewater effluent or recycled water (where available)
▪ Rainwater is most preferred because it has the least amount of dissolved solids
▪ Ice machine condensate
▪ Food steamer discharge water

Calculations

Calculate and understand your cycles of concentration. Check the ratio of conductivity of
blowdown and makeup water. Work with your cooling tower water treatment specialist to
maximize the cycles of concentration. Many systems operate at 2 to 4 cycles of
concentration, while 6 cycles or more may be possible. Increasing cycles from 3 to 6
reduces cooling tower makeup water by 20% and cooling tower blowdown by 50%.

Design

Get expert advice to help determine an efficient cooling tower design. New cooling tower
designs and improved materials can significantly reduce water and energy requirements for
cooling.

For specifics on this technology, consult with experts in the field. Your first resource should
be local or headquarters for engineers, but do not overlook input from experienced
contractors or government agencies.

Consider in your design how alternate sources of makeup water can be used for the cooling
tower system.

Case Study

Established in 1960, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is located in
Huntsville, Alabama. In 2005, MSFC built Building 4600, NASA’s first certified building
under the LEED rating system, achieving a Silver rating. Since that time, a companion
building has been constructed at MSFC that achieved a Gold LEED rating. MSFC is also
one of the first NASA sites to pursue LEED O&M certification.

This case study highlights MSFC’s implementation of new water treatment technologies to
improve the efficiency and performance of one of their cooling systems. MSFC identified a
problematic cooling loop with 6 separate compressor heat exchangers and a history of poor
efficiency. The facility engineering team at MSFC partnered with Flozone Services,
Incorporated to implement a comprehensive water treatment platform to improve the overall
efficiency of the system.

First, the team at MSFC identified a service provider and technology platform to better
manage the cooling program on the inefficient cooling loop. The water treatment platform
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included 24/7 monitoring and management of cooling system performance and real-time
adjustments if needed. Traditional chemical treatments were replaced by a patented
technology that utilizes radio frequencies to alter the water’s scaling tendencies by creating a
‘seeding’ mechanism that agglomerates scale-forming minerals in the water. This technology
removes minerals before they can be deposited on heat exchange surfaces. Additionally, ozone
was implemented to minimize biological activity resulting from ozone’s strong oxidizing
characteristics. Tight control of pH levels coupled with tight control of ozone production
provided corrosion control, and side-stream filtration was integrated to remove sediment and
debris from the recirculating system water. To demonstrate the technology’s capabilities, 3
heat exchangers were sent off site to be treated by the proposed system. The technology
demonstration showed marked improvement after only 48 hours. Because of the success of
this demonstration, MSFC opted to have all 3 heat exchangers cleaned for a 90-day time
period.

Performance Baseline and Improvement Projections

Prior to implementation, electricity, water, and sewer consumption data were collected to
establish a baseline. Additionally, numerous water tests were performed on the cooling
system and raw water to fully understand system performance along with existing water
quality considerations. This particular cooling loop was running at 2.5 cycles of
concentration and used 4,142,400 gallons of water and 9,896,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of
electricity in 2008. After assessing system performance, Flozone Services projected savings
of 420,808 gallons of water over 8 months by increasing cycles of concentration to 5.0.

Technology Implementation

The treatment platform was integrated at the beginning of August 2009, while the cooling
loop was in operation. Prior to installing the treatment platform, the 3 heat exchangers
cleaned during the technology demonstration period were reinstalled in the system. The
remaining 3 heat exchangers were inspected but not cleaned prior to implementation of the
new treatment system. These 3 heat exchangers had extensive deposits and biofouling
present. Inclusive of the treatment platform, software was implemented to allow control and
monitoring from multiple locations, including the central operations computer and a backup
computer in a different control room. Incremental changes were made to the system set
points and alarms to allow the treatment platform to slowly increase cycles of concentration
and gradually remove historical deposits and biofouling. This approach ensured system
strainers weren’t clogged with debris.

Performance Improvements

Water usage and energy usage were tracked for an 8-month period in 2009 and compared to
the same timeframe in 2008. Water and energy trends show cumulative savings as MSFC
achieved reduced water consumption of 821,300 gallons and reduced electrical consumption
of 434,900 kWh during the 8-month technology assessment.
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By implementing a comprehensive water treatment platform, MSFC successfully eliminated
treatment chemicals in the selected cooling loop, removed historical deposits and biofouling
from heat exchanger surfaces, and lowered operating temperatures on the heat exchangers
between 5°F and 6°F. The resulting 8-month documented savings exceeded expected savings
in every category.

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Key Terms

WaterSense
Xeriscaping
Native and adaptive plant species
Vegetative softscapes
Potable water
Greywater
Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct)
Private lavatory
Process water
Flushometers
GPM
GPF
Submetering
On-site water treatment
Domestic hot water
Boilers
Reclaimed water
Cooling tower
Blowdown
Bleed-off
Cooling tower cycles
Cycles of Concentration
Drift
Dissolved solids
Conductivity
Makeup water

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Chapter 6 – Energy and Atmosphere

Overview

This section is one of the most challenging sections because it is very technical. The Energy
and Atmosphere category can earn more points than any other category; 33 points of 110
possible points, or 30% of the entire application. Once you master the concepts of designing
and building LEED energy systems with balanced atmospheric impacts, you will better
understand the relationship between mechanical ventilation and GHG impacts.

The knowing of how a building serves your productivity and comfort needs, grows your
strength of confidence in joining the movement to evolve success for all beings; humans,
their systems, and the planet (and her systems).

Therefore, Energy and Atmosphere addresses a number of areas:

▪ Energy Performance – how well your building’s energy performs in design versus
the baseline case. Predicted.
▪ Tracking Energy Performance – including feedback devices; commissioning the
building, and metering
▪ DR, Peak grid events – this is cutting edge, despite LEED’s 12+ years of market
presence
▪ Refrigerant Management – chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-based refrigerants in buildings
▪ Renewable Energy – on-site or community scale-based renewables
▪ Green Power and Carbon Offsets – mitigate GHG through the use of grid-
source, renewable energy technologies, and carbon sequestration projects

Scorecard

The Energy and Atmosphere credit category has 4 prerequisites and 7 credits. Four of the
credits build upon the prerequisites.

▪ EA Prerequisite 1: Fundamental Commissioning and Verification

• EA Credit 1: Enhanced Commissioning

▪ EA Prerequisite 2: Minimum Energy Performance

• EA Credit 2: Optimize Energy Performance

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 ▪ EA Prerequisite 3: Building level energy metering
• EA Credit 3: Advance Energy Metering

▪ EA Prerequisite 4: Fundamental Refrigerant Management

• EA Credit 6: Enhanced Refrigerant Management

▪ EA Credit 4: Demand Response (DR)

▪ EA Credit 5: Renewable Energy Production

▪ EA Credit 7: Green Power and Carbon Offsets

EA Prerequisite 1 | Fundamental Commissioning and Verification

The intent is to support the design, construction, and eventual operation of a project to meet
the OPRs for energy, water, indoor environmental quality, and durability.

Following the trend that lots of green building techniques are now becoming minimum
building code, commissioning (Cx) is mandated in some parts of the country. In the past,
project teams would say, “We don’t want to do LEED because we don’t want to pay for an
expensive energy model or commissioning.” Whereas now, qualified and credentialed
Commissioning Authorities (CxA) are thriving around the quality assurance concept of a
third-party review of HVAC systems, domestic hot water, daylighting, and lighting controls.
In 2015, there are buildings and institutions that may not pursue LEED, but they pay
professionals for energy modeling and Cx services because they see the value in it.

Concept Process

First, the owner documents their expectations, or project requirements. The OPR is a
written document detailing the functional requirements of a project and the expectations of
the building’s use and operation as they relate to the systems to be commissioned.

Typical System List

▪ HVAC systems | Mechanical AND passive
▪ Electric systems | Lighting and daylighting controls
▪ Plumbing systems | Domestic hot water systems
▪ Onsite renewable energy systems | Wind, solar, gas if applicable
▪ Building envelope | Acknowledge in document, but implementation not required
▪ Optional | Life safety systems, communications and data systems, fire protection
systems, and process equipment.

The engineers ensure that the OPR is met in their drawings and specifications as they
develop the BOD. The BOD describes the systems to be commissioned and outlines any
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 design assumptions that are not otherwise included in the design documents, such as
assemblies, and systems. The CxA joins here to begin drawing reviews.

The field commissioning happens after the contractors build the building. The CxA
functionally inspects all the systems in the BOD against the OPR. A report is made.

Referenced Standards

The standards used for the prerequisite is ASHRAE Guideline 0-2005 and ASHRAE
Guideline 1.1–2007 for HVAC&R Systems, as they relate to energy, water, indoor
environmental quality, and durability. This is the guide that will be followed when
commissioning the required systems.

National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) Guideline 3-2012 for Exterior Enclosures
provides additional guidance on the requirements for exterior closures.

Requirements

The CxA must do the following:

▪ Review the OPR, BOD, and project design

▪ Develop and implement a commissioning plan
▪ Confirm incorporation of commissioning requirements into the construction
documents
▪ Develop construction checklists
▪ Develop a system test procedure
▪ Verify system test execution
▪ Maintain an issues and benefits log throughout the commissioning process
▪ Prepare a final commissioning process report
▪ Document all findings and recommendations and report directly to the owner
throughout the process

The review of the exterior enclosure design may be performed by a qualified member of the
design or construction team (or an employee of that firm) who is not directly responsible for
design of the building envelope.

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Commissioning Authority

For fundamental commissioning, the commissioning authority must have experience in at

least 2 building projects. The individual must be independent of the project’s design and
construction team. The individual reports results and findings directly to the owner. If the
project is less than 20,000 square feet (1,860 square meters), the commissioning authority
may be on the design or construction team. In essence, LEED is setting these rules to avoid
conflicts of interest.

There are exceptions to these rules as you get into smaller projects, so be familiar with those
rules if you plan to document the prerequisite. The matrix in your Reference Guide describes
the conditions and qualifications for who can be a commissioning authority and their
responsibilities. The commissioning authority provides third party verification, and if they
are the ones doing the design, your project will not get objectivity.

In the same sense, if they are the person installing the products, they may not be doing the
balancing or testing required that a CxA would look for. There is some separation needed. In
general, LEED wants them to be contracted directly with the owner.

Ongoing Operations and Maintenance Plan

The CxA, with the help of the project team, must prepare and maintain a current facilities
requirements and operations and management plan. This document facilitates transition from
construction to occupancy. It is a technical manual describing how the facilities manager can
operate the building efficiently. The plan needs to include:

▪ a sequence of operations for the building

▪ the building occupancy schedule
▪ equipment run-time schedules
▪ setpoints for all HVAC equipment
▪ set lighting levels throughout the building
▪ minimum outside air requirements
▪ any changes in schedules or setpoints for different seasons, days of the week, and
times of day
▪ a systems narrative describing the mechanical and electrical systems and
equipment
▪ a preventive maintenance plan for building equipment described in the systems
narrative, and
▪ a commissioning program that includes periodic commissioning requirements,
ongoing commissioning tasks, and continuous tasks for critical facilities

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 The O&M staff training plan should be developed by the contractor and reviewed by the
commissioning authority to ensure that all systems to be commissioned are covered.

OPR Development and System Design

The CxA and the Project Team coordinate a scope based on the OPRs. Remember those
OPRs can start in simple, narrative style. For instance, “This room will be a warehouse,
workers’ stand, and operate forklifts. I need it to be at least 68 degrees.” The owner would
indicate certain light levels needed in the rooms and any other experiential descriptions.
These are very basic criteria and then they get pushed into fuller descriptions in the BOD.

The OPRs should be developed either by the owner or by the CxA with direct input from
the owner. If your project is going to attempt the Integrative Process credit, the OPR
would be developed alongside of this in one of the design workshops at the start of the
project.

This document should describe the requirements of the project ranging from the building
usage and area requirements, to the expected HVAC setpoints. The more information that is
identified in this document, the better understanding the design team will have when
developing the building size, layout, and systems for the project.

Some of the elements that should be included in the OPR are as follows: applicable codes
required, detailed anticipated occupancy schedule, number of expected occupants,
temperature and humidity requirements, specific thermal zoning requirements, HVAC,
lighting, plumbing fixture, and water heating system types preferred (if known), controls
system requirements for lighting and HVAC, energy savings goals, LEED certification level
desired, project schedule, budget considerations, and operations and maintenance
requirements.

BOD Development

During the schematic design or design development phase of the project (depending on
size/scope), the OPR should be consulted by the design team. This should lead to the design
team creating the BOD document. This document will indicate how the project building will
meet the OPR. The document includes assumptions about the design decisions, and may
include:

▪ Overview of system assemblies

▪ Expectations of systems and performance criteria
▪ Descriptions of systems and how they will operate
▪ Codes and standards the design was based off of

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 ▪ Owner’s directives about how the facility will be used
▪ Concepts, calculations, decisions, and product selections; the specific design
methods, techniques, and software used in design; information regarding ambient
conditions (climatic, geologic, structural, existing construction) used during design;
and specific manufacturer makes and models used as the BOD for drawings and
specifications
▪ Revision history of the document

After the team has confirmed that the OPR can be met by the BOD, the design team begins
the design process and moves toward the construction documents. Prior to the 50%
construction document phase, the CxA should perform a thorough review of the progress
drawings against the OPR and BOD documents. This will ensure that the design is on track
to meet all OPR’s and provide a step in the process to ask questions about accessibility,
functionality, energy efficiency, and other long-term owner related issues.

Direction for the commissioning team is provided by assembling the documentation of the
OPR at the inception of a project, and the proper transfer of this information from one party
to the next throughout the building delivery process. The Commissioning Process has been
structured to coincide with the phases of a generic project with Pre-design, Design,
Construction, Occupancy, and Operations phases. Beginning the commissioning process at
project inception will maximize benefits and minimize the cost.

The entire goal of commissioning is to provide a building that is not only designed and built
with the OPR in mind, but one that is maintainable and has the lowest possible operating
costs following completion and turnover.

Commissioning Process

Document and commission all systems outlined in the prerequisite. Documenting system
design is the responsibility of the design engineer. The CxA reviews the drawings and
appropriate submittals against the ORP and BOD. Functional commissioning includes
verifying proper installation of products, testing, and training on the products.

Everybody—owners, users, architects—should be involved in this process.

The commissioning plan is a document that describes the systems to be commissioned, the
commissioning team and their roles and responsibilities, the schedule of events, equipment
start-up and functional performance test procedures, and O&M staff training requirements.

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 Incorporating the commissioning requirements into the CDs (construction documents
equals plans and specs) includes adding commissioning specifications to the project. This
details contractor expectations to include in the project pricing, covering all the aspects of
the commissioning plan. In addition to the commissioning specifications, the construction
documents should also include in detail the components in the system necessary to allow
Test and Balance and Commissioning of the system. This includes sensors, test ports, and
control points that will make testing possible.

System verification checklists (start-up forms) and functional performance testing procedures
are created by the CxA (or design team) for use in the construction process. This can be
developed either before or after CDs, but early in the construction process. When created by
the CxA, these forms should be reviewed by the design team and contractor prior to
incorporation into the construction process to ensure it matches both the design intent and
best practices.

Step-by-Step Implementation

1. Designate CxA
2. Establish OPR and BOD
3. The commissioning authority reviews OPR and BOD
4. Develop and implement the Commissioning Plan
5. Incorporate Commissioning Requirements into the Construction Documents
6. Develop construction checklists
7. Develop a system test procedure
8. Verify system test execution
9. Maintain a log that documents issues and benefits
10. Complete a summary commissioning report

Timeline

The CxA must be engaged by the end of the design development phase. That’s a
requirement for the prerequisite. It needs to be someone that week-to-week is part of the
team to get the best possible product.

Create transparency by incorporating commissioning into construction documents. This is

formal set of plans used as the basis for construction. At the end of construction, execute the
commissioning plan by verifying installation and performance of system. The design and
construction team should remain engaged and perform any corrective actions as required in
the initial findings. Then, publish a summary commissioning report.

This is a logical progression of what the owner wants. Design to their vision, then
incorporate the vision into the documents, and execute a commissioning plan to ensure the
vision is a reality. It is very advantageous to start the commissioning process as soon as
possible in the project schedule. By having a CxA involved in the project early, that person

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 can help ask questions of the owner’s expectations and help steer the design process to
match those expectations.

EA Credit 1 | Enhanced Commissioning

Who the CxA can be is different between the credit and prerequisite. For the credit, the
CxA may not be an employee of the design or construction firm nor a subcontractor to
the construction firm. It’s important to note the differences.

Requirements

In addition to the Fundamental Commissioning, you would implement extra steps for
increased oversight and document review.

▪ Review submittals
▪ Train operations team
▪ 10-month post-occupancy visit

The CxA must be leading, reviewing, and overseeing the commissioning process.

▪ This credit has 2 options based on scope of systems.

▪ Option 1 enhanced systems commissioning can earn 3 to 4
points.
And/or
▪ Option 2 envelope commissioning can earn 2 points.

Option 1 – Path 1

Option 1 – enhanced systems commissioning has 2 paths for achievement.

Path 1 – enhanced commissioning can earn 3 points.

The CxA must review and check submittals in accordance with the OPR and BOD. The
review must be concurrent with the review of the architect or engineer of record.

Verify the systems manual. This is something is nice for optimal performance of the
building.

While it's recommended in Fundamental Commissioning that you train people, it's
mandatory and you have to verify that personnel were trained as part of Enhanced
commissioning.

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Occupancy Phase

The big part of Enhanced Commissioning is a 10-month follow-up after substantial

completion. The idea behind this being is that it occurs within the warranty period for all of
the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing fixtures. In this process, the CxA goes through and
determines how the system is working. This is a smart idea as far as tuning the building.

How many times have you seen buildings where you say, “Well, the designer put in these
daylight sensor lights, but they're just not working.” During this 10-month period, occupants
and facility managers have had enough time to kick around the systems and to see whether
things are working correctly or not.

Or you may see energy bills after these first 10 months and say, “I thought we would be
saving a lot more.” The CxA can help find out where some of the gaps are. This is another
check to see how the actual performance rates compared to the design performance.

Option 1 – Path 2

Or project teams can choose Path 2 Enhanced and monitoring-based commissioning.

Monitoring-based commissioning, or MBCx, is the integration of 3 components: permanent
energy monitoring systems, real-time energy analysis, and ongoing commissioning.

This path requires first achieving Path 1. Projects can get additional points by installing the
right monitoring devices and tracking points. The points must be measured and evaluated
on an ongoing basis based on those tracking points that you’ve installed. This is a good
option for projects that are energy intensive and need real time data to make adjustments,
such as a data center. Monitoring based commissioning allows users to track energy
consumption, detect faulty equipment, and see unusual energy patterns in real-time.

Continuous Monitoring

For monitoring based commissioning all of the procedures and measurement points need to
be included in the commissioning plan. The following need to be addressed:

▪ roles and responsibilities

▪ measurement requirements (meters, points, metering systems, data access)
▪ the points to be tracked, with frequency and duration for trend monitoring
▪ the limits of acceptable values for tracked points and metered values

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 ▪ the elements used to evaluate performance, including conflict between systems, out-
of-sequence operation of systems components, and energy and water usage profiles
▪ an action plan for identifying and correcting operational errors and deficiencies
▪ training to prevent errors
▪ planning for repairs needed to maintain performance

The monitoring systems are looking at real-time energy analytics and ongoing
commissioning. Path 1 is a one-stop process while Path 2 is ongoing. Knowing the real-time
data and knowing how the building is currently performing can be helpful to clients.
Utilizing metering equipment for monitoring is the ongoing process of verification. It opens
up the opportunity for continuous improvement.

Option 2 – Envelope Cx

Option 2 Envelope commissioning can earn 2 points. Fulfill the requirements in EA

Prerequisite Fundamental Commissioning and Verification as they apply to the building’s
thermal envelope in addition to mechanical and electrical systems and assemblies.

Enhanced commissioning is generally pretty familiar to everyone. You can build on it from
the prerequisite. Envelope commissioning is new. Many project teams may have expertise in
Option 1 but not in Option 2. It’s a case where a project team may take a look hiring different
companies for the different options. The work can be completed independently.

The Building Enclosure Commissioning (BECx) process is utilized to validate that the
design and performance of materials, components, assemblies, and systems achieve the
objectives and requirements of the owner. The BECx process achieves this through
experience, expertise, modeling, observation, testing, documenting, and verifying materials,
components, assemblies, and systems to validate that both their use and installation meet the
owner’s requirements. The process uses performance-oriented practices and procedures to
verify that the project is achieving the OPRs throughout the delivery of the project.

Requirements

Just like in Option 1, if you choose envelope commissioning the CxA is going to complete
the same things:

▪ Review contractor submittals

▪ Verify inclusion of systems manual requirements in construction documents

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 ▪ Verify inclusion of operator and occupant training requirements in construction
documents
▪ Verify systems manual updates and delivery
▪ Verify operator and occupant training delivery and effectiveness
▪ Verify seasonal testing
▪ Review building operations 10 months after substantial completion
▪ Develop an on-going commissioning plan

Envelope commissioning will be included in the OPR and BOD, as well as the
commissioning plan. The envelope is treated like another system and follows similar
documentation and testing.

Note that not every CxA is qualified to do envelope commissioning. You can have two
different commissioning authorities on the project: one for the systems and another who
specializes in envelopes. One person should serve as lead CxA to oversees all of the
commissioning activities for coordination in overall project documents and timeline.

Timeline

The Commissioning Process should not infringe upon the authority or responsibility of the
project’s designers or contractors. While the CxA can identify areas of concern—relative to
the OPRs to be discussed with the owner and their team—it is the owner who determines the
course of action by the team. It is recommended that the CxA be engaged in pre-design to
define the scope of the commissioning so that the owner’s agreements with the project team
clearly define the commissioning tasks that will be performed during the design phases of the
project. The commissioning tasks and obligations between the Owner’s Design Professionals
or Contractors contained in contract forms or project-specific contracts provide the agreement
that establishes the foundation for the commissioning process. It is intended to aid these
professionals involved in providing an owner with a facility that meets their expectations and
requirements.

The BECx process begins during the pre-design phase and continues for the life of the
facility through the occupancy and operations phase. The process includes specific tasks to
be performed during each project phase in order to verify that the design, construction,
operational maintenance, and training meet the OPR.

Remember, the verifications and late 10-month review are the standouts, as well as seasonal
testing and verifying a systems manual and training. Those are sort of extraneous things
throughout, but the verifications and late 10-month review after substantial completion are
the most notable differences.

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Rating System Adaptations

For Core and Shell projects the systems to commission only include what’s in the design
team’s scope of work.

For data centers there are additional activities for the CxA to perform depending on the size of
the computer rooms. There is also more rigorous failure-mode testing.

Healthcare projects have additional testing of life safety equipment.

Case Study

One of Sustainable Investment Groups (SIG) CxAs discovered that a 3-way valve for a
condenser water system serving a chiller and cooling tower was stuck at 80% closed. The
solution to this inappropriate situation was costing the building owner over $8,700 per year in
additional pumping energy. After the valve ($800) was replaced, the payback was just over
one month, and this building’s Energy Star score went up because of one discovery.

The Case for Commissioning

The 2011 Associated Air Balance Council (AABC) Commissioning Group industry event
highlighted a handful of projects with major issues that could have been avoided with
commissioning. The buildings were tested and balanced during construction without finding
(or correcting) any problems.

▪ a Caribbean beach resort project with 2,112 rooms that had $5.5 million in
HVAC and Envelope Problems before opening day
▪ a hotel in Charleston, SC project had $10 million in HVAC and Envelope
Problems immediately after opening
▪ a Florida courthouse project that had $15 million in repairs and the building was
evacuated
▪ a hotel project in Kansas City that had $2 million in HVAC repairs during its first
summer in operation

These problems could have been predicted during the design stage. The changes needed to
prevent these failures would not have cost more money or added to the schedule.
Commissioning would have prevented these problems.

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EA Prerequisite 2 | Minimum Energy Performance
The intent of this prerequisite is to reduce the environmental and economic harms of
excessive energy use by achieving a minimum level of energy efficiency for the building
and its systems. There are 3 options for this prerequisite.

▪ Option 1 Whole building energy simulation

▪ Option 2 Prescriptive compliance – ASHRAE 50% advanced energy design guide
▪ Option 3 Prescriptive compliance – Advanced Buildings Core Performance guide

Option 1 – Whole Building Energy Simulation

The first option is a whole building energy simulation which most people do. Projects need
to achieve a 5% improvement for new buildings, 3% improvement for renovations, and 2%
for core and shell projects based on energy costs.

Five, 3, or 2% of what, you ask? A percentage improvement comes over a baseline building
performance rating. The baseline building performance rating is calculated using the
updated ASHRAE 90.1-2010 standard. As the LEED rating system is updated, it includes
the newest standards available and incorporates them into the LEED requirements. For this
requirement, a computer simulation model is used for the entire building.

Your project must comply with the mandatory provisions of ASHRAE 90.1-2010 and
include all energy costs with the building project. The percent savings is calculated before
factoring any savings from renewable energy systems.

An important note is that these calculations are based on energy costs, not on the quantity of
energy saved.

Like the water prerequisites, the reduction for the prerequisite must be achieved without
accounting for any cost offset by onsite renewables. Projects need to be efficient, first in the
building design, and then in the next step for the credit to look at supplementing energy use
with renewables. In the past, for earlier rating system versions, projects could ignore
efficiency and just dump a solar array on the roof to show a reduction. The prerequisite
projects can’t do that anymore.

Prescriptive Options

Options 2 and 3 are based on different standards. They do not require computer modeling,
and project teams simply follow design guidelines. These prescriptive approaches are
limited in the size of the building and the number of points available. What can happen with
this prescriptive path for design, is that it encourages project teams into an integrative
approach.

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 Option 2 is a prescriptive approach, using the ASHRAE 50% Advanced Energy Design
Guide. There are different guides based on different types of buildings. Consider if you had
an office. If the office is less than 100,000 square feet, then use the ASHRAE Advanced
Energy Guide for Small to Medium Office Buildings. There are other guides for medium to
large big box retail, K-12 schools, and large hospitals.

Projects must comply with the applicable criteria based on the building’s specific climate
zone.

Option 3 is a Prescriptive Compliance Path using the Advanced Buildings Core Performance
Guide. This is for buildings less than 100,000 square feet (9,290 meters). Healthcare,
warehouses, and lab projects are ineligible for this option.

Referenced Standards

New in LEED v4 is the use of ASHRAE standard 90.1-2010. With LEED v4, there are up to
20 points for an energy model but only 6 points for the prescriptive path using ASHRAE
50% Guide. That is a 14-point difference if you don’t do an energy model.

The difference is comparing the ASHRAE 90.1 baseline from 2003 to 2010. The ‘50%’ in
the standard for the prescription path refers to 50% better than the 2003 standard. So
basically, the 2010 baseline performance is more than 50% improved from 2003.

Energy model practitioners will notice that a significant update is the regulation of plug
loads. Previously, most buildings used a default value that process loads were 25%. Now, the
regulation of plug loads—the computers and things that get plugged into walls—must reflect
predicted usage based on program requirements.

Daylight harvesting was not a baseline in LEED 2009, and now it is in LEED v4, so projects
don’t easily win benefit for doing daylight harvesting; they must design optimized daylight
harvesting.

Mandatory Requirements

The first step you will do is determining the building’s climate zone, because different zones
have different requirements.

There are a lot of new mandatory requirements introduced by following ASHRAE 90.1-
2010. For example, some just for lighting include:
▪ All spaces must now have automatic shut-off control
▪ The lighting power density has to be reduced an average of 17% in different
space types

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 ▪ Every space has to have vacancy or occupancy sensors to 50% or less of the
lighting power
▪ Exterior lighting must be turned off or operated at a reduced level during daylight
hours
▪ When a stairway is vacant, the lights have to be reduced by at least 50%
▪ Automatic daylight control is a requirement, so for daylight zones the lights have to
be under automatic control
▪ All installed controls must be tested, like making sure the occupancy sensors and
timers work

Another new requirement is half of outlets or receptacles in open office, private offices, or
computer classrooms must be under automatic control, so they can be switched off
automatically when not in use. The control has to be hardwired—it can’t be a device that’s
plugged into a receptacle.

For implementation, the mandatory requirements address the following:

▪ Building Envelope Requirements

▪ HVAC&R Requirements
▪ Service Water Heating Requirements
▪ Power Requirements
▪ Lighting Requirements
▪ Specialty Equipment Requirements

Your project has to show you met all of those requirements and you beat the ASHRAE
90.1-2010 standard by at least 5% for BD+C projects. How are you going to get that 5%?

It’s now harder just to meet the standard. Lighting controls must be optimized. For example,
what is required by code is that occupant sensors have a 30-minute timeout. However, if you
have occupancy sensors timeout at 20 minutes, or even 10 or 5 minutes, that can save you
some energy.

You need to go beyond what is already required by the new codes. If you do high-end
tuning, you set the maximum light level space-by-space to go beyond the standard.
Reflective window shades can save 10% to 20% in cooling costs. Use automated shades to
further save on your lighting, because when there are manual shades, what usually happens
is that people close the shades or close the blinds and then never open them again. An
automatic shading system will automatically open to let in sunlight and take

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 advantage of the natural light. Automated shading tied in with occupancy and daylight
sensors have been shown to save 10% to 15% in lighting costs.

When to Use Option 2

For the prescriptive requirements of Option 2, check out the ASHRAE 50% Advanced
Energy Design Guide. The specific prescriptive requirements are based on the building type:
office, retail, school, or hospital. If the building doesn’t meet the size and building type, the
project must pursue Option 1 or Option 3.

The architect and engineer will work together to determine what requirements must be met.
Note the prescriptive requirements in ASHRAE 90.1-2010 are not the same as in the
advanced energy design guide. For Option 2 and Option 3, the project must meet the
prescriptive requirements of ASHRAE 90.1-2010 for the building envelope, HVAC, service
water, heating, and lighting. Then meet the prescriptive requirements for the HVAC and
service water heating equipment from the Advanced Energy Design Guide.

When to use Option 3

Option 3 is similar to Option 2, where the project team will first meet the prescriptive
requirements of ASHRAE 90.1-2010 for the building envelope, HVAC, service water,
heating, and lighting. Then review the prescriptive requirements of the Core Performance
Guide. Projects choosing this option can’t earn any points under the credit.

This option requires achieving all of the prescriptive requirements of sections 1 and 2 of the
core performance guide, and 3 strategies from section 3.

For this option, analyze at least 3 alternative building configurations to maximize passive
reduction of building energy loads.

Timeline

It can’t be stressed enough to start your energy planning from day one. It’s one of the reasons
the Integrative Process Credit requires performing a preliminary ‘simple box’ energy
modeling analysis before the completion of schematic design. In addition, set goals early.
Project teams can use Energy Star’s target finder to help pick an energy use target for the
building. This will be helpful for teams pursuing points under the credit. The energy use
target helps prioritize strategies.

Project teams should begin energy modeling early in the design phase. Energy performance
is a prerequisite, so you want to get this right by starting early and assembling the
documentation to show compliance. For projects pursuing the credit, an energy performance
target must be selected no later than the schematic design phase.

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 If saving money on energy is important, ask yourself how you go about doing that. Talk with
the team and discuss what the overall goals of the project are. Discuss what numbers the team
wants to hit and stick to them. Follow up with a computer model to make sure the project is
going to hit the desired number.

Calculations

The calculations are something the specialized energy modeler would do with software.
There are area calculations, lighting, power, and energy model simulation calculations.
Minimum Energy Performance is consistently one of the most difficult credits and
prerequisites to document. For other LEED credits, project teams can submit the
documentation and it passes review about 50% of the time. For energy performance, that
drops to about 5%.

The credit calculations are in an Excel spreadsheet. The sheets assist energy modelers in
developing the ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G building energy models. The inputs include
specific information about the baseline and proposed ASHRAE modeling requirements and
provide the energy modeler with quality control checks for the energy modeling inputs and
outputs. Prior to LEED submission, the energy modeler should confirm that the energy
model inputs listed are consistent with those modeled and provide quality control to confirm
that the outputs are reasonable based on the energy inputs listed.

The sheets also highlight all of the things the project team should be paying attention to as
they build the energy model, as well as including quality assurance checks for things that
frequently get overlooked or submitted incorrectly. When one part of the spreadsheet gets
updated, the information is reflected elsewhere to update these checks.

Don’t make a mistake about filling out the spreadsheet until near the completion of the
building, or you might find some of the ASHRAE mandatory requirements were overlooked
or the modeling requirements weren’t addressed.

Sample Question

A whole building energy simulation resulted in a baseline building performance of

$112,488 for a new school. What minimum improvement in building performance is needed
for LEED certification?

For EA Prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance and EA Credit Optimize Energy

Performance the modeled energy savings are reported based on the energy cost, using the
states’ average energy prices.

There’s some important information here that helps you. For this credit you’re comparing a
baseline to a design case. The baseline for the building has a performance of $112,488 for a
new school. Ask yourself, “New buildings require a 5% improvement as opposed to 3% for

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 a renovation, so what is the minimum performance?” Multiply 5% times the overall number
here.

Sample Question

What criteria are not used to determine what prescriptive measures must be followed when
using the ASHRAE 50% Advanced Energy Design Guide to calculate minimum energy
performance?

A. Climate zone in which the building is located

B. Square footage of the building
C. Type of building
D. Building orientation

Read this a second time to say, “What criteria are not used?” All of these are criteria that are
used except for one.

Option 2 is for the prescriptive compliance path using ASHRAE 50% Advanced Energy
Design Guide requires the building type, the square footage, and the climate zone determine
what applicable criteria the project must meet.

The ASHRAE whole building energy performance includes the building orientation in the
modeling. What modeling does beyond written guidelines, is to look at your building from 4
different sides relative to the sun’s path of travel. The prescriptive measures do not take into
account the sun’s position. D is the correct answer.

EA Credit 2 | Optimize Energy Performance

▪ Option 1 is a whole building energy simulation and can earn 1 to 18 points, except
Healthcare which can earn 1 to 20 points and Schools which can earn 1 to 16
points.
▪ Option 2 is Prescriptive compliance using the ASHRAE Advanced Energy
Design Guide. Projects can earn 1 to 6 points.

Point Thresholds

Remember in the prerequisite new construction projects start at a 5% improvement, major

renovations a 3% improvement, and core and shell a 2% improvement. The reference
guide or rating system has the complete table with the percentages and points for each
increment of improvement. It’s a big table so check it out. You’ll notice the increments
change from 2% to 3% as the improvements increase. For example, new

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 construction starts with 6%, 8%, 10%, on up to 26%, 29%, 32%, up to a maximum of
50%.

Option 2 – Prescriptive Path

Option 2 is the prescriptive path. Projects earn points by following the appropriate ASHRAE
design guide based on the project type and climate zone. To choose this option a project must
have done Option 2 in the Minimum Energy Performance Prerequisite.

Note here in the Option 2 prescriptive path there are only 1 to 6 points available. As you
study this credit think about that as a big differentiator between these options. The whole
building energy simulation is the optimal choice for achieving the most points.

Here is an example for a K through 12 school building.

▪ Building envelope, opaque: roofs, walls, floors, slabs, and doors (1 point)
▪ Building envelope, glazing: vertical fenestration (1 point)
▪ Interior lighting, including daylighting and interior finishes (1 point)
▪ Exterior lighting (1 point)
▪ Plug loads, including equipment choices, controls, and kitchen equipment (1
point)

If you review all the building types, you will notice they are all very similar with minor
variations between each type. It’s important to note the differences between each type.

How to Design Energy Efficiency

First, reduce demand. Think about the building orientation and reducing the size of the
building footprint. Installing better insulation and having a tighter envelope are cheaper
ways to reduce demand.

Next, harvest free energy. Day lighting is sustainable practice and generally reduces the
amount of lighting installed. However, daylighting is a passive solar strategy, as opposed to
an active strategy like solar power. Natural ventilation is like day lighting, it passively allows
reduces energy demands on mechanical systems, but isn’t awarded points directly for its own
value. The energy model compares these benefits in the design case to conventional design in
the baseline case.

Then, look at your required systems and find ways to increase efficiency. Increase
efficiency in HVAC, lighting, water heating. Think about, “Is the boiler the right size? Do
we have too many lights? Are we using daylight sensors?” Or if it was the mechanical
system, “Are we using the most efficient fans, motors and such?”

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 Finally, where available, recover waste energy. Exhaust air energy recovery has synergies
with increasing ventilation.

Variable Factors

Project teams using energy simulation software should consider the following criteria:
▪ Schedule of operation
▪ Building orientation
▪ Building envelope
▪ Lighting systems
▪ HVAC&R systems
▪ Process energy
▪ Energy rates
▪ Hot water systems

Making improvements in each variable add up to large savings. Projects that go above and
beyond the point threshold earn an innovation point. In this case, new buildings would need
a 54% improvement from the baseline and existing buildings need 52% improvement.
People might ask, “What if I have a 70% improvement?” Projects would only achieve one
innovation point for that, but ideally, your best savings are decreased energy bills and
increased performance to your building.

The last step is refining your energy performance to meet the project goals. Often people
calculate the results, throw up their hands and say, “Oh, well, here’s where we are as far as
energy savings.” On a project you may find a certain level of energy savings and say, “That
doesn’t meet our goal.” The mechanical engineer and the electrical engineer might meet with
the energy modeler and ask them, “What can we change? How can we alter this in order to
get better performance?”

You see a lot of the same information here in Option 1 because it’s really the same process.
The same person doing the minimum energy performance measurement would complete the
documentation for this credit because they are exactly the same.

Case Study

From a visible, tangible aspect, the most energy efficient feature of the HKS headquarters in
Dallas, Texas is the LED lighting system that’s fully integrated with a window shade system.
It is a complete daylight autonomy system. There are daylight sensors and occupancy sensors.

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 One of HKS’ most impressive energy achievements is reducing the lighting power density
down to 0.6 watts per square foot. The hard work to get this number came from smart
lighting design and using 95% LED through the entire project.

However, the lighting only runs at about 75% of the time because the employees said they
could work with less light. Each desk has task lighting with built in sensors. When the light
doesn’t sense any motion it turns itself off, further saving energy.

Conference rooms are equipped with vacancy sensors instead of occupancy sensors.
Occupancy sensors automatically turn on the lights as someone walks in the room, but
because the rooms have natural light HKS has found employees will walk into a room and
never turn on the lights. When the employees do use the lights, the vacancy sensors will turn
them off when the occupants leave the room.

EA Prerequisite 3 | Building-level Energy Metering

This prerequisite is new in LEED v4 and it mirrors the water metering prerequisite
requirements.

In addition to making buildings accountable for comprehensive energy, whole building

energy metering is required to measure and track on-going energy efficiency. In the past,
LEED points used to be based on predicted usage, and now LEED is requiring projects to
measure their actual performance. That’s working toward raising the bar for building design.

This is a two-part prerequisite: meter and report energy data. Some project teams may ask,
“Why does the USGBC want this information? If the building scores worse than predicted, will
my plaque be taken away?” No, nothing to worry about there. For years, LEED has been
certifying projects and not knowing what happens after the plaque is put up. Sharing metering
data helps everyone learn what strategies produce measurable results and which have inflated
value.

We look a lot at energy consumption of systems, but one of the biggest oversights in
predictive models has been underestimating or overestimating the amount of energy that
people use in their buildings. Consequently, metering is a valuable tool to enable facility
managers to better understand energy usage based on human factors.

Metering also helps connect LEED BD+C and LEED O+M. For years, USGBC required
metering for existing building projects, but since new construction projects didn’t always install
whole-building meters as a common practice, it became more of a challenge. Now the facility
managers are having discussions with the design team in the new construction projects, and
there is a greater synergy between the rating systems.

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 Requirements

Install new or use existing building-level energy meters, or submeters that can be aggregated
to provide building-level data representing total building energy consumption (electricity,
natural gas, chilled water, steam, fuel oil, propane, biomass, etc.). Utility-owned meters
capable of aggregating building-level resource use are acceptable. The project building must
be separately metered from other buildings or structures, even if they are owned by the same
party.

Projects must commit to sharing the data with the USGBC for a 5-year period beginning on
the date the project accepts LEED certification or typical occupancy, whichever comes first.
At a minimum, energy consumption must be tracked at one-month intervals, which is pretty
easy since most electric bills occur in monthly cycles anyway.

The challenge is reporting the data. Project teams can either send their data to the USGBC
when requested or be proactive and report online through the EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio
Manager program. The portfolio manager tool is not only a path for prerequisite compliance,
but also a great resource for facility managers to trend energy use patterns.

This commitment must carry forward for 5 years. These are your key dates: 5 years
commitment for data, at one-month intervals, beginning on the date the project accepts
LEED certification or typical occupancy, whichever comes first.

EA Credit 3 | Advanced Energy Metering

For even more accuracy and clarity on actual energy use demands, projects can earn points
for installing additional submeters. First, projects must install advanced energy metering for
all whole building energy sources used by the building. Whole building systems include:

▪ Electricity
▪ Natural Gas
▪ Propane
▪ Steam
▪ Chilled water
▪ On-site Renewable
▪ Geothermal

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Major End Uses

Secondly, projects must also have advanced energy metering for any individual energy end
uses that represent 10% or more of the total annual consumption of the building. These
systems include:

▪ Primary HVAC systems

▪ Secondary HVAC systems
▪ Lighting
▪ Plug loads
▪ Elevators
▪ Processes

Only those systems with individual energy end uses that represent 10% or more of the total
annual consumption of the building need to be monitored: fans, chillers, pumps, etc. The
path to analyze the data is a bit more flexible than having to go back and do a calibrated
simulation. The data has to be gathered at least hourly and be able to communicate that data
remotely. All of the data must be stored for at least 36 months.

Is it worthwhile?

Submeters are important, because without detailed feedback, problems are going to cost extra
money and extra time to detect and fix. A whole building energy meter is a good start, but it
can only tell you yes, or no that your building is operating as designed. If your building is
consistently exceeding predicted usage, how will you know what system to adjust?
Submeters will tell you exactly where the excess occurring.

Architects, engineers, and managers will want to use this data to do things differently in the
next building. How can you improve the design or setpoints? Without the right data, you
don’t know. It’s why the energy model, the advanced metering, and the monitoring are an
important combination.

For example, if you find a load in the building is only 15% of the total, the potential ROI for
reducing that in the new building is pretty limited. But if you find the lighting load is 40%
of your total, you now know where you can focus on for improvement and where you can
find a significant reduction in your electric bill in your next project.

It may be that you find an issue with what was done in the simulation, and what actually
occurred during one specific month because of the weather. That’s why the requirement is
to report data hourly, daily, monthly, and annually. The comparison of the simulation and
actual data can help identify patterns or discrepancies.

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 In one case a university started metering and found that one of the compressors had been
bad. It was a multiple compressor unit and the one compressor had been bad for over a year.
It was causing more energy use because the system couldn’t keep up. The building was still
comfortable, so nobody noticed but it was just using more energy.

Case Study

An audit conducted at Southern Connecticut State University revealed that computers, lights,
and air conditioners left on overnight and on weekends were costing the University more
than $100,000 a year. Simply turning off these devices when not in use would actually have a
meaningful effect on the University’s $2.5 million annual electric bill.

Realized dollar savings from such simple energy-saving actions could easily be applied in
support of additional energy saving projects or directly to bolster academic programs.
Sub-metering equipment, applicable in a variety of situations, has allowed SCSU to obtain
savings of tens of thousands of dollars a month depending on the type of facility being
metered. Savings like these are possible because advanced metering equipment, energy
management, and control are directly in the hands of facility operators. By comparing
historical energy usage with current kWh values, facility managers can identify energy
savings opportunities that will guarantee the largest and quickest paybacks. New sub-
metering systems can pinpoint which computers, lights, and air conditioners are on or off,
and whether there might be a need to adjust operating schedules for larger system elements
or equipment. Meter-derived data can reveal locations and situations that call for change-
outs of equipment to more high-efficient designs.

The sub-metering connected to SCSU’s central energy management system is capable of

recording 8 electrical parameters on a daily basis (broken down into 4 time periods with 15-
minute demand and kWh for read-outs for each period). Peak demand times are also
recorded.

Sub-meters are installed on the secondary side of the switchgear in a building or facility.
Besides having a lower cost, secondary sub-meters are much easier to install. Electricians can
install them in about 3 hours while performing cleaning and maintenance of load centers or
as a separate job. Additionally, the meters facilitate electricity monitoring without
necessitating major interior changes in the building. Installation is simply a matter of hooking
3 current sensors around the electrical feeds and adding the 3 potential taps. The meter can be
mounted anywhere. Average cost to purchase and install a sub-meter connected to the DDC
system is approximately $3,000.

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EA Prerequisite 4 | Fundamental Refrigerant Management
The intent of this prerequisite is to reduce stratospheric ozone depletion. Refrigerants are an
ozone depleting material. This prerequisite requires zero use of CFC-based refrigerants in
HVAC&R systems. If your project is an existing building renovation that has a CFC-based
system already in it, the project must have a comprehensive phase out conversion to remove
the CFC-based refrigerants.

Scope

All full-sized refrigerant containing equipment is required in the scope of this prerequisite.
However, small HVAC&R units, standard refrigerators, and any other equipment that
contains less than 0.5 pound (225 grams) of refrigerant, are exempt from the calculations.

CFCs

New construction projects cannot install new CFC-based refrigeration due to the Montreal
Protocol, which phased out CFCs for industrialized nations in 1995. However, CFCs may
still be used in existing HVAC equipment prior to either 1995 in developed countries or
2010 in developing countries.

The EPA set regulations on using and recycling ozone-depleting compounds as part of the
Clean Air Act. Project teams must adhere to this standard to minimize refrigerant leakage
for systems with existing CFC-containing equipment.

Two Paths

There are two different paths. One is the new building in which you’re just not going to
install CFC based refrigerants. For new buildings, select refrigerants that have short
environmental lifetimes, minimize any leakage, and establish safe removal and disposal of
refrigerants.

The fact of the matter is many of us are dealing with existing buildings which have existing
CFC-based refrigerant systems. Insure proper maintenance on systems to minimize leakage.
Replace or retrofit existing CFC-based equipment before the project’s completion. A post-
occupancy phaseout can occur in special circumstances.

EA Credit 6 | Enhanced Refrigerant Management

The intent of this credit is to reduce ozone depletion and support early compliance with the
Montreal Protocol while minimizing direct contributions to climate change.

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Reduced Impact

Fundamental Refrigerant management is pretty clean cut—use no CFC-based refrigerants

and have a phaseout plan for existing buildings. This eliminates the most harmful refrigerant.

Enhanced Refrigerant Management takes it a few steps further and requires project teams to
use the least impactful refrigerants to earn points.
▪ Option 1 – No refrigerants or low-impact refrigerants can earn 1 point.
▪ Option 2 – Calculations of refrigerant impact can earn 1 point.

Option 1 | Lowest Impact

Option 1 is to not use refrigerants at all, or naturally occurring or synthetic refrigerants. This
is a simple option, with minimal impacts, but it is rarely done. Most commonly, projects with
natural ventilation can comply with no refrigerants when the building is in a very supportive
climate region. Most natural, or low-impact refrigerants are cost prohibitive because they
require additional energy demand to operate at the same capacity as the more potent
products. To comply with this option, projects may only use refrigerants with 0 ODP and
maximum of 50 GWP.

Option 2 | Calculation

Option 2 is selecting equipment with a combination of low ODP, Ozone Depleting

Potential, and GWP, Global Warming Potential. The table here shows some of the available
refrigerants and their ODP and GWP values. The refrigerant impacts along with the
expected equipment life can be used to calculate the impact of the proposed system design.

Refrigerant ODPr GWPr Application

CFC‐11 1.0 4,680 Chiller
HCFC‐22 0.04 1,780 Air conditioner
HCFC‐123 0.02 76 CFC‐11 replacement
HFC‐134a 0 1,320 HCFC‐22 replacement
HFC‐407c 0 1,700 HCFC‐22 replacement
HFC‐410a 0 1,890 Air Conditioner
Ammonia 0 0 Industrial Cold Storage

Equipment is assumed to have a life of 10 years, a leakage rate of 2% per year, and end-of-
life refrigerant loss of 10%. These values along with the refrigerant charge are plugged into
some formulas to determine the impact. The refrigerant charge is the ratio of the total
refrigerant used, to the cooling capacity measuring in pounds per ton, or kilograms per
kilowatt. To comply with this option, projects must demonstrate a refrigerant impact less than
100.

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Scope

The combination of all new and existing base building and tenant HVAC&R equipment that
serve the project must comply with the requirements. Even if the owner does not install or
control the equipment, they must ensure that it meets credit requirements. If a tenant installs
their own HVAC unit on the rooftop to cool their own computer closet, and the HVAC unit
doesn’t comply, the project can’t earn this credit. Therefore, future tenants are key members
to coordinate with during the overall design process.

Approach

For the least impact, consider natural ventilation, or even mixed mode when possible. This
way, your project doesn’t rely solely on hazardous refrigerants for comfort.

If you can’t use CFCs, what can you use? There are options, but it’s going to take some
work to do the calculations to make sure your design will serve the building occupants. The
mechanical engineer will select the proper refrigerants and minimize refrigerant impact.

In addition, select fire suppression, direct energy systems, and systems with a long service
life.
▪ Window air-conditioning units and heat pumps have service lives of 10 years
▪ Unitary, split, and packaged air-conditioning units and heat pumps have service
lives of 15 years
▪ Reciprocating compressors and reciprocating chillers have service lives of 20
years
▪ Centrifugal and absorption chillers have service lives of 23 years

Finally, when using the Retail rating system adaptation and installing commercial
refrigeration systems, it is required to test the leakage rate. Projects must demonstrate no
more than 15% emission leakage rate using GreenChill’s best practices guide.

Case Study

One of the world’s largest airports is also one of the greenest. At the heart of Heathrow
Airport’s Terminal 5 (T5) is a virtually HFC-free central ammonia chilling plant.

To make the vast T5 virtually independent from the use of ozone-depleting and high global
warming HCFCs and HFCs, all heating and cooling is done by a dedicated energy center
providing continuous supply of hot and chilled water for heating and air-conditioning,
respectively. All chillers operate with the non-ozone depleting and non-global warming
refrigerant ammonia. This natural substance was selected by the airport authority because it
was recognized as a future proof solution offering excellent efficiency. A thorough risk
analysis and safety review removed every concern regarding the system design and the
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 installation’s safety and confirmed that ammonia would not pose any greater risk to the
public or the airport staff than any other conventional large chiller solution. In fact, large
ammonia chillers had been already used before in more densely populated applications
without any safety compromises.

UK manufacturer Johnson Controls / Sabroe supplied Heathrow’s central chilling plant with
4 energy efficient chillers, each with a cooling capacity of 6.6 MW, or 1,875 tons. The units,
powered by high-voltage electricity, use twin compressors ensuring a good part load
performance, while the 11 kV motors reduce transformer losses. Safety features include a
minimal refrigerant volume through plate heat exchangers, separate sealed compartments, a
leak detection system, and an electrical switching outside the compartments. As the large-
scale R717 chillers deliver higher efficiencies than smaller local chillers, they reduce energy
consumption by at least 30% and possibly more from the chilled water store benefit. Storing
the chilled water reduces the system capacity and takes advantage of night electricity rates.

EA Credit 4 | Demand Response

The intent of this credit is to increase participation in demand response (DR) technologies
and programs that make energy generation and distribution systems more efficient, increase
grid reliability, and reduce GHG emissions.

The official definition of DR is a change in electricity use by demand-side resources from

their normal consumption patterns in response to supply-side requests. The utility company,
or supply-side, changes the price of electricity or incentivizes payments to induce lower
electricity consumption at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability
is jeopardized.

A simplified definition DR is balancing customers' need for electricity with the power
company's output. Participant’s voluntarily enroll in the program and reduce energy during
peak demand.

When you turn on an appliance, you expect immediate results: you don't wait for a light bulb
to come on after you've flipped the switch. That's the power grid at work—always on; always
ready. Electricity is generated at a power plant and transmitted to local substations where
transformers turn it into a usable voltage. Then it's distributed into our homes and businesses
through a network of high voltage transmission lines, aka the grid.

From day to day, electricity consumers use a predictable minimum amount of power, called
the baseload. At the very least, the grid is designed to handle this scheduled energy demand,
in addition to any usage spikes that happen. Demand for electricity is typically highest in the
afternoon and early evening, especially during the summertime when air conditioners run
day and night. When everyone is using their electrical appliances at the same time, it's called
peak usage time.

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 Until your power is knocked out, you probably don't pay much attention to how often you
turn on a light or the television or what time of day you do it. When you flip on a light
switch, electricity travels in an instant to your home and the bulb glows—that's called
demand. When millions of electricity customers all turn on their air conditioners after work,
it increases the demand load on the grid. Our demand for electricity is growing and the
Energy Information Administration estimates that demand will rise at least 40% by 2030.

The power grid supplies only the electricity we ask for, though, and it's up to us to practice
energy conservation. In broad terms, DR programs give us—residential, commercial, and
industrial consumers—the ability to voluntarily trim our electricity usage at specific times of
the day (such as peak hours) during high electricity prices, or during emergencies (such as
preventing a blackout).

Limited Availability

Case 1 can earn 2 points and is for projects located in an area where the utility company
offers a DR program. DR is still relatively new, so it isn’t available everywhere. Contact
your electricity provider to find out what options are available.

Case 2 can earn 1 point and is for projects located in an area without a DR program
available. This option requires the building to install local infrastructure and contact your
utility about participation in future programs.

Case 1 – Participation

Case 1 requires a project to participate in a DR program. There are several activities that
have to be completed:

▪ Design a system to provide real-time, fully-automated DR based on external

requests by a DR Program Provider. Semiautomated DR may also be used, and
those two types of system will be covered later.
▪ Enroll in a minimum one-year DR contract with a qualified DR program provider
for at least 10% of the estimated peak electricity demand (determined under EA
Prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance). Have an intention for multiyear
renewal.
▪ Develop a plan to achieve the contractual requirements during a DR event.
▪ Include the DR processes in the commissioning plan and perform at least one full
test of the DR plan.

The key point to remember is shedding at least 10% of the building’s estimated peak electric
usage.

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Case 2 – Advocacy

Case 2 requires designing the building in a manner that enables it to participate in a DR

program when it becomes available.

Projects have to install recording meters, develop a load shedding plan, include the system
in commissioning, and contact utility representatives to discuss future DR programs.
Basically, you are getting the building ready for a program, if and when the program is
released by the utility company.

Types of Systems

DR systems can be manual, semiautomated, or fully-automated. LEED does not allow a

project to use a manual system—that’s important to remember. Manual systems involve
intensive human intervention to activate. More advanced uses of DR, such as systematically
shifting load to off-peak times, require some form of automation, and consequently the
installation of an energy management control system (EMCS) or building automation system
(BAS). BAS is a DR tool that allows building managers to program the building's equipment
and appliances in such a way that they automatically power down in response to peak load
events, reducing the building's load demand in times of peak usage and/or peak pricing.

▪ Manual DR does not use a BAS. People manually turn off lights and equipment
when asked to do so. This is not an option for LEED.

▪ Semiautomated DR uses a BAS. A person initiates a control strategy—

preprogrammed into the BAS—when a DR event is called.

▪ Fully automated demand response (AutoDR) also uses a BAS. Receipt of an

external price, reliability, or event signal automatically triggers a BAS control
sequence that switches the building to low-power mode; no human intervention is
required.
DR is something you will need to contact your utility provider about early on to see if a
program is available. The minimum reduction is 10% in peak electricity demand, so the
project team will need to review the energy model from EA prerequisite minimum energy
performance to determine what quantity that will be. If a project used the prescriptive paths
for the prerequisite this credit can still be earned. In these cases, projects can use space peak
load calculations to estimate the peak demand.

Case Study

If you think DR isn’t going to work for your project, take a look at this case study on the
extreme end of the spectrum: a refrigerated warehouse for perishable food.

In 2010, Railex,1 a nationwide full-service transport, logistics, and distribution firm, built a
new 225,000-square-foot distribution center. The building was built for high-performance, and
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 soon business was growing and operating expenses increased. Railex contacted their utility,
Southern California Edison (SCE), and asked how they could lower their energy costs. The
answer was AutoDR.

SCE offered Railex a $72,400 incentive to install the required controls. The remainder of the
expenses was repaid in 4 months from the savings during DR events. Over two years, Railex
averaged 9-15 peak events in summer months only. Although their energy use increased by
35% in one year, participation in the DR program kept their electricity costs the same.

EA Credit 5 | Renewable Energy Production

The intent of this credit is to reduce the environmental and economic harms associated with
fossil fuel energy by increasing self-supply of renewable energy. Onsite renewable energy
systems offset building energy costs and reduce GHG emissions. Your building may not
become more efficient, but you reduce the cost of energy and lessen your environmental
footprint.

Calculations

The renewable energy produced is expressed as a percent of the annual energy cost. What
people generally do is look at their total building energy performance, then look at how much
renewable energy they’re producing, and calculate a percentage.

For projects that did not do an energy model, the Commercial Building Energy Consumption
Survey (CBECS) database can be used to estimate the annual energy use and cost.

Renewable Points all Points Core

Energy Rating Systems and Shell only
1% 1 1
3% ‐ 2
5% 2 3
10% 3 ‐

1 https://www.sce.com/wps/wcm/connect/109348ba-7680-43f6-839f-

6b7651b583ff/CaseStudy_Railex_AA.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

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Community Systems

New in LEED v4 is the ability to include the use of solar gardens or community renewable
energy systems if both of the following requirements are met.

▪ The project owns the system or has signed a lease agreement for a period of at
least 10 years.
▪ The system is located with the same utility service area as the facility claiming the
use.

Credit is based on the percentage of ownership or percentage of use assigned in the lease
agreement.

Implementation

Eligible on-site systems for this credit include:

▪ Photovoltaic systems
▪ Wind energy systems
▪ Solar thermal systems
▪ Biofuel-based electrical systems
▪ Geothermal heating systems
▪ Geothermal electric systems
▪ Low-impact hydroelectric systems
▪ Wave and tidal power systems
▪ Some geothermal systems

Generally, projects mistakenly undersize their renewable energy systems. If you can
oversize the systems, it creates a safety net and you potentially become a power supplier to
your local energy provider. This is called net metering, and your system can become a small
profit center.
Scope

It’s important for you to know what onsite systems are eligible. Some biofuels that can’t be
included are:
▪ Burning trash
▪ Forest biomass other than mill residue
▪ Wood covered with paints and coatings
▪ Preserved wood, such as pressure-treated lumber

Those biofuels that are not eligible have a high GHG potential or toxicity potential.

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Calculations

The percent of renewable energy cost is calculated by dividing the equivalent cost of usable
energy produced by the renewable energy system, by the total estimated building annual
energy cost which you will find in EA Prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance.

Manufacturers will be able to assist with the calculations based on the information they
provide about their systems.

The percent of renewable energy cost is calculated by dividing the equivalent cost of usable
energy produced by the renewable energy system, by the total estimated building annual
energy cost.

Usable energy is defined as the output energy from the system less any transmission and
conversion losses, such as standby heat loss or losses when converting electricity from DC
to AC. So, while you may install an 8kW PV array, that doesn’t mean you’re building gets
8kW of output or you use 8kW in the calculation.

The equivalent cost of the usable energy system can be calculated in two ways: either by
using a virtual rate or actual utility tariff plus demand rates. This is beyond the scope of this
study guide, so check out the reference guide for the fine-grained details.

Case Study

The Brewster Community Solar Garden Project is a large solar array located in a field adjacent
to the Brewster Water Department. In Brewster’s industrial zone, the field is a former sand pit
and debris disposal location—a site unsuitable for most other development. The facility is
constructed and maintained by My Generation Energy, Inc., also a Brewster-based company
and a leader in community solar installations in Massachusetts.

The solar power is delivered to the site every day, welcomed by a large array of 1,440 highly
efficient and US-made Sharp panels. The panels generate electricity which is then
conditioned and metered to the utility grid at the site. Through ‘virtual net metering’ the
credit from the project’s utility account is then transferred to the accounts of the Brewster
Community Solar Garden Cooperative members. Each member’s SunShare entitles the
member to the equivalent of 28 panels of energy each month. The facility provides enough
locally grown solar energy to power dozens of businesses and households in Brewster.

EA Credit 7 | Green Power and Carbon Offsets

The intent is to encourage the reduction of GHG emissions through the use of renewable
energy technologies and carbon mitigation projects.

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 Green Power and Carbon Offsets are different than any of the other credits we talked about in
one distinct way. First of all, it’s a 5-year contract for financial investment in at least 50% of
the building’s electricity from green power, renewable energy certificates, or carbon offsets.
More importantly, it is the only credit that allows strategies to be fully designed and
implemented by a third party off-site.

Credit Synergy

Projects earn 1 point for a 50% offset and 2 points for a 100% offset. The percentages are
based on the quantity of energy the project consumes, as determined by the project’s annual
energy consumption.

This credit factors all of the energy used in the building, not just the electric energy use. If
your building uses natural gas for heat in the winter, you must include that usage too.

Green power and carbon offsets are calculated based on the energy consumed by the project.
This is different than Energy and atmosphere credit Renewable Energy Production, which is
based on cost.

Timeline

For the Green Power and Carbon Offset credit, the building owner is looking at a long-term
commitment to earn this credit—at least 5 years. This credit is not a one-time purchase; it is a
yearly purchase for a minimum of 5 years. That is something to consider when deciding to
pursue this credit.

Marketplace

What is green power? Not to be confused with onsite renewable energy production, green
power is a subset of renewable energy composed of grid-based electricity produced from
renewable energy sources. To be considered a qualified resource, the renewable project must
have come online since January 1, 2005.

Visit https://www.green-e.org/ for detailed descriptions on how green power works for this
credit. The idea is your electricity provider is adding renewable energy to the grid on your
behalf.

By purchasing 50% of your power over 5 years from a Green-e provider, you are
subsidizing green power. You’re paying not just for power, but also the difference for them
to provide this power to the grid.

The provider is not plugging green power into your building. You’re subsidizing them
providing green power to the grid.

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Referenced Standards

Any Green Power and RECs must be certified by Green-e.

Carbon offsets must be Green-e Climate certified or an equivalent.

RECs

The way most people achieve this credit is purchasing Green-e Renewable Energy
Certificates (RECs). By purchasing RECs, the project obtains the environmental attribute of
renewable energy. Beyond the LEED application, building owners can use RECs to balance
their carbon emissions on corporate sustainability reports. Teams can call any Green-e
certified provider and get a quote in cents per kilowatt hour cost. Getting that quote would
help you understand this credit.

Green Power

Project teams may purchase green power directly, where available. For the Green Power
calculations, you need to know your design energy cost and your default electricity
consumption. Here’s a little bit of the math. Let’s say a project uses a million kilowatt hours
per year. Multiply that by 50%. The project would need to purchase 500,000 kilowatt hours
annually for a minimum of 5 years. The provider would multiply that by 1.2 cents per
kilowatt hour (or whatever the rate is), and then they would charge the building owner that
amount each year.

Carbon Offsets

The newest recognition for GHG accounting is carbon offsets. For the credit, the minimum
purchase is 50% of the building’s annual GHG emissions. Carbon offsets are proactive
strategies to capture or sequester carbon in biological, agricultural, or clean-fuel technologies.
Examples include planting trees and changing from conventional to no-till farming.

For LEED, the overall equation is: consumption, times the CO2 emissions factor, equals the
GHG emissions, or CO2 equivalent.

What you are purchasing is carbon offsets, so you have to determine the total metric tons of
CO2 equivalent the building is putting out for both grid-generated electricity and non-
electrical energy (such as natural gas). This is not difficult to calculate at all. We’ll walk
through the terminology and an example as well.

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Types of Emissions

Total emissions are the primary metric, quantifying the majority of GHG associated with
commercial buildings. It can be broken down into component metrics, direct and indirect
emissions.

Direct emissions, scope 1, are emissions from fuel that is directly burned at your
building; for example, natural gas that may be combusted to heat your property.

Indirect emissions, scope 2, are emissions associated with energy purchased from a
utility; for example, emissions associated with the generation of electricity or district
steam.

To calculate the project’s total emissions, first you have to know how much energy the
building is estimated to use and the different types of energy. This data already has to be
determined from Energy and Atmosphere Prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance.

GHG Emission Factors

For the calculations, you will need to know the direct and indirect GHG emission factors for
different fuel types as defined in the ENERGY STAR portfolio manager. These tables are
listed in the LEED reference guide.

Shown here is a table for direct GHG emission factors.

Fuel type Mt CO2e/kBtu Mt CO2e/kWh

Natural gas 5.32 × 10‐5 1.82 × 10‐4
Fuel oil (No. 2) 7.36 × 10‐5 2.51 × 10‐4
Wood 1.02 × 10‐4 3.47 × 10‐4
Propane 6.35 × 10‐5 2.17 × 10‐4
Liquid propane 6.36 × 10‐5 2.17 × 10‐4
Kerosene 7.27 × 10‐5 2.48 × 10‐4
Fuel oil (No. 1) 7.36 × 10‐5 2.51 × 10‐4
Fuel oil (Nos. 5 and 6) 7.92 × 10‐5 2.70 × 10‐4
Coal (anthracite) 1.04 × 10‐4 3.56 × 10‐4
Coal (bituminous) 9.42 × 10‐5 3.21 × 10‐4
Coke 1.14 × 10‐4 3.90 × 10‐4
Fuel oil (No. 4) 7.36 × 10‐5 2.51 × 10‐4
Diesel 7.36 × 10‐5 2.51 × 10‐4

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Calculations

To calculate direct GHG emissions:

1. All billed or metered site energy consumption for each fuel is converted from
native units to MBtu. Fuels that are delivered, billed, or measured in mass or
volume units (i.e., cubic feet, tons, gallons) are converted to energy using
standard heat content factors.
2. Total site energy for each fuel is multiplied by a single CO2-equivalent factor that
incorporates the reference global warming potential of each gas. In the US, these
factors are computed at the national level (each fuel has one factor).
3. Direct emissions are summed together across all fuels (e.g., oil, gas, etc.) and
reported as a Direct Emissions Metric.
4. Direct emissions are also added to the total GHG emissions.

Example

Let’s say your energy model shows your office building is going to consume 5,000,000
kWh of electricity per year and 1,000,000 kBtu of natural gas.

The natural gas is a direct GHG emission.

The ENERGY STAR direct GHG emissions factor of natural gas is 5.32 times 10 to the
minus fifth of metric tons of CO2 equivalent per kBtu.

1,000,000 kBtu per year times 5.32 times 10 to the minus fifth metric tons of CO2
equivalent per kBtu which equals 53.2 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. You
multiplied two numbers—easy.

The next step is to calculate indirect GHC emissions.

Indirect emissions result from the purchase of a utility-supplied energy product such as
electricity or district heat. When these secondary forms of energy are purchased, emissions
occur at the plant where the heat/electricity was originally produced. These factors are
applied to your site energy consumption and take into account emissions associated with the
heat (or power) generation. However, the emissions associated with energy losses from the
delivery of that energy (e.g., along transmission and distribution lines) is attributed to the
utility, not to your building. The main sources of indirect emissions are electricity, district
steam, district hot water, and district cold water.

In our project example we had 5,000,000 kWh of purchased electricity per year.
ENERGY STAR has an emission factor of 5.90 times 10 to the minus forth per metric
ton of CO2 equivalent per kWh.

Doing that math is 5,000,000 kWh per year times 5.90 times 10 to the minus forth per

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 metric ton of CO2 equivalent per kWh, which comes out to 2,950 metric tons of CO2
equivalent per year. It’s a mouthful when you say it, but again, it’s just multiplying two
numbers.

For natural gas, we had 53.2 metric tons and for electricity the project has 2,950 metric tons.
The total output is 2,950 plus 53.2 equals 3,003 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. The
project’s carbon offset would be 50% of this amount per year for 5 years to earn the credit,
or 1,502 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year.

While that seemed like a lot of math and big terms, it boils down to taking the energy values
from the prerequisite and multiplying them by the emission factors provided in the reference
guide and multiplying that total by 50%.

How to Choose

In summary your project team has to choose from purchasing green power, RECs, and/or
offsets. The choices will vary by the project location.

Carbon offsets can be used to offset non-electricity sources, such as natural gas. RECs, green
power, or carbon offsets can be used to offset electricity sources. That is a key
differentiator—carbon offsets are the only choice that can be used for both electricity and
non-electric energy.

A cost-benefit analysis can align the project’s goals with the type of purchase that best fits.
Carbon offsets are not all equal—some are for energy efficiency, some are for land or forest
restoration and preservation. Whatever the project team chooses must be for a minimum 5-
year commitment.

Net Zero

If the project is a net-zero building, the project can achieve 2 points for this credit without
purchasing additional renewable energy, RECs, or offsets. To do this, the project must not
sell any RECs associated with the on-site renewable energy production.

Energy and Atmosphere Synergies

Within the EA category, there are a number of synergies with commissioning because it
is the oversight of energy systems. When you look at light pollution, that has an effect on
energy, therefore, it requires commissioning.

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 In optimized energy performance there's a huge overlap, and then on and on through any
credit related to energy. Remember when you see these Related Credits to think about how
things sync up. For instance, how does one decision that affects commissioning also affect
minimum indoor air quality performance, etc.?

HVAC System Design

These are the same related credits we saw in Fundamental Commissioning. As you study,
try to figure out how each of these fit in. For example, how is it that increased ventilation
combines with Enhanced Commissioning? Think about a project that wants this credit and
say, “Increased ventilation is going to be achieved by a certain fan power, then pulling air
out through some exhaust fans.” Then you would think, “Well, that would be connected
because Enhanced Commissioning would be looking for those fans on the construction
drawings. They might be looking for those fans in the submittal process.” This is how
commissioning would oversee an actual performance credit. Drawing those parallels is a
great way to learn.

Your refrigeration choice impacts the energy use. Less efficient refrigerants require more
energy to achieve the same level of cooling as more efficient refrigerants. The gotcha is that
more efficient refrigerants usually have higher ODP and/or GWP. You must strike a balance
based on the project goals. Efficiency can also impact the design of the HVAC system.

System Interdependency

Anything related to energy is really related to energy performance. You could even see
things as distant as heat islands being tied to this, because the heat island effect has to do
with how much a building is being heated by the heat retention from the roof. This relates to
how much you cool the building, which relates to energy if the building is mechanically
cooled.

For water reduction, if you reduce the quantity of hot water, you reduce the energy needed
to heat the hot water.

Integrative Process

Project teams pursuing the Integrative Process credit must complete the basic energy
analysis for that credit before conducting the energy simulation for Energy and Atmosphere
Optimize Energy Performance.

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Key Terms

Commissioning (Cx) Plug Loads

Commissioning Authorities Demand Response
(CxA) Load Shedding
Energy Management Control
HVAC
System (EMCS)
Owner Project Requirements
Building Automation System
(OPR)
(BAS)
Basis of Design (BOD)
Fully Automated Demand
ASHRAE Guideline 0-2005
Response (AutoDR)
ASHRAE Guideline 1.1–2007
Commercial Building Energy
Sequence of Operations
Consumption Survey (CBECS)
Seasonal Setpoints
Database
Preventive Maintenance
Biofuels
Fundamental vs. Enhanced
RECs
Monitoring Based
Green-e
Commissioning (MBCx)
Carbon Offsets
Building Enclosure
GHG Emission Factors
Commissioning (BECx)
Direct Emissions
Whole Building Energy
Indirect Emissions
Simulation
Scope 1
ASHRAE 90.1-2010
Scope 2
Return on Investment (ROI)
Net Zero
ASHRAE Advanced Energy
Design Guide
Appendix G
Natural Ventilation
Recover Waste Energy
Building Orientation
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)
Montreal Protocol
Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP)
Geothermal

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Chapter 7 – Materials and Resources

Overview

LEED v4 is a performance-based rating system. It’s easy to visualize and measure the
performance of water and energy systems, but what does resource performance look like?
LEED has shifted the focus away from single attribute resource performance to incorporate
all aspects of the environmental impacts from a material’s life cycle.

The Materials and Resources section is shaped around life cycle thinking at both the whole
building and product levels. Life cycle thinking refers to the entire span of existence from
resource extraction to materials processing, product manufacture to construction, and
building use to building demolition or deconstruction. The comprehensive goal of the credits
in the new LEED v4 is to encourage as much materials reuse as possible.

Life cycle thinking helps to overcome questions about end-of-life value. For example,
whereas a material made from recycled content may perform quite high with respect to new
resource extraction, it may not be particularly durable and therefore will require replacement
much earlier than a material that’s built to last. Using life-cycle thinking, the LEED v4
credits will consider a complete, holistic picture of a material’s life, whether it be made of
recycled content, salvaged from the existing building, or a biobased resource.

When we’re talking about life cycle thinking, we’re not talking about any one phase. We
want to incorporate all of the steps from raw materials to operation and look at a full
comparison of product options.

Why is a life-cycle assessment (LCA) a useful tool? It helps you see these trade-offs and
helps you look at the whole picture and not just one aspect. It helps you see across all these
different stages. It gives us scientific methodology for doing these calculations and making
these decisions. Of course, it’s only one decision. You’re still going to look at the product’s
performance, other technical requirements, and the cost. LCA helps you have an
environmental metric to add to your equation when you’re trying to decide what you want to
do. It gives us the framework to have an apples-to-apples comparison on some of these
products as well.

Overview

The Materials and Resources credit category has 2 prerequisites and 5 credits.

▪ MR Prerequisite 1 Storage and Collection of Recyclables

▪ MR Prerequisite 2 Construction and Demolition Waste Management Planning
▪ MR Credit 1: Building life-cycle impact reduction

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 ▪ MR Credit 2: Building product disclosure and optimization – environmental
product declarations
▪ MR Credit 3: Building product disclosure and optimization – sourcing of raw
materials
▪ MR Credit 4: Building product disclosure and optimization – material ingredients
▪ MR Credit 5: Construction and demolition waste management

LEED v4 aims to increase market demand for manufacturer transparency. The MR section
contains credits specifically aimed at building product disclosure and optimization (BPDO).

Life Cycle Assessment

We can use LCA in a number of ways. We can look at it in a component and element level,
and we can look at whole building assessments. We can then actually understand how that
transfers into our existing buildings, and we can make sure we can understand that we can
make better decisions when we refer to those buildings.

In LEED, what we have at the Building Level is a whole building LCA, where the building
is the product. In this case, the architect can be the LCA expert as the architect understands
how the building is constructed, how building materials and products flow to the job site,
and how the building is going to be operated over time.

At its core, LCA is defined at the material level. It is not likely that an architect or any
building industry consultant would be called on to produce material-level Life Cycle
Inventory (LCI) data. This information is calculated by process chemists and chemical
engineers and submitted for inclusion in various LCI databases that companies producing
product LCA data use as a resource.

MR Prerequisite 1 | Storage and Collection of Recyclables

The intent of this prerequisite is to reduce the waste that is generated by building occupants
and hauled to and disposed of in landfills.

Requirements

Provide an appropriately sized area that serves the entire building for recycling. You must
collect the following streams of on-going consumables: paper, corrugated cardboard, glass,
plastics, and metals. The recycle bins must be distributed throughout the whole building.
Make recycling as convenient as possible. Think about ways to make the recycling stations
convenient and they will be used more frequently.

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Hazardous Waste

In addition to the ongoing consumables, the prerequisite requires safe collection, storage,
and disposal of 2 of the following hazardous waste sources: batteries, mercury-containing
lamps, and electronic waste. Since these waste streams are limited and infrequent, a single
collection point for the whole building is reasonable.

Electronic waste includes discarded office equipment (computers, monitors, copiers,

printers, scanners, fax machines), appliances (refrigerators, dishwashers, water coolers),
external power adapters, and televisions and other audiovisual equipment.

Implementation

Well-written signs placed in plain view make it easy for occupants to know what can be
recycled and where the materials should be placed. For example, if you have a blue plastic
recycling bucket with a label that says ‘aluminum cans’ on it, chances are nobody is going to
throw cardboard into it.

Convenience is one of the most important factors for getting employees to participate in the
recycling program. In an office building, recycling areas could be placed in each office, and
then have a collection area near where the garbage is picked up.

Successful projects provide instructions. Let occupants know about the recycling
program, or else they will not know to use it. Label the recycling areas and collection
strategies on your floor plans as part of the LEED documentation.

If recycling activity disrupts occupants, it can have a negative effect. Noise, foul orders, and
air contaminants all need to be addressed.

Rating System Adaptations

Retail has an adaptation for this prerequisite. Retail projects must do a waste stream audit to
identify the project’s top 5 recyclable waste streams. The idea behind the audit is once again,
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” By analyzing the waste streams, retailers can
get a better idea of where the waste is coming from and how best to divert it.

The waste stream audit must be conducted over at least one 24-hour period. Once the audit
is complete, list the top 4 waste streams for which the project will designate collection and
storage space.

To review those numbers: identify the top 5 recyclable waste streams over at least a 24-hour
period. Provide dedicated and accessible collection areas for at least the top 4 waste streams
identified in the audit.

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MR Prerequisite 2 | Construction and Demolition – Waste
Management Planning
The prerequisite is simply a plan, not a requirement to meet any thresholds or percentages of
diversion rates. Projects need to report the diversion rates at the end of the project.

In 1996, 136 million tons of construction and demolition (C&D) debris was generated— 57%
by non-residential construction. Most of this waste could have been recycled, thereby
reducing the demand for virgin materials. Waste reduction by recycling C&D debris can also
turn a cost into a savings for builders. Instead of paying haulers to dispose of C&D debris
from a job site, the materials can be sold to a recycling facility or given to a recycling facility
in exchange for free hauling.

There are more than 6,000 centers around the United States that run specialized programs for
reusing building materials. These programs are run by groups such as Goodwill, the Salvation
Army, and Habitat for Humanity and include using unneeded materials in schools.

Document a Plan

Project teams must develop and implement a construction and demolition waste
management plan. The plan must:

1. Establish waste diversion goals for the project by identifying at least 5 materials
(both structural and non-structural) targeted for diversion. Approximate a
percentage of the overall project waste that these materials represent.
2. Specify whether materials will be separated or commingled and describe the
diversion strategies planned for the project. Describe where the materials will
be taken and how the recycling facility will process the material.

Provide a final report detailing all major waste streams generated, including disposal and
diversion rates.

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 Educate and Collaborate

Establish requirements for waste reduction. First, make waste reduction a priority from the
onset of the project and include it as a priority throughout the inception, design,
implementation, and occupancy phases of construction.

Second, establish specific waste reduction benchmarks and goals for each phase and assemble
a team of qualified professionals experienced in environmentally sound design and
construction practices to see it through. Identify materials that can be salvaged and reused.
Include these goals and requirements for experience in requests for proposals and other
contract documents.

Monitor and support the program. Continually monitor the progress of waste reduction efforts
by requiring contractors to submit the waste management plan and waste management progress
reports. Support these efforts by identifying locations to collect and store recyclables on-site.

Architects, designers, and specification writers also have specific roles in the process. They
need to identify opportunities for waste reduction. Work with owners and developers to
identify opportunities for waste reduction and public relation benefits.

Select a contractor with proven waste reduction experience. A contractor experienced in

reducing construction waste will keep the bid the same or may even lower the bid. An
inexperienced contractor may increase the bid.

Use a Construction Waste Management Specification. A Construction Waste Management

Specification written with legally enforceable language is your most effective tool to ensure
waste reduction happens successfully on your project.

It is critical to monitor the waste reduction program. The architect and designer play an
important role in assuring the contractor’s compliance with the waste reduction program. These
individuals are responsible for requiring and reviewing waste management progress reports and
invoices from recycling and garbage haulers and recycling facilities. By successfully
monitoring the progress of the program and potential barriers, they can lead the discussion
about the waste reduction program during the project meetings.

MR Credit 5 | Construction and Demolition Waste Management

This credit builds on the prerequisite. For this credit, project teams are recycling and/or
salvaging non-hazardous construction and demolition materials.
▪ Option 1 – Diversion can earn 1 to 2 points
▪ Option 2 – Reduction of total waste material can earn 2 points

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Option 1 | Diversion Percentage

Path 1 requires a 50% diversion of at least 3 of the material streams selected from the plan
created for the prerequisite.

Path 2 requires a 75% diversion of at least 4 of the material streams.

LEED defines material streams as material flows coming from a job site into markets for
building materials. For LEED, a waste stream should constitute at least 5% by weight or
volume of the projects totaled diverted waste. This can represent either a material category
that is diverted in the specific way or a mixture of several material categories that are
diverted in a specific way. For example, if you are separating out wood and concrete into
separate bins on site those are each considered one stream. If you have a mixed bin with
both wood and concrete for off-site recycling, that is considered one total stream.

Option 2 | 2.5 pounds / square foot

Option 2 requires generating no more than 2.5 pounds of construction waste per square foot
(12.2 kilograms of waste per square meter) of the building's floor area. For this option, you
don’t have to go through the diversion process.

Exceptions

There are some things you can’t include in the calculations. Excavated soil, land-clearing
debris, and alternative daily cover are all excluded from the calculations.

Implementation

Implementation is about good practices and identifying ways to divert waste from landfills.
What a good general contractor is going to do is find places to take the material other than just
throwing it to a debris bin and sending it off to the dump.

Project can have separate containers (wood, drywall, metal, etc.) or have a single container for
vendors that do commingled recycling. Regardless of your choice, your documentation has to
be either in weight or volume.

If you have a service that does commingled recycling for the project, they can provide you
with a log once they take the debris away. The vendor can provide you with the actual log on
how much materials you have recycled and how much was trash.

If you're going in and doing demolition and there is a lot of carpet, many carpet factories
will take that carpet and pick it up, sometimes for free. Make sure you quantify it. In a case
where you can grind up the material, such as asphalt or concrete, and use it onsite,

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 that counts as well. Donate to Habitat for Humanity or other causes as long as the debris is
documented, and you know what it weighed or what its volume was.

Onsite, the containers need to be labeled appropriately. Hazardous materials and land-
clearing debris doesn't count against you. Make sure you're using just the trash containers
onsite.

Source Reduction

Eliminating waste at the source, known as source reduction, saves money and valuable landfill
space. There are many opportunities to implement source reduction strategies on construction
sites. The total waste generated by a project can be greatly reduced by considering waste
generation during the design phase, employing conservative purchasing practices, and by
reusing excess materials at the jobsite.

Before construction begins, a construction waste management plan should be developed that
identifies potential waste streams and where waste diversion can be put in place—salvage
this waste, reuse it, and recycle it. If the waste can be taken out of the building and reused
elsewhere, it avoids waste disposal in landfills and incinerators. Be sure the plan is actually
put into practice and that the team tracks the waste through reports from the waste haulers to
check that the waste management plan is actually working.

Advocacy

Work with suppliers to streamline purchasing:

▪ Request materials come with minimal or no packaging.
▪ Purchase previously used or salvaged items (most building owners will welcome the
opportunity to save money while conserving natural resources).
▪ Determine where existing policies and procedures might represent a barrier to
purchasing used or recycled materials.
▪ Keep a binder of information on product specifications and prices and check back
with manufacturers regularly for updates.
▪ Document product performance, especially when materials exceed expectations or
require special handling; establish a ‘feed-back loop’ with the manufacturer by
reporting usage information to them.
▪ Ask suppliers to take back or buy back damaged or unused materials and
packaging.
▪ Streamline supply estimations; make sure orders do not exceed your
requirements.

Waste prevention can be more beneficial than recycling because it identifies potential waste
early in the design process and decreases waste generated during construction.

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 ▪ Design with standard sizes for all building materials. This avoids creating waste
when standard-sized materials are cut to unusual lengths.
▪ Design spaces to be flexible and adaptable to changing uses. This avoids creating
waste during remodels.
▪ Design for prefabricated components. Modular building components, or
products that don’t need to be trimmed down onsite reduce waste.

Documentation

From your vendor, you need waste haul tickets.

Even though the project might extract soil and land, that doesn't count against the project. If
you're taking out some trees with clumps of dirt, that won't count against you. This credit is
focused on the construction materials. Actual land clearing wouldn't count against the
project.

If you have 30-yard dumpsters and you fill that up with wood, the calculations can be all
volume in cubic yards, or weight. From experience, the weight usually is going to be the better
measurement.

Waste-to-Energy

For some projects, waste-to-energy might be an option if reuse or recycling is not an option.
Waste-to-energy focuses on the potential to improve the sustainable management of waste in
Europe's regions and to produce energy from waste. Directive 2006/12/EC of the European
Parliament establishes the legislative framework for the handling of waste in the Community.

It defines key concepts such as waste, recovery, and disposal and puts in place the essential
requirements for the management of waste, notably an obligation for an establishment, or
undertaking carrying out waste management operations to have a permit, or to be registered
and an obligation for the Member States to draw up waste management plans.

It also establishes major principles such as an obligation to handle waste in a way that does
not have a negative impact on the environment or human health, an encouragement to apply
the waste hierarchy and, in accordance with the polluter-pays principle, a requirement that
the costs of disposing of waste must be borne by the holder of waste, by previous holders or
by the producers of the product from which the waste came.

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 Case Study

The Boston Scientific Company undertook the renovation of a 2-story, 30,000-square-foot

office building as Phase 1 of a 2-building, 400,000-square-foot project. The general
contractor was Payton Construction Corp.; SOS Corp. was the demolition subcontractor. The
project involved gutting and replacement of interior furnishings and fittings, wall/partition
systems, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and membrane roof. The project was particularly
complex because renovation began at the same time as demolition, so that employees could
move into parts of the building while other areas were still in construction. The project was
carried out to LEED Silver.

The Total Waste Reduction was 92% (702 tons recycled, 62 tons disposed). The Cost
Savings was $49,983, or 63%.

Loading dock space was a particular problem, with only 2 dock slots which had to be
reserved for the receipt of new materials as well as all outbound shipments. This was the
only location from which wastes could be shipped. The large footprint also entailed long
carry distances from locations where wastes were generated.

The team addressed this problem by mobilizing over 200 wheeled, soft-sided hampers
holding 15 to 20 bushels (about 1 cubic yard) of wastes, along with 4-wheeled rigid dollies to
handle bulky materials like studs and partitions. These were spotted at individual work
locations, where employees deposited specific wastes into designated containers. Full
hampers or dollies were wheeled and staged in the shipping/receiving area. When wastes
accumulated in a quantity to fill a dumpster or roll-off, the appropriate container was brought
to the dock, loaded, and removed, taking up dock space only for the short time needed to fill
the container. Using the hampers and dollies also made for a very clean work site because
wastes were picked up as they were generated, with none left on the floor for later collection.

MR Credit 1 | Building Life Cycle Impact Reduction

The intent of this credit is to encourage adaptive reuse and optimize the environmental
performance of products and materials. This credit can earn up to 5 points.

Four Options

▪ Option 1 – historic building reuse can earn 5 points

▪ Option 2 – renovation of an abandoned or blighted building can earn 5 points
▪ Option 3 – building and material reuse can earn 2 to 4 points
▪ Option 4 – whole building life cycle assessment can earn 3 points

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 This credit is trying to change the way we look at old buildings; instead of looking at just
the bricks and just the mortar of the building as a resource or material, LEED is trying to get
us to think of the building as a whole. Projects that use appropriate rehabilitation or
restoring buildings in blighted areas can get a good number of points for using the whole
building.

Historic Reuse

Let’s look at Option 1 first, historic building reuse. The most environmentally friendly
building you can build is one that already exists. This strategy extends the lifetime of
embodied energy and diverts the resources from landfills.

The requirements are to maintain the existing building structure, envelope, and interior non-
structural elements of a historic building or contributing building in a historic district. To
qualify, the building or historic district must be listed or eligible for listing in the local, state,
or national register of historic places.

LEED v4gives preference to advanced solutions over old-world techniques such as cross
ventilation, even though these would provide equally good energy savings. As a result,
designers have struggled with the conflict between the standards of LEED and the demands
for historic preservation. The improvements included in the LEED v4 standard offer points for
overcoming this shortfall.

Types of Reuse

There’s more than one way to reuse a building. In fact, when it comes to historic structures,
the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties outlines 4
historic building treatment approaches, including preservation, restoration, rehabilitation, and
reconstruction. While preservation is focused on the stabilization and repair of existing
historic properties, restoration involves returning an existing building to its original design
concept which often requires the removal of features that were added during periods of time
following original construction. Similarly, rehabilitation involves retaining a building’s
historic character but changing it to meet new requirements and uses. Reconstruction, on the
other hand, requires the rebuilding non-surviving buildings (or portions thereof) in order to
restore them to wholeness.

For this option, there is no percent compliance and no minimum area of building reuse. If,
however, the project team does something to the building that causes the building to lose the
historic designation, this option can no longer be achieved. In normal circumstances, a
member of the local historic society and permitting board would work closely to make sure
the historic aspects of the building are preserved. The value is retaining the regional
vernacular of a neighborhood.

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Abandoned or Blighted

Option 2 is for the renovation of an abandoned or blighted building. For this option, project
teams must maintain at least 50%, by surface area, of the existing building structure,
enclosure, and interior structural elements for buildings that meet local criteria of
abandoned or are considered blight. The building must be renovated to a state of productive
occupancy. Up to 25% of the building surface area may be excluded from credit calculation
because of deterioration or damage.

The definition of what is abandoned or blighted may be defined by local criteria. LEED
considers a property be abandoned “…if the rights have been surrendered, relinquished, or
ceded voluntarily with no intention of the owner to reclaim it. This includes the title claim
in possession of the property. Blighted properly is defined as neglected, rundown or
deteriorated, sufficient to constitute a threat to human health, safety, and public welfare.”

Material Reuse

If the building cannot be deemed abandoned or blighted, project teams can look at earning
Option 3, Building and Material Reuse.

Likely the most obvious way to reuse buildings is by retaining the existing structure and
renovating it for a new purpose and/or to improve its performance. Different than a purely
aesthetic remodeling of a building, a whole building retrofit involves systems thinking,
which is used to evaluate the building’s current performance in terms of energy
consumption, waste use, and occupant health and productivity, with a view to developing a
project plan for widespread upgrades.

This type of building reuse may involve any number of aspects, including upgrades to the
building envelope, improvements to the heating and cooling systems, retrofitting the structure
to encourage natural ventilation and increase daylighting, as well as replacing old fixtures
and piping to reduce water consumption. More advanced retrofits may also include installing
a green roof or integrating renewable energy systems such as geothermal, solar photovoltaics,
or even wind energy.

Sometimes a retrofit will also involve converting the structure or interior layout in order to
accommodate different activities. This is often the case for derelict buildings in depressed
neighborhoods; for instance, for the purpose of breathing new life into abandoned spaces. For
low-income communities, this helps to beautify their neighborhoods at a lower cost than
constructing new buildings. It also keeps disposal of C&D waste to a minimum which helps
relieve stress on local landfills.

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 Numerous reports show that renovating and upgrading existing buildings has a positive
impact on the culture of communities as well. Restoring old buildings infuses a sense of
revitalization by turning buildings once considered eyesores into functional spaces. When the
buildings are reused for things such as local businesses and community purposes, they
stimulate job creation and keep more money circulating within local economies. These
benefits in turn reduce poverty, decrease crime rates, and create a sense of cohesion and
togetherness, all of which enriches peoples’ lives.

For Option 3, Building Material Reuse, reuse or salvage building materials from off-site or on-
site as a percentage of the surface area, as listed in the table. Include structural elements (e.g.,
floors, roof decking), enclosure materials (e.g., skin, framing), and permanently installed
interior elements (e.g., walls, doors, floor coverings, ceiling systems). Exclude from the
calculation window assemblies and any hazardous materials that are remediated as a part of
the project.

The minimum percent of completed project surface area reused is 25%, with increasing
increments of 50% and 75%. Points vary between BD&C projects and Core and Shell
projects.

Salvage

First consider the building structure and envelope, the roof deck, and exterior skin. Window
assemblies are not counted. Hazardous materials are also excluded from any of these
calculations because you wouldn’t want to keep them, and they must be removed anyway. If
you have asbestos abatement and that makes you have to demo certain areas, that doesn't
hurt you in the calculations.

There are a different number of points depending on the type of project and how much of the
building is retained. This is one of those credits that a lot of projects can't achieve because
the project is for new construction, and you can't retain walls, floors, and a roof if you're
doing new construction. Then you may ask, “Well, what about salvage items?” Salvage items
will fit into this option as well, but it’s going to be a lot harder to get to 25% salvaged
material on a new construction project where you’re not reusing a building. If you are using
less than 25% salvaged materials, you can count their contribution in MR credit BPDO: Raw
Materials.

In a pre-design project, teams would identify items for reuse, and analyze the cost savings
from the building reuse. Look at what you can keep and what should be demolished. During
the schematic design the project team can pinpoint how to reuse these materials and as much
of the building as possible. Incorporate existing components in plans and specifications. The
project teams determine the square footage for existing building reuse for credit compliance.

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Calculations

For the calculations, create an itemized spreadsheet listing all of the interior components.
Quantify the reuse in terms of square feet. All calculations are based on surface areas of
major existing structural and envelope components. Add up the surface area of your walls,
floors, and the roof altogether. Window assemblies would be excluded, because LEED
doesn’t want projects to reuse windows. Newer windows are more energy efficient.
Hazardous materials and materials that pose contamination risks are excluded as well, as is
any materials that are not structurally sound. If there are walls covered in lead paint, those
walls would need to be removed. The area of those walls will not count against the totals.

Sample Question

A major renovation project of an abandoned warehouse will include reusing the building.
What project materials are excluded in the calculations for building and material reuse?
(Choose 2)

A. Interior load-bearing wall

B. Second floor window assemblies
C. Western-facing cement wall that has no windows
D. Exterior walls painted with lead paint

For Option 3, Building and Material Reuse, maintain the existing building structure,
including:

▪ structural floors
▪ roof decking
▪ envelope, excluding window assemblies
▪ permanently installed interior elements (e.g., walls, doors, floor coverings, ceiling
systems)

The cement wall would be included in the calculations as contributing to the materials
reused in the building.

Correct Answer is B and D.

What must be excluded are:

▪ window assemblies (choice B)

▪ hazardous materials such as asbestos
▪ materials that pose a contaminations risk to occupants such as walls with lead paint
(choice D)

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Whole Building -Cycle Assessment

Option 4 is the whole building life-cycle assessment which can earn 3 points. LCA is about
looking both at manufacturing and future waste impacts of a building or product. An issue
that is quite common with materials such as steel or aluminum is that a large amount of
energy goes in to the front end of the process in terms of the extraction. How then, do we
understand what the true impact of the material is in the building if you want to reuse the
material, and how do you measure that material impact? This is where LCA helps us consider
future impacts. Keep in mind, a life-cycle assessment only provides numbers, but the
understanding of those numbers affects your environmental footprint.

Properly performed, a life-cycle assessment is a detailed calculation of every phase of a

product's manufacturing process and usage over time. Typically, this includes 5 basic
phases:

1. Extraction phase. (Sometimes called the ‘cradle.’) A true life cycle starts with the
extraction phase where the raw materials of the product are identified along with the
means of extracting and transporting that material to a manufacturing site such as a
factory.

2. Manufacturing phase. This phase is examined in terms of the processes and procedures
needed to turn the raw materials into a finished product ready for delivery. Often, it
includes electricity and water consumption is volumes greater than the weight of the
finished product. (When ready for delivery it is sometimes referred to as being at the
‘gate.’)

3. Construction phase. The third phase is where design and construction professionals
usually see the products, specifically when the products are transported from a factory to
the jobsite and installed as part of the normal construction process.

4. Use phase. From there the product begins its useful service life or use phase as part of
the building to the benefit of the building owner and users. Here, a product like a fan
would consume electricity under normal operation. This electricity end use is known as
‘scope 2’ emissions.

5. End-of-life phase (sometimes called the ‘grave’). At the end of its usefulness in the
building, the product moves to its end-of-life phase where it needs to be removed and
either reclaimed, repurposed, recycled, reused, or disposed of.

Assessing the issues and impacts across all 5 of these phases makes up a full life-cycle
assessment (sometimes called a full ‘cradle to grave’ assessment) of a particular product or
even a category of products and materials.

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 The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has become recognized around the
world for establishing LCA standards and rules, and LEED references ISO 14044.

Decision-Making

This credit is designed to provide the project team with guidance to lessen the construction
impact on the environment. The more information you can get through a whole building
life-cycle assessment, the better decisions the project team will make about material
selection and reuse. This credit answers the question of how much impact am I avoiding by
reusing the building or by optimizing the materials being used? If you are reusing a
building, you can use options 1, 2, or 3. If you aren’t reusing the building then you are
building new, in which case, the project is automatically going to need to choose Option 4.

The idea of this credit is similar to the Energy and Atmosphere credit for optimize energy
performance, where project teams take a baseline scenario and then create a design case to
compare against. The savings are calculated against a baseline, so you will get points based
on your improvement. Option 4, whole building life-cycle assessment, is similar in concept.
A project team would create a reference LCA building and compare it against the building
design. Using less materials, using better materials, or using different materials will help out
with the savings.

For this option, projects must demonstrate a minimum of 10% reduction compared to the
baseline of a building in 3 impact categories, which we will cover next.

The scope of the whole building life cycle assessment is the complete building envelope and
structural elements, which includes the material components of footings and foundations,
structural wall assemblies, floors and ceilings. What’s not in the scope are the MEP
components, site development, and interior non-structural components.

Impact Categories

OK; so how is LEED going to define ‘better’ materials and ‘better decisions’? That is
where impact categories come in. There are 6 impact categories used for measuring
reduction:
▪ global warming potential (GHG)
▪ depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer
▪ acidification of land and water sources
▪ eutrophication of water
▪ formation of tropospheric ozone and
▪ depletion of non-renewable energy resources

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 Projects must demonstrate a minimum of 10% reduction compared to the baseline of a
building in global warming potential, and a 10% reduction in at least 2 of these 5 other
impact categories.

One of the categories must be global warming potential, so you are really only picking two
others.

Balance

Design cannot make improvements in one area at the sacrifice of another. That would be a
negative externality of single attribute thinking. In general, LEED promotes the proactive
strategy called Triple Bottom Line decision-making or balancing the benefits of all impact
categories. Therefore, in life-cycle assessments, no impact category in the design case may
increase by more than 5% compared with the baseline building.

What that means is, for those 6 categories, your building’s design case may not exceed the
baseline case by 5% in any category. It’s not enough to just do well in 3 of the Categories;
you can’t do poorly in the other categories in order to do well in others. Part of the
requirements are for the baseline building, and the proposed building design must be
comparable. This includes the size, function, orientation, and operating energy as defined in
EA Prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance. You’re not saving energy by comparing a
100,000 square foot (9,290 square meter) 10-story office building to a 20,000-square-foot
(1,858-square-meter) retail building. These different comparison options are different aspects
of defining the baseline building and help isolate the material decisions being made.

The baseline and design case of the proposed building use a service life of 60 years for the
comparison. You’re looking at these buildings over an extended period of time to get a good
comparison.

Components

The whole building LCA is simply thinking of the building as one big product. That means
you’re taking all the LCAs of each of the material and considering them together. The whole
building LCA is going to include the building envelope, walls, structures, ceilings, and
covered parking. It’s basically the major assemblies of the building and not the interior.
Projects can assess the interiors if they choose to, but it isn’t required for the credit. No
painting, no finishes, etc. The best way to think of it is to take the building, turn it upside
down, and shake it. All the stuff that falls out doesn’t count.

Define the wall, roof, and floor assemblies following the performance requirements of the
building envelope as defined in ASHRAE 90.1–2010, Appendix G, Opaque Assemblies,

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 Vertical Fenestration, Skylights, and Roof SR and Thermal Emittance sections, for the
project’s climate zone.

Windows count because they are part of the façade. If a project has a curtain wall versus
insulated metal panels or brick, all of those things count. The wall insulation counts in this
credit. It’s that whole exterior wall structure from the skin to the skin. All of that counts.
What doesn’t count are things like dividing walls.

The 60-year service life is used as the assumed life of the entire building structure and
enclosure. Things like dividing walls may change over the service life so they aren’t
included, especially when tenants may come and go and want the walls rearranged.

If you wanted to include solar panels, you could but don’t have to. You need to consider the
goal of your assessment. Do solar panels have much to do with the building? However,
covered parking is on this list because there are a lot of projects that have parking
underground or have parking associated with the building.

What is excluded are MEP components, elevators, fire detection, excavation, and parking
lots.

Scope

For this assessment, the scope will be cradle to grave. You will see in the Environmental
Product Declarations (EPD) credit later the scope is cradle to gate, which is different. For a
building, LEED is expecting to look at the end-of-life scenario of the building. The cradle to
grave assessment includes environmental impacts associated with all the life-cycle stages for
the building structure and enclosure: resource extraction or harvest, building product
manufacture, on-site construction, product maintenance and replacement (where warranted),
and deconstruction or demolition and disposal over the assumed 60-year service life.

Process

First you have to select which tool you are going to use for your LCA. The tool you select is
going to be based on ability, knowledge, and goals. The first step is to create the baseline.
When you are creating the baseline, there are some aspects laid out in the credit requirements
of what has to be the same: the size, function, orientation, location, and operating energy
performance.

Some things can be different, like the building’s shape. If you have a square baseline
building, you can have a rectangular design case building. The floor areas have to be the
same however. It is acceptable to compare a one-story building to a 10-story building if they
have the same floor area.

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 During the process, compare the different structural types, assemblies, and variations in
products. For example, compare curtain walls vs. brick. You can break up different
components of the building and group them together and ask, “How much impact is coming
from this high-level grouping of components?” Depending on the project, you can decide
what makes sense as you look at the components and dig deeper to determine what it means.
For example, consider the foundation. You might ask, “Where did the foundation come from,
which cement did we use, and why? What if we used a different cement, and what impact
would that have on the LCA model?”

The last step in the assessment would be taking the baseline results and making design
decisions based on the environmental impacts. Again, you are aiming for a 10% reduction
in global warming potential and 2 of the 5 5 other impact categories, while not exceeding
any other category by 5%. This is often the case with LCA projects, where many impacts
get reduced, but others end up going up.

Example

One of the trends in construction is the use of large timber structural projects. Instead of
steel and concrete, timber and large-scale laminated timber products are being used.
When you look at the LCA of these timber products, they look pretty good in terms of
reduced carbon impacts and reduced global warming impacts. Note that if you aren’t using
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber, you may be negatively impacting
habitats.

Timeline

In principle, building information modeling (BIM) ought to provide designers with the
detailed bill of materials necessary to perform a life-cycle assessment during project
delivery. But in practice, elements in BIM models often do not reflect the actual volume of
materials, requiring a more refined definition of architectural products than expected.

How are you going to do a whole-building LCA quickly?

With demand for whole-building LCA increasing, a partnership of architects, LCA

experts, and software developers have worked to release Tally—a new tool that allows
designers to track environmental impacts in real time while creating models in the popular
BIM software Revit.

What becomes fascinating is that you easily see the environmental impacts change when
testing design variables, like, “What if I change the floor area ratio versus the floor plate
depth?” Also, you can start to play scenarios with the clients where you can say, “If I start to
look at the energy crisis in the future, what is going to happen to this building performance.
What will actually happen if I add more insulation?” To save the client money in the future,
you can look at the life-cycle cost and the life-cycle impact and use this data in a number of
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 scenarios to really understand the building and give the informed view to the client to realize
what is going on.

Building Product Disclosure and Optimization Credit Suite

The next set of 3 credits are freshly organized in LEED v4 to address BPDO. Disclosure is
knowledge-seeking and means transparency of product supply chains, ingredients, and life-
cycle impacts. It’s about building a body of publicly available knowledge. Optimization
seeks to reward products that have met thresholds or benchmarks for performance based on
impact categories.

You’ll find that each of these credits has 2 options. Option 1 for each credit is going to
address the transparency and disclosure of materials. The second option will address
optimization, or the performance part of the material.

The disclosure option is really where that transparency mechanism is. What does
transparency mean? Well, if you look on the side of a box of cereal or a bottle of ketchup,
you can see what ingredients are in it. Do you want the ketchup that has high-fructose corn
syrup, real sugar, or just tomatoes and salt? You get to read the label and decide.

Transparency in materials is giving you the information so you can decide. It doesn’t say
what’s better for you—the high fructose corn syrup, the real sugar, or neither—it just tells
you, so you can pick. LEED also doesn’t give more points or value based on what has been
disclosed. It’s just reporting. Disclosure also helps verify claims from labels, such as
recycled content, BPA-free, zero-VOC, and so forth.

LEED uses different transparency standards for each disclosure option, depending on what
the goal of that particular credit is. Then LEED takes it a step further to say, “What would
the performance metric be to demonstrate optimization for the product?” That’s an
additional point for using products that are really going to have a better health impact.

Any new concept introduced to an existing industry will take time to become fully integrated.
There is potential for fear that these next few credits are too complex and too big of a jump
from previous reporting metrics. It’s not impossible; it’s just new. These BPDO materials
credits, which include (EPDs) and HPDs, are going to take a while for everyone to get
educated and the market to catch up. But in order to continue to transform the industry, the
USGBC and its membership approved these additions to LEED v4.

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BPDO Scope and Details

The scope of all 3 Building Product Optimization and Disclosure credits includes
permanently installed building products and excludes active mechanical, plumbing,
electrical and specialty equipment. However, passive MEP such as piping, wiring, ductwork,
and mechanical insulation are included in the scope of the credits. Similar products from the
same manufacturer can be counted as separate products if they have distinct formulations,
but not if they are aesthetic variations or reconfigurations.

Option 1 of each credit rewards teams for selecting a number of products that disclose
environmental attributes. The idea is to increase manufacturer participation in transparency.
It rewards producers who voluntarily disclose their process and ingredients. Those may seem
like reasonable benchmarks, but until very recently, it was not common. This is a new metric
in LEED, and each credit has different weightings for a product depending on the stringency
of the transparency program.

Option 2 of each credit seeks products that exhibit superior characteristics. Products may be
double-counted across these 3 credits and the options within the credit. Option 2 is
calculated by cost, which may be a more familiar metric for project teams who have used
previous versions of LEED. For each credit, structure and enclosure materials may not
constitute more than 30% of the total value of compliant building. Once that 30% cap is
reached, the value of the structure and enclosure materials cannot count toward the cost of
the compliant products, but their value must still be included in the total product costs. This
encourages demand for sustainability of less expensive materials or those where large
environmental gains have not yet been made. For BD+C projects only, teams may also use a
default value of 45% of total construction costs for their total materials cost.

Look for products that cover multiple credit criteria to help increase the likelihood of earning
these credits. A single product, with full disclosure and optimized performance, can contribute
up to 6 points in the MR section. All 3 of these credits are best approached early on during the
design phase so that product research can help the team capitalize on these opportunities for
credit synergies. At this point, it may be appropriate to use industry-wide and generic
information to make high-level decisions, such as the decision between steel and concrete.
Later on, manufacturer-specific information is desirable so that more granularities can be
considered—such as the decision between nylon carpet and polyester carpet—and ultimately
the decision among vendors that can provide alternatives.

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 Terminology

It’s worth reviewing a few popular transparency and disclosure tools that can be utilized to
meet the new credits. Some, like LCA, we have already covered. Others will be covered in
more depth as we go on.

LCA is a technique used to measure product or building environmental impacts, such as

carbon footprint, throughout its life cycle. Typically, an LCA measures impacts from raw
material extraction, transportation, manufacturing, use and end of life. The LCA is the
backbone of an EPD.

Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) – are a comprehensive disclosure of a

product’s impacts throughout its life cycle. EPDs are also known as Type 3 Ecolabels. Like
LCAs and product category rules (PCRs), EPDs follow the International Organization of
Standards guidelines. They are used globally.

Product Category Rules (PCR) – are like a recipe for producing an LCA and EPD. They
establish the methodology which all product manufacturers in a category must follow when
creating an EPD. PCRs follow the International Organization of Standards guidelines. They
are used globally.

Health Product Declarations (HPDs) – are a standard format for transparent disclosure of
building product ingredients and associated hazards. HPDs were created by the Health
Product Declaration Collaborative and are mainly used in North America.

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – is a standard framework for reporting corporate social
responsibility information. To meet LEED v4 requirements, manufacturers must report on
raw materials sourcing practices.

MR Credit 2 | BPDO – Environmental Product Declarations

The first credit is Materials and Resources credit BDPO – EPD. The intent of this credit is
to encourage the use of products and materials for which life-cycle information is available
and that have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable life-cycle impacts.
Also, to reward project teams for selecting products from manufacturers who have verified
improved environmental life-cycle impacts.

In the effort to increase the transparency of product content, EPDs are gaining momentum.
EPDs identify the ingredients (feedstock) in a manufactured product. It is a way to
communicate in a brief compact form. EPDs are most often linked to the concept of a nutrition
label. An EPD addresses the needs of both manufacturers and buyers seeking clear, credible,
and precise information about the environmental impacts of a product family.

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 In the commercial building construction field, EPDs simplify the process of making informed
direct comparisons of similar products.

Keep in mind, an EPD is a statement of fact. It does not judge whether a product meets any
particular environmental quality standard. Instead, users are responsible for making
judgments about how the information presented impacts their project.

Two Options

Option 1 – EPD can earn on point. And/or

Option 2 – Multi-attribute optimization can earn 1 point.

Product Category Rule

In order to declare the environmental impact of a product—whether it be concrete, carpet, or

a roof membrane—we need consistent parameters. This need created product category rules.
The idea is that the industry accepts rules for any particular type of product; flooring rules
may be different from the rules for ceiling fans or the rules for looking at a whole building.

EPDs are based on Product Category Rules. PCRs specifically define what information is to
be reported in an EPD so that it can accurately reflect a product’s environmental impact

Product Category Rule documents define the requirements for EPDs of a certain product
category. They are vital for the concept of environmental declarations as they enable
transparency and comparability between different EPDs based on the same PCR. The PCR is
the standardized method for conducting and reporting the results of a life-cycle assessment
for a particular group (category) of products. The PCR ensures that all products in its defined
category (e.g., concrete products, flooring products, etc.) are measured the same. It also
assures that their environmental impacts are quantified in the same way, so comparisons can
be readily made between different manufactured products within the same category. The
PCR defines the means for measuring and reporting out by requiring that the same functional
unit of measurement is used for all products within a category (e.g., impact per cubic yard of
concrete, or per 100 square yards of a flooring, etc.).

PCRs are developed using a consensus-based, collaborative, and fairly transparent process
by industry experts and stakeholders, following certain ISO guidelines. They are then
verified by an expert review panel.

To put it all together, the LCA is based on the product category rules. When you
combine the rules with the assessment, you put together the EPD, as required for this
credit.

Note that as a project team member, you aren’t doing any of this development, but it’s
helpful to understand the process so that when you put two or more EPDs side by side, you

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 have an idea of where they came from. As a project team member, you’re just collecting
EPDs from manufacturers. The challenge is to work with suppliers who can provide EPDs;
some may not be on board yet.

Related Documents

The EPD summarizes the LCA in a more meaningful form which can be interpreted by the
average reader. It takes the technical information of a complex LCA and creates what
amounts to a nutrition label for products.

Requirements

Option 1 requires using at least 20 different permanently installed products sourced from at
least 5 different manufacturers with an EPD.

There are 3 types of EPDs, and each is weighted differently by LEED. There is an LCA
that’s done by a manufacturer without a product category rule and without a third party
review that accounts for a quarter of a full product. You would need 4 times as many of this
weaker document to meet the credit requirement for 20 products.

A stronger EPD is a generic product done by an association—let’s say it’s for floor tile—
counts as a half of a product. Teams would have to collect 40 of these to meet credit
requirements.

The strongest EPD is created by a particular manufacturer, for a unique product, and counts
as a whole product relative to the credit on EPDs.

A Type III EPD is based on ISO standards that use a life-cycle approach for evaluation. This
means that potential impacts to the environment are indicated for different phases of a
product’s life: Sourcing/ Extraction, Manufacturing, Installation, Use, and End-of-Life.
There are two classifications of Type III EPDs: Industry-Wide EPDs, which are generic to a
product type, and Product Specific Declarations, which are manufacturer-specific for a
family of products.

Product Specific-Type I EPD

The first type is a life cycle assessment disclosure is derived directly from the manufacturer
for a specific product. This is for cases when there is no product category rule, the product
category rule is not relevant, or the manufacturer doesn’t have the resources to produce a
full EPD.

For these products you can earn ¼ of a product. The threshold for the credit is 20 different
products, so this would count as ¼ of 1 product.

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 These are products with a publicly available, critically reviewed life-cycle assessment
conforming to ISO 14044 that have at least a cradle to gate scope. What’s a critical
reviewer? It’s defined by ISO as to who it can and cannot be.

Industry-Wide – Type II EPD

The next type is an industry-wide (generic) EPD. In the marketplace, a bunch of

manufacturers will get together and produce an EPD for their industry. If the manufacturer is
recognized as a participant in the program, the product is valued as half of a product.
Usually an industry association will produce an EPD for an entire industry.

An example might be gypsum board. Any manufacturer of gypsum board that participates
in the industry EPD would have their product count. That will get you half credit because
it’s relevant to a product category or a product type, but it’s not product-specific.

Third Party Verified – Type III EPD

A product-specific type 3 EPD has the most value and counts as one whole product toward
the 20 minimum. The EPD is a document created by a manufacturer to show the results of
the life-cycle assessment performed on its products in accordance with ISO standards.
Where appropriate, the relevant Product Category Rule should be used to conduct the LCA
and the completed EPD should reflect that. Before being published, the EPD needs to be
verified and approved by an independent entity such as UL Environment (ULE).

The fully vetted EPDs thus enables everyone involved to make accurate direct comparisons
of the environmental strengths and weaknesses of similar products, thus providing a degree
of transparency in terms of the environmental impacts of using different building products.
Many in the green products industry regard the EPD to be a standardized tool used to
communicate the environmental performance of a product. It works in the same way that a
nutrition label on a food product informs us about the fat, sugar, and cholesterol in the foods
we eat. Only in this case, it is an environmental impact label informing us about energy,
pollution, and resource depletion contained in the products that we select and specify.

Twenty Products

Quarter points, half points, full points, 20 products, 5 manufacturers. That sounds confusing.
You are trying to get to 20 total products, but depending on which type of EPD is available,
the product may only provide partial credit. Let’s say your project uses all products from
manufacturers that have created their own product specific EPD. You need 80 products since
they are all valued at ¼ of a product. If you use 20 products that all have a type-3 EPD, you
just need the 20 products. You can also use any combination to get to the 20 total.

The important thing to recognize about Option 1 is it says nothing about how good the results
are in the EPD, unlike Option 2 where the products actually demonstrate an impact reduction.
An EPD just informs you. They provide data from which the manufacturer will hopefully in
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 the future try to improve on. You as a buyer can take two EPDs and compare products. The
idea is by having to put out an EPD, a manufacturer is going to have incentive to make their
products and materials better than their competitors, which will help transform the industry.

Option 2 Multi-Attribute Optimization

As manufacturers, if you can show your product’s life cycle environmental impacts are less
than your industry LCA in at least 3 of the impact categories, you can contribute to earning
points within this credit. Currently there are many industry associations that have published
or are in process of publishing LCA data, so these comparisons can soon be completed. To
earn this credit, project teams must use products with reduced life-cycle environmental
impacts for 50% by cost of the products installed. Products that are extracted, manufactured,
and purchased within 100 miles (160 km) of the project site are valued at 200% of their cost.
So, you can double it.

Impact categories for measuring reduction

▪ Resource depletion – the consumption of non-renewable resources including
those used for energy (oil, gas, coal, metals, etc.)
▪ Acidification potential – the potential for the product to contribute to acid rain
▪ Eutrophication potential – the product's contribution to water or soil nutrients that
cause algal blooms
▪ Global warming potential – the emissions of carbon dioxide or methane that
affect the earth's atmosphere
▪ Ozone layer depletion potential – the reduction in beneficial environmental ozone
caused by chlorofluorocarbon emissions
▪ Photochemical ozone creation potential – the contributions to smog caused by
hydrocarbon emissions

It is important to recognize that all of the parts of the process as discussed above are
inherently tied together. PCRs for a specific product type or category are developed
following the guidelines authored by ISO. An LCA is then performed by an independent
entity for a specific product or material according to the PCR and the specific minimum
impact categories that indicate what must be measured and accounted for. The results of the
LCA are then used to publish an EPD that comes from the manufacturer. When architects,
engineers, or others request this EPD, then, it is a representation that the proper process has
been followed to produce it. It is the EPD that ultimately is used by the design team to
assess different products and materials for sustainability and to provide documentation for
green building certification programs.

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MR Credits 3 | BPDO – Sourcing of Raw Materials
Materials and Resources credit BDPO – Sourcing of Raw Materials. The intent of this credit
is to encourage the use of products and materials for which life-cycle information is available
and that have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable life-cycle impacts. Also,
to reward project teams for selecting products verified to have been extracted or sourced in a
responsible manner. Rather than focusing on a single attribute, this credit rewards multi-
attribute products to push products toward better performance.

Two Options

Option 1 – Raw Materials and Extraction Reporting can earn 1 point. And/or
Option 2 – Leadership Extraction Practices can earn 1 point.

Corporate Sustainability

Option 1 focuses on corporate sustainability, and having a published report is a well-

established voluntary system that is common among large corporations.

The reporting component of this option rewards the use of at least 20 permanently installed
building products from manufacturers that have made information available, such as
supplier locations, commitment to long-term ecologically responsible land use, reducing
environmental harms and meeting applicable responsible sourcing programs. Similar to
EPDs, project teams receive credit depending on the type of report the manufacturer
provides. For example, a third-party verified corporate sustainability report is valued higher
than a disclosure report that is not verified.

For this option you are looking for 5 different manufacturers that have publicly released
a report on their raw materials and their raw materials suppliers as well as a long-term
commitment to good land use and a commitment to reducing carbon from emissions and
in their manufacturing process.

Here LEED is not only tracking the product contents, but how that product is made and the
companies they are coming from. What policies the companies have in place and if they are
a responsible manufacturer.

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Global Reporting Initiative

Existing reporting frameworks that contribute toward this credit are used by many Fortune
500 companies and include the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Report, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises, the U.N. Global Compact Communication of Progress, and ISO
26000: 2010 Guidance on Social Responsibility.

The GRI is the most common framework. In practice what this means is that manufacturers
are going to have to incorporate CSRs from their raw material suppliers in order to make
sure that the impacts of the specific products are now included in the corporate sustainability
report.

Leadership Extraction Practices

Option 2: Leadership Extraction Practices rewards the use of products (25% of total
products, by cost) that come from an extraction process showing leadership in
minimizing environmental impact.

This option references FSC certification, materials reuse, and recycled content without
notable changes from past versions of LEED. The biggest change is in biobased materials:
the credit newly requires Rainforest Alliance certification under the umbrella of the
Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) to certify biobased materials that may not fall under
the wood or bamboo category, such as cotton, wool, straw, soy, or corn-based polymers. The
SAN standard ensures that crops are responsibly sourced according to 10 categories,
including everything from wildlife protection to occupational health.

Additionally, reuse and materials with recycled content contribute toward achievement of this
credit, as the credit intent is met by avoiding extraction and the use of virgin materials
altogether through the use of recycled feedstock.

Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended producer responsibility, or EPR, is better known as a take-back program. EPR

means that a manufacturer has established measures to reclaim its products at the end of their
useful life and to recycle them into the same product in a closed loop. It has become common
to see building products advertised as recyclable, but some manufacturers have stretched that
term to the limit, using it as a label for new product lines for which established, closed-loop
recycling processes haven’t made it out of research and development. LEED v4 requires
compliant EPR products to have established programs that include program literature and
contact information.

Products meeting these criteria are valued at 50% of their cost.

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 Projects should have more luck finding products that meet EPR criteria. More than half of
the states in the US have some laws requiring EPR for certain categories—often for
products with concentrated toxic content like cell phones and fluorescent lamps. For
building projects, carpeting is the most commonly applicable area that might amount to
significant dollar value. Carpet companies have worked to establish ways to take back the
large, uniform quantities of product that are discarded, with some carpet companies
taking back any kind of carpet and recycling it into backing, for example.

There is more carpeting in US landfills than almost any other product, and most of it is
toxic, according to the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Interface, one of the
world’s largest carpet manufacturers and a pioneer in sustainable business, anticipates
eliminating PVC from its entire product line by 2020.

Certified Wood

Wood products must be certified by FSC or USGBC-approved equivalent. These products

are valued at 100% of their cost.

Why FSC? The Forest Stewardship Council is a great role model of abiding by the triple
bottom line. Forest management certification is awarded to responsible forest managers after
their operations successfully complete audits of forestry practices and plans.

Chain of custody (CoC) certification is awarded to companies that process, manufacture,

and/or sell products made of certified wood and who successfully complete audits to ensure
proper use of the FSC name and logo.

The use of certified wood, like most of your building materials, should be selected in the
design phase. It may take longer to order and to find suppliers. Additionally, you can't count
on meeting the credit percentages unless you know you can get certified wood for your
project.

Certified wood is the same material as other wood, it was just cut down responsibly. The
wood can be used anywhere non-certified wood is used:
▪ structural framing
▪ general dimensional framing
▪ flooring
▪ subflooring
▪ wood doors
▪ finishes

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 Understand the CoC requirements. Basically, everybody that touches a product needs to be a
part of this chain of custody, except for the end user. This includes the transport company
taking the wood from the forest all the way to the vendor that sells the wood. All these
different people contribute to this chain of custody, and each of them have chain of custody
certification numbers that you would log as part of this credit.

Collect all vendor invoices for all permanently installed wood on the project. Vendor invoices
must have the vendor’s CoC number. All vendor invoices must be collected from the project
contractors and subcontractors for permanently installed wood products, whether the wood is
FSC certified or not. Vendors are defined as those companies that sell products to the project
contractor or subcontractor. The invoices are how you compute this credit. CoC
documentation is required for transport, suppliers and manufacturers, and vendors. The project
contractors and subcontractors (the end users) are not required to have CoC certification. The
vendor’s CoC certificate number would be included on any invoice that includes FSC wood
products.

Biobased

Biobased materials are valued at 100% of their cost. Biobased products must meet the
Rainforest Alliance SAN standard. What SAN does is certify biobased materials that many
not fall under the old wood or bamboo categories, including cotton, wool, straw, soy, or
corn-based polymers.

What are examples of biobased materials? Things like bamboo, cotton, linoleum, sunflower,
wool, soy, and cork are biobased. Brick, stone, and cement are not. If it grows from the
earth, it’s probably biobased. If it’s mined in the earth, it’s probably not.

Recycled Content

Recycled content must meet the definition set by ISO 14021-1999 for environmental labels
and declarations. Recycled content is the sum of postconsumer recycled content plus one-
half the preconsumer recycled content, based on cost. Products meeting recycled content
criteria are valued at 100% of their cost for the purposes of credit achievement calculation.

Knowing what is entailed in the content is very important for these calculations.
Postconsumer is if you have a plastic soda bottle, recycle the bottle, and the plastic ends up
in carpet.

If it's preconsumer, which is also known as post-industrial, that might be where a lumber
mill takes some sawdust generated from cutting lumber, applies a binding agent to the
sawdust, and turns it into particle board. The sawdust is a material that never made it to a

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 consumer prior to being turned into another product.

LEED is essentially saying postconsumer recycled materials are harder to get because
consumers are less likely to recycle than a company in which there’s more profit involved.
That’s why LEED counts only half of the preconsumer and all of the postconsumer recycled
content.

Materials Reuse

Reuse includes salvaged, refurbished, or reused products. Products meeting materials reuse
criteria are valued at 100% of their cost for the purposes of credit achievement calculation.

Some common reused materials are

▪ Beams and posts
▪ Flooring
▪ Paneling
▪ Doors and frames
▪ Cabinetry and furniture
▪ Bricks

Projects can reuse both fixed and finish materials for this credit. Determine the preservation
cost, life cycles, and project timeline when selecting materials.

When you are selecting products, you are again looking to the manufacturer to supply you
with the information you need to make an informed choice. In your design process, start
thinking early on about what type of materials you want to include in the project.

For materials reuse, it’s much easier to reuse materials found on site unless you're going to a
salvage yard, buying a product, drawing it into the drawings, and having the salvage yard
store it. A salvage yard is never going to say, “Oh, yes, we’re going to have that in 6 months.”
They don't know, and it could get sold. To use salvage items, you have to procure them early
or at least be guaranteed that you're going to get them. Otherwise, you draw them in to the
plans and then they disappear because somebody else bought them.
MR Credit 4 | BPDO – Material Ingredients
The occupants of the average office building may have no idea what makes up the building
products that surround them every day, and often, the project teams that specified them know
just as little unless that information is voluntarily made available by the manufacturer. This
credit aims to support manufacturers that disclose information about the ingredients in their
products, allowing project teams to make more informed decisions.

Products can contribute to one point by declaring all ingredients more than 0.1% by weight,
and another point if companies can prove that they are avoiding some of the most hazardous

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 chemicals as determined by several governmental lists. This credit is rewarding
manufacturers based on their material ingredients.

Three Options

▪ Option 1 – Material Ingredient Reporting can earn 1 point

▪ Option 2 – Material Ingredient Optimization can earn 1 point
▪ Option 3 – Product Manufacturer Supply Chain Optimization can earn 1 point

Transparency

Option 1 is again transparency. Material Ingredient Reporting is based on using at least 20

permanently installed products that provide a chemical inventory through one of a variety of
third-party programs, such as a HPD, a Manufacturer’s Inventory that must meet a number
of criteria, or Cradle to Cradle v2 Silver certification.

This will require manufacturers to have documentation on the whole product preparation and
to use a standard program to inventory the name, chemicals, attributes, structures, and number
of ingredients in the product.

The manufacturer inventory involves publishing Chemical Abstract Service Registration

Numbers (CASRN) for all ingredients in the product; some ingredients may be kept
proprietary, but their hazard potential based on the GreenScreen benchmarking system must
be disclosed. This inventory is very similar to the HPD program.

Corporations such as Google and dozens of architecture firms have banded together to
create the HPD, a hazard-based standard format for reporting ingredients and health
warnings, which is recognized by LEED v4.

HPDs are a big topic, but they are essentially a standardized format for manufacturers to
disclose ingredients and hazards. An HPD has two parts, an inventory of ingredients and an
assessment. The HPD reviews the ingredients against an authoritative list. HPDs build on and
incorporate the data from the EPD but goes on to combine it with trustworthy and verifiable
measures of ingredients that impact ecotoxicity and human toxicity. As such, it creates a
disclosure document that truthfully indicates the toxicity impact of a product on the people
who live with it, and the natural environment that it exists within. As envisioned, the HPD will
create a single standard that can be used to create an apples-to-apples comparison of products
based on their ingredients.

Cradle to cradle has been around for some time. The difference is, cradle to cradle products
are assessed and optimized against health criteria. What they assess is fully disclosed so you
understand what each level of cradle to cradle certification actually means in regard to the
product.

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 Really manufacturers have two options for this credit. With an HPD, you’re going to disclose
everything that’s in your product. For cradle to cradle, a third-party assessor is going to have
that information and provide it for those of us that are using the certification. With cradle to
cradle, in order to get certified, the manufacturer does not have to publicly disclose their
ingredients or secret sauce. The disclosure is instead done to the certification program and its
certifiers and auditors.

To qualify for LEED, however, the HPD must include all ingredients down to 0.1% (1,000
ppm) and full disclosure of health hazards from ingredients, based on the GreenScreen
assessment criteria. Companies can choose to leave some proprietary ingredients unnamed
as long as they still report health hazards for those chemicals. An HPD is several pages
long; the summary page on front indicates the level of disclosure and checkboxes for the
manufacturer to indicate “Full Disclosure of Known Hazards” for every ingredient.

HPD vs. EPD

The HPD is a format for reporting product contents and health information about products
and materials. An HPD informs users how the product affects their body. EPDs are a
standardized way of quantifying the environmental impact of a product or system, including
raw material acquisition, energy use and efficiency, emissions to air, soil and water, and
waste generation. HPDs are complementary to EPDs. Think of the difference between how
the manufacturing of a ceiling tile affects air and water (EPD), versus how the VOC content
and emissions from that ceiling tile affect your lungs and skin.

Material Ingredient Optimization

Option 2: Material Ingredient Optimization involves using at least 25% by cost of products
that have assessed and optimized their material ingredients against preapproved USGBC
programs such as GreenScreen v1.2 Benchmark, Cradle to Cradle v2 Gold or Platinum
Certification.

Remember: Option 1 is just revealing what the ingredients are—good or bad. With Option
2, you get credit for optimization and looking for ingredients that meet certain standards.

For international projects, you can also work with the European Union REACH list, which
is methodically identifying and screening thousands of chemicals that are in commerce.
They are identifying certain ones as being on what’s called an authorization list, which
means that companies have to get special authorization to use them.

Product Manufacturer Supply Chain Optimization

Option 3: Product Manufacturer Supply Chain Optimization

Use new building products for at least 25% at cost of the total value of the permanently
installed fixtures that are sourced from manufacturers that engage in validated and robust
safety, health hazard, and risk programs, which at a minimum document at least 99% by

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 weight the ingredients used to make the material or product.

Many companies don’t know what is in their supply chain when they are selling someone
else’s component as part of their product. An example might be a wooden door where the
door supplier is using hinges and doorknobs from some other company.

Manufacturers get to learn about their products, and they may discover there is something in
them that they don’t like, and they find an opportunity for change.

Local Materials

One final point for these 3 credits. In each of them, locally sourced building materials are
recognized as a multiplier for optimization. In the past, there was a 500-mile radius for
regional materials; now v4 only recognizes a 100-mile (160 km) local radius. First you have
to meet the sustainability criteria, for example FSC wood, then if the product is extracted,
manufactured, and purchased within 100 miles (160 km), it counts as double toward the cost
in the credit calculation. Comprehensive Strategy

Now that we have looked at those 3 material credits, it is important to note that the
disclosure for a product does not take the place of the typical performance achievement type
labels. Disclosure and optimization is actually meant to work together.

In reality, you have transparency in production and transparency in performance working

together to complete the picture. Because what you want to know is that it is a good
performing product, and you also want to know what is in the product. That is why these
strategies have so much in common. Because they both work together very well—they are
not meant to replace each other.

Likewise, LCA doesn’t do everything. It can tell you what your product effects, but it
doesn’t tell you what kind of forest that wood came from. It can also tell you how many
substances are in your product, but not necessarily how good or bad those substances are for
your body.

So, remember that when you are picking materials, it’s disclosure and optimization, not one
or the other. Taken together is where the best choices are made for your project.
Transparency by itself is not going to tell you if it is a good product.

Rating System Adaptations

Healthcare projects have an additional prerequisite and several additional credits.

▪ MR Prerequisite PBT Source Reduction – mercury
▪ MR Credit PBT Source Reduction – mercury
▪ MR Credit PBT Source Reduction – lead, cadmium, and copper
▪ MR Credit Furniture and Medical Furnishings
▪ MR Credit Design for Flexibility

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 PBT is a generic identifier for any chemical that is a persistent bio-accumulative toxin.

MR Healthcare Prerequisite | PBT Source Reduction – Mercury

The intent is to reduce mercury-containing products, devices, and mercury release through
product substitution, capture, and recycling. This is going to be an extension of the
building’s recycling program. As part of the project’s recycling collection system, identify
the following:
▪ types of mercury-containing products and devices to be collected
▪ criteria governing how they are to be handled by a recycling program
▪ disposal methods for captured mercury

Here you are basically trying to minimize the quantity of mercury contained in lamps. The
types of lamps and each of their maximum contents are listed in the reference guide.

MR Healthcare Credit | PBT Source Reduction – Mercury

The prerequisite also has a corresponding credit which requires specifying and installing
fluorescent lamps with both low mercury content and long lamp life. The many different lamp
types, maximum mercury content, and lamp life are defined in the requirements. This adds
onto the prerequisite not by changing the mercury content of the specific lamps, but by
specifying a minimum lamp life.

MR Healthcare Credit | PBT Source Reduction – Lead, Cadmium, and

Copper
The intent of this credit is to reduce the release of PBTs associated with the life cycle of
building materials.

For lead, address your fittings and soldering. Roofing and flashing must be lead-free, as well
as all paints. Electrical wire has to have a minimum amount of lead as well.

For cadmium, specify no use of interior or exterior paints containing intentionally added
cadmium. Green Seal certified paint is required to contain no cadmium.

For copper pipe applications, reduce or eliminate joint-related sources of copper corrosion.

MR Healthcare Credit | Furniture and Medical Furnishings

The intent of this credit is to enhance the environmental and human health performance
attributes associated with freestanding furniture and medical furnishings.

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 Use at least 30% (1 point) or 40% (2 points), by cost, of all freestanding furniture and
medical furnishings (e.g., mattresses, foams, panel fabrics, cubicle curtains, window
coverings, other textiles) that meet the criteria in one of the following 3 options.

▪ Option 1 – Minimal chemical content

▪ Option 2 – Testing and modeling of chemical content
▪ Option 3 – Multi-attribute assessment of products

Option 1 | Minimum Chemical Content

Option 1 is the minimum chemical content. It requires all components that constitute at least
5% by weight of a furniture and medical furnishing containing less than 100 points per
million of at least 4 of the 5 chemical groups specified:
▪ Formaldehyde
▪ heavy metals
▪ Chromium in plated finishes
▪ Stain and non-stick treatments derived from perfluorinated compounds
▪ Added antimicrobial treatments

Option 2

Option 2 requires all components of a furniture or medical furnishing assembly, including

textiles, finishes, and dyes, must contain less than 100 parts per million (ppm) of at least 2 of
the 5 chemicals or materials listed in Option 1.

New furniture or medical furnishing assemblies must be in accordance with the

ANSI/BIFMA standards, and you have to model the test results using the open plan, private
office, or seating scenario in ANSI/BIFMA M7.1. Therefore, computer modeling is required
for this option.

Option 3

Option 3 requires using products that meet at least one of the defined criteria. Each product
can receive credit for each criterion met. The scope of any EPD must be at least cradle to gate.

Product self-declaration covering at least cradle to gate scope

▪ EPDs
▪ Materials reuse
▪ Recycled content
▪ Take-back program
▪ Biobased materials
▪ Certified wood

For all options, the credit compliance is based on percent of total cost—either 30% or 40%.
Make sure your project team is selecting products early on in design to be compliant.

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MR Healthcare Credit | Design for Flexibility
The intent of this credit is to conserve resources associated with the construction and
management of buildings by designing for flexibility and ease of future adaptation and for
the service life of components and assemblies. Implement 3 of the following strategies to
earn this credit:

▪ Using interstitial space. Interstitial space is an intermediate space located between

regular-use floors, commonly located in hospitals and laboratory-type buildings to
allow space for the mechanical systems of the building. By providing this space,
laboratory and hospital rooms may be easily rearranged throughout their life
cycles and therefore reduce life-cycle cost.
▪ Provide program soft space. Soft space is an area whose functions can be easily
changed. For example, hospital administrative offices could be moved so that this
soft space could be converted to a laboratory. In contrast, a lab with specialized
equipment and infrastructure would be difficult to relocate.
▪ Providing a soft shell space. Shell spaces are areas designed to be fitted out for
future expansion. Shell space is enclosed by the building envelope but otherwise left
unfinished.
▪ Identifying horizontal expansion capacity for diagnostic and treatment or other
clinical space
▪ Designating space for future above-ground parking structures
▪ Using demountable partitions
▪ Use movable or module casework

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Key Terms

Performance-Based
Single Attributes
Transparency
Disclosure
Hazardous Waste
Waste Stream Audit
Diversion
Waste Reduction
Source Reduction
Waste-to-Energy
Historic
Abandoned
Blighted
Component
Assembly
LCA
Cradle
Grave
Impact Categories
Optimization
VOC
BPA
Passive
MEP
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
Product Category Rules (PCR)
Health Product Declarations (HPDs)
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
Product Category Rule (PCR)
Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR)
Biobased
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
Closed Loop
Green Screen
Local
Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBTs)

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Chapter 8 – Indoor Environmental Quality

Overview

When you look at these credits, look for ones that connect. If you think back to energy and
atmosphere for instance, fundamental refrigerant management and enhanced refrigerant
management are two that you can study together just like fundamental commissioning and
enhanced commissioning.

In this category, there are also a few you should study together. For instance, minimum
indoor air quality performance should be studied with Enhanced Indoor Air Quality
Strategies.

Daylight and views are very different and it’s very easy to confuse them, but study them
together so you understand how they overlap and how they differ. Acoustical performance
will go with the prerequisite for Minimum Acoustical Performance for School projects.

Scorecard

The Indoor Environmental Quality credit category has 2 prerequisites and 9 credits. The
credits and prerequisites are:

▪ IEQ Prerequisite 1: Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance

▪ IEQ Prerequisite 2: Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control
▪ IEQ Credit 1: Enhanced Indoor Air Quality Strategies
▪ IEQ Credit 2: Low-emitting materials
▪ IEQ Credit 3: Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan
▪ IEQ Credit 4: Indoor Air Quality Assessment
▪ IEQ Credit 5: Thermal Comfort
▪ IEQ Credit 6: Interior Lighting
▪ IEQ Credit 7: Daylight
▪ IEQ Credit 8: Quality Views
▪ IEQ Credit 9: Acoustic Performance

IEQ Prerequisite 1 | Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance

The intent is to contribute to the comfort and well-being of building occupants by
establishing minimum standards for indoor air quality (IAQ).

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Reference Standards

ASHRAE 62.1 is the key here. Like any ASHRAE standard, it’s a little bit challenging to
read the standard yourself and understand it—leave that to the mechanical engineers. The
main point here is that ASHRAE 62.1 identifies minimum ventilation rates for the IEQ
prerequisite baseline, whereas ASHRAE 90.1 identifies minimum construction
specifications for the EA prerequisite baseline. If the local code is more stringent, follow
the local code. For Core and Shell, any ventilation systems installed must meet the future
ventilation needs of tenants. The thinking behind that is considering the base building
and being able to expand and provide outside air quality once tenants move in. Install the
ductwork and registers within the tenant spaces with growth in mind.

In addition, naturally ventilated spaces must comply with ASHRAE 62.1. There is also a
helpful flow diagram project teams can use to verify that natural ventilation is appropriate
for their design. Project teams must reference the Chartered Institution of Building
Services Engineers (CIBSE) Applications Manual AM10 to confirm minimum outdoor
air opening and space configuration requirements.

Projects outside the US may instead meet the minimum outdoor air requirements of
Annex B of Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN) Standard EN 15251–2007, Indoor
environmental input parameters for design and assessment of energy performance of
buildings addressing indoor air quality, thermal environment, lighting, and acoustics; and
meet the requirements of CEN Standard EN 13779–2007 Ventilation for non-residential
buildings.

Requirements

The requirements are very clear that the teams must meet certain standards. The
strategies focus on achieving those standards.

The climate and local outdoor air quality will help determine what type of ventilation is
appropriate for the project. An area with high outdoor air pollution may not want to
choose natural ventilation if the air is going to require a lot of filtering.

Determine what type of ventilation your project will use:

▪ Active ventilation is for buildings that use mechanical ventilation
▪ Passive ventilation is for buildings that use natural ventilation
▪ Mixed-mode means a combination of mechanical and natural ventilation

Teams must review the ASHRAE standard and ensure their projects meet or exceed the
standard.

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 In pursuit of this prerequisite, teams must balance the needs of IAQ performance with the
demand for energy that certain systems use. The ideal is a system that meets the requirements
but does not waste energy. This is a big tradeoff that you're going to hear mentioned a few
times. It’s a classic tradeoff in green building where someone says, “What would you rather
have, a more energy efficient building or one with better indoor air quality?” And you say,
“Well, I want both.” The struggle with having both is if you're bringing in a lot of outside air,
generally it’s hot or cold out, and you need to temper that air. You need to either raise or
lower the temperature of the air coming in. This takes energy. To bring in a lot of outside air
generally requires using more energy—there is the tradeoff.

Calculations

Key for the calculations is using the ventilation rate procedure in the ASHRAE 62.1 guide.
The calculations are performed for the worst-case scenario which is usually when the supply
air flow is at its lowest and the supply air temperature is highest for the critical zone-highest
density of people.

To determine the ventilation strategy, each room and space must be identified with net
occupiable space, type of occupancy, and the design case occupancy.

For prerequisite compliance, document ventilation rates per the Minimum Indoor Air
Quality Performance Calculator for projects with single-zone or 100% outside air HVAC
systems. The calculator includes assumptions for occupancy categories from ASHRAE 62.1-
2010. Upload the completed calculator to LEED-Online.

The mechanical design engineer is the responsible party to complete this documentation.
The calculations should be performed concurrently with the overall system design.
Historically, buildings were often overventilated and wasting energy pumping unnecessary
fresh air into indoor spaces. The ASHRAE standard actually helps designers specify efficient
systems by providing target rates for outdoor air intake. The reference guide supplies detailed
guidance on these calculations and advises project teams to revise mechanical system design
to meet the outdoor air requirements.

Airflow Monitoring

For both naturally and mechanically ventilated spaces, airflow monitoring is required. This
step ensures that your ventilation system is taking in appropriate volumes of fresh outdoor
air to mix with recirculated air. For mechanically ventilated spaces, the key numbers are
measuring for an accuracy of plus or minus 10% and sounding an alarm upon a variation of
15% or more. You’re monitoring the minimum outdoor air intake flow with an accuracy of
plus or minus 10% of the design minimum outdoor airflow rate.

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 If your system doesn’t take in enough outside air, it could have negative health effects. If it
takes in more outside air than needed, it could have excessive energy use.

Indoor air quality procedures are defined by ASHRAE. LEED distinguishes between
variable air volume systems and constant volume systems. When you talk about VAV
systems versus constant systems, you must measure and have a device capable of measuring
the minimal amount of air intake. Constant volume systems must balance the outdoor
airflow to the design minimum outdoor airflow rate as defined by ASHRAE.

For residential projects carbon monoxide monitors must be installed on each floor or unit.
Any indoor fireplaces must have solid glass enclosures or doors that seal when closed.
Basically, you can’t have an open fireplace.

Natural Ventilation

For naturally ventilated spaces, CIBSE AM10 manual includes a flow chart for determining
if natural ventilation is feasible for a project. Once you find out if natural ventilation will be
effective, start collecting information about the rooms to be used for the calculations
including:
▪ Minimum ceiling heights
▪ Location of openings
▪ Size of the openings

Run the calculations to determine if any design modifications are necessary. ASHRAE
62.1-2010 requires that all spaces with natural ventilation must have mechanical
ventilation backup unless they are either:
▪ An engineered system approved by an authority with jurisdiction
▪ The natural ventilation openings have controls that prevent closing during
occupied hours, or if the zone isn’t served by heating or cooling equipment

For naturally ventilated spaces (and for mixed-mode systems when the mechanical
ventilation is inactivated), comply with at least one of the following strategies.

▪ Provide a direct exhaust airflow measurement device capable of measuring the

exhaust airflow. This device must measure the exhaust airflow with an accuracy of
plus or minus 10% of the design minimum exhaust airflow rate. An alarm
must indicate when airflow values vary by 15% or more from the exhaust airflow
setpoint.
▪ Provide automatic indication devices on all-natural ventilation openings intended to
meet the minimum opening requirements. An alarm must indicate when any one of
the openings is closed during occupied hours.

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 ▪ Monitor carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations within each thermal zone. CO2
monitors must be between 3 and 6 feet (900 and 1,800 millimeters) above the floor
and within the thermal zone. CO2 monitors must have an audible or visual indicator
or alert the BAS if the sensed CO2 concentration exceeds the setpoint by more than
10%. Calculate appropriate CO2 setpoints using the methods in ASHRAE 62.1–
2010.

Healthcare projects have an additional reference standard to face that’s covered under
ASHRAE 170 – 2008. This standard addresses minimum air quality for operating rooms.

IEQ Credit 1 | Enhanced Indoor Air Quality Strategies

This credit improves the air quality beyond the prerequisite basics.
▪ Option 1 – Enhanced IAQ strategies can earn 1 point
And/or
▪ Option 2 – Additional enhanced IAQ strategies can earn 1 point.

This is a type of hodgepodge credit. Between the two options, there are a total of 10 different
strategies. Depending on what type of ventilation the project uses—mechanical, natural, or
mixed—and which options the project team selects, the requirements vary.

The basic concept is there are multiple sources of contamination in your building, from
people, to cars, or equipment. The requirements try to control the pollutants.

Area of Awareness

Mechanically ventilated spaces must address:

▪ entryway systems
▪ interior cross-contamination prevention
▪ filtration

Naturally ventilated spaces must address:

▪ entryway systems
▪ natural ventilation design calculations

Mixed-mode systems must address:

▪ entryway systems
▪ interior cross-contamination prevention
▪ filtration
▪ natural ventilation design calculations
▪ mixed-mode design calculations

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Entryway Systems

Install a permanent entryway at least 10 feet long in the primary direction of travel. Grills,
grates, and slotted systems that can be cleaned underneath are good choices. Rollout mats
can be used if they are cleaned at least once a week. Permanent entryway systems are
considered most effective. The systems must be installed at all regularly used exterior
entrances to the building, including employee entrances and loading docks.

Interior Cross-Contamination Prevention

Sufficiently exhaust each space with hazardous gases or chemicals, such as garages,
housekeeping, copy or print rooms, or science labs. This is accomplished by
▪ Preventing air from exfiltration of the space
▪ Creating negative pressure to adjacent spaces
▪ Providing self-closing doors
▪ Installing deck-to-deck partitions or a hard lid ceiling
▪ Exhausting at a rate of at least 0.50 cubic feet per minute per square foot, with no air
recirculation

During your design identify all spaces that could cause cross contamination. Ventilate rooms
with hazardous gases or chemicals. Ensure the rooms have doors, because the project cannot
earn credit for a room with no doors. Locate chemical storage rooms, such as janitorial
rooms, away from highly occupied areas.

Open garages—meaning access to free exchange of fresh air—are exempt from the
requirements, as are copy and print rooms with convenience equipment.

A common troublesome scenario is a garage under a building. To qualify for this option the
garage would need:
▪ A self-closing door to occupied areas
▪ Deck-to-deck partitions sealing the building from garage
▪ Makeup air to maintain negative air pressurization
▪ Separate exhaust to the outside with no air recirculation

If anything is drawing air into the room and not pushing air out, then separate exhaust is
needed to the outside. The air from that room must be fully separated both mechanically and
through doors and open spaces from other air in the building.

Filtration

MERV 13 (F7) filtration is required for HVAC systems that supplies outdoor air to
occupied spaces. During your design, make sure to account for the extra resistance in air

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 flow that results from using better rated filters in the system. Plugging in better filters into
an air flow system that can’t handle it results in greater energy use and an inefficient system.
All of the filters must be replaced after construction and before the building is occupied.

Natural Ventilation Design Calculations

Here you’re just proving your design follows the CIBSE AM10 standard Natural Ventilation
in Non-Domestic Buildings. Review the standard and prepare diagrams or narratives
describing how guidance from the standard was considered as part of the design. For Option
1, the room-by-room calculations are not required.

Mixed-mode design calculations

Here you are proving your design follows the strategies from the CIBSE Manual 13
standard for Mixed Mode Ventilation.

Additional Enhanced IAQ Strategies

Depending on the type of ventilation, incorporate one of the following strategies into the
project.

For mechanically ventilated spaces, select one of the following 4 strategies

▪ exterior contamination prevention
▪ increased ventilation
▪ carbon dioxide monitoring
▪ additional source control and monitoring

For naturally ventilated spaces, select one of the following 3 strategies:

▪ exterior contamination prevention
▪ additional source control and monitoring
▪ natural ventilation room by room calculations

For mixed-mode systems, select one of the following 4 strategies:

▪ exterior contamination prevention
▪ increased ventilation
▪ additional source control and monitoring
▪ natural ventilation room-by-room calculations

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Exterior Contamination Prevention

For this strategy, the project team is designing the outdoor air intakes to minimize pollutants
coming in. Intakes located one-third of the way up the side of the building are the best
choice. This choice is going to require modeling of the system.

Reference the pollutants regulated by National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS),
and don’t allow them to exceed the maximum concentrations. To test the contaminant
levels, one of the project team members will need to ensure through the results of
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling, Gaussian dispersion analyses, wind tunnel
modeling, or tracer gas modeling.

The model is used to perform a worst-case scenario level 1 screening. If the level 1
screening indicates a non-compliant system, a level 2 screening with more detailed inputs is
required.

Increased Ventilation

Increase breathing zone outdoor air ventilation rates to all occupied spaces by at least 30%
above the minimum rates as determined in IEQ Prerequisite Minimum Indoor Air Quality
Performance.

What you're doing for this credit is improving on the prerequisite levels. For mechanically
ventilated spaces, projects must increase outdoor airflow rates by 30%. The minimum rate is
set by ASHRAE 62.1-2010. Instead of just meeting the prerequisite, go 30% beyond it. This is
very similar to minimum energy performance and optimized energy performance. One is a
prerequisite and one is a credit option for going a certain percent beyond the standard.

Design the building to provide occupants optimal IAQ. Most of the design will come from
meeting the standards and recommendations based on the type of ventilation being put in. The
engineers and design team will have to meet the requirements in the standards. Make sure you
check outside the building and evaluate what is around the building and the area to prevent
poor quality air from coming in.

For the calculations the engineers and design teams must build to these standards. For
mechanical systems the ventilation rate procedure will be used to show a 30% increase in
ventilation to all occupied spaces at all times the space is occupied.

Any increase in the ventilation will impact the energy use calculations in EA Credit
Optimize Energy Performance.

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Carbon Dioxide Monitoring

The idea is if you are going to provide a certain amount of outside air for the prerequisite,
you should be able to monitor that air to prove in an objective sense the ventilation system
maintains the design minimum requirements.

To ensure that occupants receive the air supply that was designed, install CO2 sensors in
occupied spaces at 3 to 6 feet (900 to 1,800 millimeters) above the floor. That’s the
breathing zone. You are measuring the density of CO2, and if more outdoor air is required.

For mechanically ventilated spaces, monitor CO2 concentrations in densely occupied

spaces. A densely occupied space has 25 people or more per 1,000 square feet. What you
usually find is CO2 monitors are necessary in multi-occupant spaces like conference rooms.

Monitor CO2 concentrations in all naturally ventilated spaces. There’s no thermostat in

there, you just turn off the radiator or open the window or some combination. Install a CO2
sensor that could be tied back to a building management system, or that could alarm locally
within that room to tell when CO2 concentration levels exceed a certain amount.

CO2 Sensors

Determine space density and occupancy type. Measure to detect when the system is 10%
below the designed outdoor air rate. Accurately put the CO2 sensors in the breathing
zone and then calibrate the BAS to signal an alarm when the ventilation is out of range.
An alarm has to be triggered if the CO2 concentration exceeds the setpoint by more than
10%.

The idea here is to make it quite a tangible system where you say, “Okay, this system knows
that there’s a problem.” It doesn’t need to be a siren but some sort of alarm to the building
operator to know that something is not in the acceptable limits.

Building commissioning connects to this credit because the CO2 sensors are included in the
commissioning process.

Additional Source Control and Monitoring

If your project has spaces where there might be other contaminants other than CO2, come up
with a plan to reduce the likelihood of contaminant release, and install monitoring systems
with alarms that get triggered when the thresholds are exceeded.

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Natural Ventilation ‘Room-By-Room’

The last strategy is natural ventilation room-by-room calculations

Follow CIBSE AM10, Section 4, Design Calculations, to predict that room-by-room

airflows will provide effective natural ventilation. This is usually going to require a
macroscopic, multizone, analytic model.

Very simply, natural ventilation is more complex than mechanical ventilation. You're
looking at CIBSE for natural ventilation design. Evaluate local climate, building
magnitude, orientation, purpose, and future operational needs.

For naturally ventilated spaces, think of it this way: Consider a room with a window and
a radiator beneath it. It’s easy to say that room will be ventilated. It’s a little bit harder to
say that the room is going to get increased ventilation. What you have to do is prove
through diagrams or calculations how the cross-ventilation is going to provide this room
with more outside air than a conventional design.

Rating System Adaptation

There are additional guidelines for warehouses, distribution centers, healthcare and data
centers, and residential projects.

Warehouse projects pursuing the entryway systems strategy do not have to put the
entryway systems in doorways from the exterior into loading decks or garage areas.
However, they must be provided from the loading docks and garages into interior spaces
like offices. Consider the intent to separate exterior contaminants from interior spaces.

Healthcare projects pursuing the entryway systems strategy must provide pressurized
vestibules, in addition to entryway systems, at high-volume building entrances.

Data centers pursuing filtration strategy are only required to provide enhanced filtration to
regularly occupied spaces. Consider the intent to serve building occupants. LEED
recognizes the economic impact of enhanced filtration and balances their use with
programmatic needs.

Testing the Concept

It sounds like a good idea in concept, but enhanced occupant health often bears a tradeoff
with energy efficiency. How can the additional energy needed for increasing the ventilation
in a building be mitigated? The most direct factors are within the system design. Heat-
recovery ventilation and/or economizer strategies in your mechanical ventilation system
help reduce the extra energy needed for increased ventilation.

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IEQ Prerequisite 2 | Environmental Tobacco Smoke Control
The intent is to prevent or minimize exposure of building occupants, indoor surfaces, and
ventilation air distribution systems to ETS.

Requirements

This prerequisite has different options depending on the type of project. First however, every
project must prohibit smoking inside the building. That’s no smoking under any conditions—
even separately exhausted isolated smoking rooms, like in an airport.

Outside the building, smoking is prohibited except in designated smoking areas located at
least 25 feet (7.5 meters) from all entries, outdoor air intakes, and operable windows. Projects
must also prohibit smoking outside the property line in spaces used for business purposes. If
your local code allows the smoking areas to be closer than 25 feet (7.5 meters), then you have
to document the codes to allow your project to not meet this requirement.

At all building entrances, there must be signs indicated the building has a no-smoking
policy. The signs must be posted within 10 feet (3 meters) of all building entrances.

Projects that do not designate smoking areas will find that people are going to smoke
anyway, and unfortunately, they don’t know where to go. It is better to designate a space,
otherwise people just end up smoking where they please and leaving cigarette butts for the
maintenance crew to clean up. Not designating a space is not going to stop people from
smoking.

Residential Compliance

Residential projects sometimes allow smoking in the individual units. Especially in

situations where individuals purchase condos, the building owner cannot stop the residents
from smoking inside their unit. For residential projects you can meet the prerequisite by
having a no smoking policy that meets the requirements just described, that’s Option 1.
Option 2 is compartmentalizing the smoking areas.

For Option 2, if you allow smoking within the residence, provide ETS rooms that are
separately ventilated and have negative pressure and exhaust. That’s important—the
ventilation and exhaust can’t connect to the ventilation and exhaust from non-smoking
rooms.

What you are essentially designing is a room that’s separated from every other room. Air
won't leak out through the doors, and that air won't mix with other ventilation air in the
building. There are full height walls, so the air won't travel above the acoustical ceiling and
then mix in with other areas. You are fully segregating this area.

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 In residential projects, LEED asks that you to take it a step further because you're dealing
with people’s residences where smoking is allowed. Smoking in common areas is prohibited.
These next requirements are all related to keeping the smoke in the rooms and from
exfiltrating to other areas. Weatherstrip doors and operable windows, weatherstrip doors in
common hallways, and seal penetrations. Once the space is sealed, you have to prove the
spaces won’t exfiltrate the smoky air by conducting a blower door test. For this case, you
again need to prohibit smoking within 25’ (7.5 meters) of entries, air intakes, and operable
windows, and provide signage to allow smoking in designated areas.

For verifying compartmentalization of rooms, a contractor will usually conduct a blower

door test that follows one of several standards: RESNET, Energy Start Multifamily Testing
Protocols, ASTM E779-03 or ASTM E1827-11.

For this prerequisite, first you need to prohibit smoking in all common or public areas. Install
signage to appropriately locate smoking areas. Properly design, test, and verify interior
smoking-room compliance. This prerequisite must be enforced, so the owner and facility
manager must draft policies to enforce smoking regulations, and the facility manager must
enforce them.

IEQ Credit 2 | Low Emitting Materials

The intent of this credit is to reduce concentrations of chemical contaminants that can damage
air quality, human health, productivity, and the environment. Contaminants are measured as
either VOC content or air emissions. Emissions are typically a result of the VOC content, but
vary in concentration related to manufacturing and use. VOC content is normally self-declared
by the manufacturer. For the emissions tests, there are third-party certifiers. It is not feasible to
eliminate all VOCs from your project, but by following the guidelines presented in this credit,
project teams can significantly reduce occupant exposure to harmful chemicals.

For all projects, with the exception of healthcare and schools, you are considering all
products inside the weatherproofing membrane. For healthcare and schools, you include the
exterior applied products as well.

Scope

This credit has two options. Each can earn 1 to 3 points.

Option 1 is product category calculations—a prescriptive path for selecting materials that
meet the thresholds of compliance. Option 2 is a budget calculation method for using
materials that exceed threshold requirements.

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 For Option 1, there are 7 material categories to comply with; they are:
▪ Interior paints and coatings that are applied on site
▪ Interior adhesives and sealants that are applied on site
▪ Flooring
▪ Composite wood
▪ Ceilings, walls, thermal, and acoustic insulation
▪ Furniture, if within your scope of work
▪ Exterior applied products (healthcare, and school projects only)

For Option 2, there are 6 assemblies to organize compliance:

▪ flooring
▪ ceilings
▪ walls
▪ thermal and acoustic insulation
▪ furniture
▪ exterior applied products (healthcare, schools only)

Option 1: Product Category

The threshold of compliance varies depending on the product category. The important
numbers to remember are 90% and 100%.
Category VOC threshold Emissions Threshold
Interior paints and coatings applied on site 100% 90%
Interior adhesives and sealants applied on 100% 90%
site (including flooring adhesive)
Flooring 100% 100%
Composite wood 100% 100%
Ceilings, walls, thermal, and 100% 100%
acoustic insulation
Furniture (if included in scope of work) 90% by cost 90% by cost
Exterior applied products 90% by volume 90% by volume
(schools and healthcare only)

Option 2: System Assembly

Option 2 is a budget calculation method. If some of the products in a category don’t meet the
criteria for Option 1, project teams can use the budget calculation method. Product calculations
can be demonstrated in an assembly with multiple layers: exterior, structure, interior, and then
as a total of all systems. Use information from the manufacturer.

At least 50% of the assembly must be compliant to count toward the credit, otherwise it counts
as 0% compliant. If 90% of the assembly meets the criteria, it can count as 100%,

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 allowing the project to show a higher overall compliance. Because of the way the
calculation method works, project teams might be able to earn more points with this option.

Part of what makes this complicated is, you have to look at the surface area of each layer. If
you’re doing flooring, for example, you have to look at the subfloor, the adhesive, and the
finished floor each as separate layers. Calculate those separately, and then take the average
of the assemblies.

Timeline

During your design, research potential low or non-emitting finishes and furniture for the
project. The design team and contractor will be responsible for specifying what to buy and
gathering the necessary material safety data sheets, test reports, or third-party certificates to
document compliance. During construction review, select products to make sure they meet
the requirements, and ensure that any substituted products comply as well. Review the
products to make sure they meet the 90% or 100% category thresholds for Option 1. For
any wet applied products, they must meet the 90% emissions criteria as well as the 100%
VOC criteria. This includes interior paints and coatings, or adhesives and sealants applied
onsite.

If there is a standard in your local jurisdiction that has been adopted that is more restrictive
than the LEED standard, you are allowed to use that standard. Project teams will need to
demonstrate why it’s more restrictive. An example is carpeting in California.

Third-Party Certification

USGBC provides a Low-Emitting Materials Third Party Certification table that lists
acceptable certifications for the LEED v4 EQ Credit Low-Emitting Materials. This list will
be updated often to add programs as they become eligible. Note that the LEED v4 credit
also requires reporting on TVOC levels. The programs deemed acceptable may already
include this information—if they do not, project teams must request this additional
information.
FloorScore Greenguard SCS Indoor
Certified Advantage
Collaborative for BIFMA level (if TPC list CARB
High Performance 7.6.1 and/or 7.6.2 ULEF label or
Schools (CHPS) were achieved) CARB Exempt

NSF-332 Greenguard Gold SCS Indoor

Advantage

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 All manufacturer’s data stating VOC content must adhere to the guidelines in CDPH SM
V1.1–2010, Section 8. Laboratory testing verifying emissions claims must be accredited
under ISO/IEC 17025 for the test methods they use.

USGBC Tools

When you are calculating for low-emitting materials, USGBC provides a tool that project
teams can download. Use the Low-Emitting Materials Calculator to track and document
purchases offline. The calculator includes VOC content limits from reference standards. Use
the summary tab in the calculator to complete the form in LEED-Online.

The calculator covers both options for achieving the credit. If the products that you are using
meet the standards, they can be listed in the spreadsheet. If the product goes over the
standard or allowable limits, you can do a budget calculation method where you evaluate the
assembly of the products and hopefully parts of the assembly will be low enough to meet the
overall budget requirements.

IEQ Credit 3 | Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan

The intent of this credit is to promote the well-being of construction workers and building
occupants by minimizing indoor air quality problems associated with construction and
renovation.

Credit requirements apply only to the construction phase. The general contractor
implements an IAQ plan that complies with the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning
Contractors' National Association (SMACNA) guidelines. The SMACNA guidelines apply
to a number of areas and applying them depends on the specifics of the project.

Implementation

For your implementation, the first step is to create the IAQ management plan before
construction. Contractors and field personnel need to be educated about the plan and
how to implement the plan.

SMACNA guidelines address indoor air quality in 5 major areas:

▪ HVAC protection
▪ Source control
▪ Pathway interruption
▪ Housekeeping
▪ Scheduling

HVAC protection implies keeping new ductwork free form dust until first use. When
ductwork is delivered to the site, seal the ends, and protect from contaminants prior to

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install and use. This means using plastic to cover the ductwork, so it does not collect dust
inside.

Source control addresses keeping high VOC materials out of the building in the first place. If
there are materials with VOCs, the plan must address how the VOCs are to be controlled.
This could be anything from sealing paint cans when not in use to specifying no VOC paint.
The precise directive depends on what the project requires.

Pathway interruption is ensuring that contaminants don't spread into occupied or finished
areas. If cutting or sanding occur in a certain area, consider blocking it off from other areas
to prevent spreading dust or debris everywhere. Projects can isolate areas and prevent
occupied areas from being contaminated by:
▪ Ventilating using outside air
▪ Providing temporary barriers between work areas and non-work areas
▪ Depressurizing the work area to contain dust and odors

Projects must think about housekeeping, such as how much you sweep and how much you
clean up. Ideally, it occurs daily to prevent accidents as well as accumulation of
contaminants.

Scheduling considers practical space issues related to deliveries as well as potential exposure
to indoor air contamination. Conduct high pollution activities during off hours such as
weekends or evenings. For instance, if you're going to be spray painting, that is a task that
should be done at the end of day, so workers don’t need to be exposed to lingering smells.
This keeps the paint vapors from being inhaled by the building occupants.

In addition to SMACNA guidelines, LEED adds the following 3 requirements. Protecting

absorptive materials from moisture damage. Moisture infiltration during construction can lead
to very dangerous conditions during occupancy. This strategy prevents mold. Pay close
attention to storing materials inside the building before it is enclosed and weatherproof.
Sealing in mold will cost you a lot more than replacing water-damaged materials.

If you plan to operate air handlers during construction, replace the filters often, because they
will get clogged up sooner than under normal operating conditions. The key here is using
MERV 8 filtration media (or F5 or higher) during construction. If part of the building is
occupied and part under construction, MERV 8 filtration media would be on the return air
ducts. The air leaving the site is filtered to not send construction dust to other areas of the
building. All of these filters must be replaced prior to occupancy.

ASHRAE 52.2 addresses the filtration media in depth.

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 Finally, prohibit smoking inside the building and 25 feet (7.5 meters) from building
entrances once the building is enclosed. This speaks to the contractors working in the
building. Regardless if it doesn’t have a roof, the ETS can penetrate into materials and off
gas while the building is occupied.

Healthcare

For healthcare projects, especially renovations where part of the building remains occupied,
there are enhanced requirements to protect occupants from construction disturbance. First,
engage the owner, design, and contractor in an infection control risk evaluation. Next,
create an environmental quality management plan (EQMP). It must address moisture,
particulates, VOCs, outdoor emissions, tobacco, noise and vibration, and infection control.
If sound levels exceed 85 dB, contractors must wear ear protection. Maintain consistent
circulation paths and reduce equipment idling time.

IEQ Credit 4 | Indoor Air Quality Assessment

The intent of this credit is to establish better quality indoor air in the building after
construction and before occupancy. This credit is designed to verify that air is clean before
people regularly occupy the building.

The window of time between construction and occupancy is very slim, so there are two
options that can be done in either two hours or two weeks.
▪ Option 1 – flush-out can earn 1 point
▪ Option 2 – air testing can earn 2 points

Flush-out

The first option is a flush-out. The goal is to introduce 14,000 cubic feet of 100% outdoor air
per square foot (4,267,140 liters per second) of floor area. The idea is that the building interior
contains lingering contaminants from construction activities and material off gassing, which is
dramatically reduced after two weeks of installation, and this practice ‘flushes out’ the
contaminants. The strategy uses fresh outside air and pushes it through the building while
maintaining temperature and humidity as noted: at least 60°F (15°C) and no higher than 80°F
(27°C) and relative humidity no higher than 60%. This is the general approach.

Knowing that people often want to move in and don't want to sit with their building
flushing out for two weeks, the second path for Option 1 allows the spaces to be occupied
after flushing out with 3,500 cubic feet per square foot (1,066,260 liters) of air. Once a
quarter of the flush-out is done, people can occupy the building. LEED requires a minimum
rate of 0.3 cubic feet per minute per square foot (or 1.5 liters per second per square meter)
of outside air throughout the day until a total of 14,000 CFM per square foot has been
reached.
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 When doing a flush-out when the building is occupied, the flush-out must begin at least 3
hours prior to occupancy and continue during occupancy.

The key numbers to remember are 14,000 CFM per square foot prior to occupancy for Path
1, and 3,500 for Path 2, continuing up to 14,000 while an occupied flush out occurs.

In both paths, the internal temperature must be at least 60°F (15°C), no higher than 80°F
(27°C), and relative humidity no higher than 60%.

Air Testing

The second option is air testing. From a practical standpoint, testing is quick and easy but
requires special equipment. You call an IAQ tester and he or she is going to come in, sit in
your site for about 4 hours, and they are going to check that the air doesn’t exceed
maximum concentrations of the listed contaminants. This is done prior to occupancy after
interior finishes are installed. The test needs to be conducted during normal occupied hours
while the ventilation system is running at the minimum outdoor air flow rate throughout the
test.

Testing may sound easier, but it’s harder to obtain acceptable results. Moreover, if the test
results fail, then a flush-out of that space is going to be needed prior to retesting. Project
teams will need to determine where the testing locations in the building are going to be,
typically those areas with the least ventilation and highest concentration of VOCs—the
worst-case scenario.

At least one test per floor must be completed, and at least one location per ventilation
system for each occupied space type. Testing locations occur in the breathing zone, between
3 and 6 feet (900 and 1,800 millimeters) above the floor. Once the testing is complete, an
IAQ report is generated for documentation.

Look carefully at the contaminants listed below, as they are related to other credits. For
instance, formaldehyde is related to the composite wood credit threshold in low-emitting
materials.

Contaminant Maximum Level Healthcare Max Standard

Formaldehyde 27 ppb 16.3 ppb ASTM D5197
Particulates PM10: 50 micrograms/m3; 20 micrograms/ m3 EPA
PM2.5: 15 micrograms/ compendium
m3 Method IP‐10
Ozone 0.075 ppm 0.075 ppm ASTM D1549‐02

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 TVOC 500 microgram/ m3 200 microgram/ m3 EPA
compendium
Method IP‐10
CDPH Table 4‐1 Table 4‐1 ASTM D5197
standard
method
Carbon 9ppm; no more than 2 9ppm; no more EPA
monoxide ppm above outdoor than 2 ppm above compendium
levels outdoor levels Method IP‐3

Timeline

This credit cannot be documented until ALL construction work, punch-list items, and
final cleaning have been completed. Finalize all cleaning, and balance and test the
HVAC system. Commissioning can occur during the flush-out, but only if the
commissioning activities don’t introduce contaminants in the building.

MERV 13 (F7) or better filters should be installed prior to a flush-out if the project is
pursuing enhanced indoor air quality strategies.

Projects may have a harder time scheduling Option 1, depending on how the contracts are
set up. The mechanical engineer can generate a preliminary estimate for the flush-out
duration before the construction schedule is set. Many contractors don’t want the building
owner setting foot in the building until the keys are handed over. It’s hard to install all
the furniture and furnishings required for the flush-out when the contractor or insurance
company won’t let the stuff be moved in because of liability. In that case, consider the
occupied flush-out.

Calculations

How do you calculate how much air is needed? You must know the square feet of the
building area and the required metric of 14,000 cf/sf.

Let’s look at an example of a building that is a 60,000 square foot office. For a non-phased
flush-out, multiply 60,000 by 14,000 which comes out to 840,000,000 cubic feet of air
needed before occupancy.

Now, how long before the building can be occupied? You need to know how much air the
air handler is capable of moving. In this case, let’s assume your mechanical design
engineer let you know that the system is capable of pumping 20,000 cubic feet per minute.

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 840,000,000 cubic feet divided by 20,000 cubic feet per minute equals 42,000 minutes. That
comes out to 29.1 days of flush-out before the occupants can move in. A typical building
flush-out takes 20 to 30 days. That’s a long time for a building to be idle which is why a
phased flush-out would most likely occur. Some teams would rather pursue air quality
testing because it’s even faster to complete. The duration can depend on the region the
building is located in if the region is humid or cold.

IEQ Credit 5 | Thermal Comfort

The intent of this credit is to promote occupants’ productivity, comfort, and well-being by
designing for high quality thermal comfort and providing occupant controls.

Projects have to meet the requirements for both thermal comfort design and thermal comfort
control. For the design of the system there are two options.
▪ Option 1 is ASHRAE 55-2010
▪ Option 2 is ISO and CEN standards

Referenced Standards

For Option 1, design the HVAC system to meet ASHRAE 55-2010. Thermal comfort is
defined by ASHRAE 55-2010 demonstrated by curves of target factors. The measurement
includes air temperature, radiant temperature, air speed, humidity, and personal factors such as
clothing and activity.

Projects that have natatoriums (typically schools or health clubs) must demonstrate
compliance with Typical Natatorium Design Conditions in ASHRAE Handbook. It’s
important to know the 6 comfort factors according to ASHRAE 55.

Understand that people’s activity (metabolic rate) and clothing impact thermal comfort as
much as obvious factors like air temperature, thermal radiation, air speed, and humidity.
Imagine a worker in a naturally ventilated warehouse that is manually moving boxes around
on a hot summer day. The person has different thermal needs than an office worker in a wool
suit. Those are all things that you want to anticipate in the design.

For Option 2, you’re designing the system to the ISO 7730:2005, Ergonomics of the
Thermal Environment or the CEN Standard EN 15251:2007, Indoor Environmental Input
Parameters for Design and Assessment of Energy Performance of Buildings. CEN standards
are intended for use in international projects.

50% Individual Thermal Controls

Thermal comfort controls are required to serve at least 50% of building occupants, as
well 100% of all multi-occupant spaces. If the building has natural or mixed mode

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 ventilation that includes operable windows, the operable windows count as an individual
control.

A question you may have is, “How would you give thermal comfort controls to 50% of the
occupants?” Projects can put that many thermostats around, and it’s easy to control zones like
that, but sometimes that strategy necessitates too many thermostats and too many zones for
economic balance. Generally, this is done through under floor air distribution. Occupants can
have more or less air directed to their stations. In addition, radiant panels or plug in
humidifiers also meet credit requirements. The control can adjust any comfort parameter, not
just temperature or air speed, although those are common practices.

Implementation

The comfort of occupants can be impacted by something as simple as the orientation of the
building. Evaluate the building orientation and solar heat gain. An occupant sitting in the
sun all day will probably be much warmer than a person in the shade all day. Start with
operable blinds to help balance energy efficiency as well as occupant comfort.

If operable windows are used to provide control, you must evaluate site specific conditions,
such as wind, sound, and odors. If you provide an operable window but the window is 30
feet from a busy street, the comfort problem is solved but now there is a noise issue. If the
building is downwind from a landfill or a paper mill, odors can come in through the
windows. You see that there is more to it than just installing a window that opens.

Some controls and systems to consider are

▪ Individual thermostat controls
▪ Individual control of radiant panels
▪ Radiant heating
▪ Natural ventilation actuators
▪ Ceiling fans
▪ Under-floor air distribution systems

IEQ Credit 6 | Interior Lighting

The intent is to promote occupants’ productivity, comfort, and well-being by providing
high-quality lighting. Most buildings are over illuminated. They don’t take into account
available daylight or sunlight, and they illuminate spaces that are vacant. Projects end up
with a lot of fixtures that just waste energy. Automated lighting controls not only save
energy, but helps people be more productive and comfortable. Lighting systems should be
studied at the same time as thermal comfort.

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 There are two options for this credit, each worth 1 point.
▪ Option 1 – Lighting control
▪ Option 2 – Lighting quality

90% Individual Lighting Controls

For Option 1, 90% of the building occupants must have task lighting, and the building must
have 3-way lighting controls for all shared multi-occupant spaces. Lighting controls are the
primary way to save energy on lighting. First by reducing operating hours; in other words,
switching the lights off. Light control also saves energy by reducing the wattage of the lights
while they are on. Dimming lights saves energy for instance. Secondly, lighting control also
reduces cooling levels. When you reduce light in a space, you put out less heat in that space,
therefore you don’t need to cool the space as much. The rule of thumb is for every 3 watts
you save on lighting load, you save about one watt on the cooling load.

Also, when you control artificial lighting, you also look at controlling the natural daylight
entering though windows and manage the sunlight to make sure it is not a source of solar
heat gain and glare. Lighting control strategies help to maximize the effectiveness of
sunlight.

Lighting Levels

An upgraded requirement in LEED v4 is that the individual lighting controls must have at
least 3 lighting levels: on, off, and a midlevel. So, no more on-off switches only. What they
are getting at is allowing each occupant to be able to dim their personal lighting to their own
preferences. In these spaces, they want to make sure that you don’t necessarily always want
to turn on every light; maybe you only need 2 of the 4 lights on.

The midlevel must be between 30 to 70% of the maximum illumination level.

Occupants that have personal control of their lighting, meaning the ability to select different
light levels for the task they are working on, maintain their autonomy and efficiency
throughout the day, whereas occupants that don’t have personal control have lower
productivity. Other studies have shown that people that have control of their lights are more
satisfied with their jobs and are less likely to leave.

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Lighting Quality

For Option 2, lighting quality, projects must meet 4 of the following strategies:

▪ For lighting system strategies, recessed fixtures have to all be glare-free recessed
luminaires in regularly occupied spaces
▪ The entire project must have a CRI of greater than 80, except for special uses
▪ For lamp strategies, 75% of the connected load must have a lamp life greater
than 24,000 hours
▪ For indirect luminaires only, less than 25% of the connected load can be direct-only
in regularly occupied spaces. Again; lighting everything up with the same 2x4,
plugging in, and reflect from the ceiling
▪ For finish strategies for the walls, ceilings, floors, or furniture, reflectance levels
should be approximately 80% on the ceiling, 50% on walls and 20% on floors.
▪ If furniture is included in the scope, the average surface reflectance must be 45% for
work surfaces and 50% for movable partitions.
▪ For illuminance strategies, for at least 75% of regularly occupied floor area, ceilings
or walls should have a 1 to 10 threshold to achieve occupant comfort

The last few are the reflective values of the walls, ceiling, floors, as well as the work
surfaces. It's not enough now to just look at the types of lighting that we're including, but the
actual reflection values of the finishes that we’re putting on the furnishings. We’re not just
looking at the lighting fixtures or bulbs, but the systems furniture and the finishes of the
space.

Strategies

Start by having the design team consider the owner and occupants’ needs for lighting
controls. The energy model and engineers can define optimum design parameters. Be sure to
include things like automatic sensors for turning off the lights when they aren’t needed in
unoccupied rooms.

For lighting quality, from the list of 8 strategies, pick 4 to implement on the project. The
first two strategies are more technical, but they are pretty easy given general practices. One
of the strategies is that 75% of your connected load has to have a lamp life greater than
24,000 hours. Lamp life is fairly easy to get. For a linear florescent lamp that’s not much of
a problem. When you look at a lamp life, it usually has a life given for 12-hour starts, or 3-
hour starts. LEED is only looking at the 3-hour start-up. For LED lights it means looking at
the rated life information which is available for most fixtures.

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 The other point of the strategy is a color rendering index (CRI) greater than 80. In general
practice, an 80 threshold is not that hard. A CRI of 80 makes the lighting look natural.

For the lighting system choices, projects can choose either recessed or indirect. For recessed
lighting, you are trying to light the space well and not have any uncomfortable space. The
fixtures need to have a certain threshold for brightness. For a lighting designer, this is called
luminance and you are looking for a luminance of less than 2,500 per meter squared. LEED
does allow for some exceptions.

Only 25% of the lighting can be direct, so you will need to work with a lighting designer in
your space to figure that out. This may be the toughest requirement, based on conventional
design, but it will have significant positive impacts for your occupants.

The last couple of quality strategies have to do with the finishes of the spaces. High
reflectance on your finishes make the spaces feel brighter, and they are more uniform.
Reflection off the surfaces always helps make things feel brighter, and you get more bang for
your buck. Since it is a weighted average and 75% of the regularly occupied floor area has to
meet the requirements, the project can still have accent walls.

The last strategy has to do with luminance. This is how much light is on the plane of the
surface. If you can't meet the other strategies outright—because you have a little bit more
direct light or you don't have that recess option—this is the option to consider. Run the
calculations and see how it meets the criteria. To meet those criteria, you have to pay
attention to the surface reluctance of the surfaces and the values.

If you do the illuminance strategies, you are required to meet the finished strategies which
means there are your 4 strategies for 1 point. When you light your ceilings and your walls,
you're going to compare the ceilings or walls to the values of your surfaces. You're going to
need calculation software to do this. We are just looking for a 1 to 10 average ratio. Again,
you pick if you want to compare your ceilings to your work surface or if you want to
compare your walls to the work surface.

Calculations

For the calculations, figure out what percent of workstations have individual controls, as a
percentage of all of the workstations. Individual workstation is the term LEED uses for
private offices and cubes. Bear in mind that term workstation doesn’t mean a desk.

Remember: the individual task lighting and the shared occupant space lighting needs at least
3 lighting levels.

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 Rating System Adaptations

Retail projects only have one option. For at least 90% of individual occupant spaces in office
and administrative areas, provide lighting controls. In sales areas, provide dimming controls.
It makes sense for this different requirement because with a retail project, the retailer is going
to want to have bright displays for products most of the time.

For hospitality projects, guest rooms are assumed to have adequate lighting and aren’t
included in the credit calculations.

For healthcare projects, provide 90% of patients lighting controls from their beds.

IEQ Credit 7 | Daylight

The intent of this credit is to connect building occupants with the outdoors, reinforce
circadian rhythms, and reduce the use of electrical lighting by introducing daylight into the
space.

It’s going to be very difficult on your project to get the maximum points available in LEED
without any type of lighting control or daylight harvesting. If you are shooting for LEED
Gold or LEED Platinum, you definitely have to look at reduced artificial lighting. Not
because of the points available in this credit, but because what you save in lighting costs from
daylight or lighting control, you save in cooling load, which also helps with overall building
management.

Glare

The biggest problem with daylighting is glare control, so the first requirement is to provide
manual or automatic (with manual override) glare-control devices for all regularly occupied
spaces. LEED is concerned that designers would just leave windows without any glare
control, any window shades, or any exterior louvers or anything like that. In this case,
LEED asks you to bring in light, but bring it in a thoughtful way. Consider reflecting the
light off of louvers or bringing it in through sun tubes as opposed to just straight through
the windows.

Performance

There are 3 options for this credit:

▪ Option 1: Spatial Daylight Autonomy (2 to 3 points, 1 to 2 points for Healthcare)
▪ Option 2: Illuminance Calculations (1 to 2 points)
▪ Option 3: Measurement (2 to 3 points, 1 to 2 points for Healthcare)

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Spatial Daylight Autonomy

The first option is a computer simulation. We’ll cover the daylighting terms here, but
keep in mind this is something that project teams should coordinate with a lighting
designer or experienced architect.

The credit awards the most points for a sophisticated and dynamic metric called spatial
daylight autonomy, or sDA—the percentage of the ‘work plane’ that is above 300 lux (28
foot-candles) at least 50% of the time during occupied hours over the course of a whole
year. Because this metric alone might encourage overglazing, the credit also requires glare
simulations (in the form of annual sunlight exposure, or ASE) as a counterpoint.

The concept of ‘daylight autonomy’ means designing a space such that it maximizes the
amount of useful daylight, thereby minimizing the need for electric light. In mathematical
terms, daylight autonomy is the percentage of annual work hours during which all, or part, of
the lighting needs can be met through daylighting alone.

By understanding the way daylight autonomy is measured and implemented, architects and
lighting designers can use shading and lighting control strategies that work together to
create greater daylight autonomy while emphasizing aesthetics, maximizing owner
investment, and minimizing energy use in their buildings.

The success of a building's daylight design can be evaluated using daylight autonomy
metrics. Each metric has a slightly different method of performance evaluation, but they all
are used to quantify either the daylight harvesting potential, glare mitigation, or both. Three
metrics that are particularly useful will be addressed.

Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA) is the percentage of floor space where the required light
level can be met completely with daylight for 50% of work hours. Based on the idea that
more light is better, this metric indicates quantity of daylight available. A higher sDA yields
greater autonomy from electric lighting.

Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE) is the percentage of work hours during which the light
level from direct sun alone exceeds a predefined threshold (often 100 fc). This metric
indicates quality of light related to direct sun glare, the worst type of glare. It does not,
however, address issues related to potential glare from bright sky and reflections.
Daylight Autonomy max (DAmax) is the percentage of work hours that the light level
exceeds 10 times the required light level (often 300 fc). This metric is another indicator of
quality, this time related to all types of glare.

Only dynamic fenestration, such as automated shading solutions, will improve the latter 2
daylight autonomy metrics that evaluate quantity and quality of daylight. No passive
systems can do this. For example, changing the tint on a window or adding overhangs and
light shelves will reduce glare, but these methods will also reduce available daylight. These
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 strategies can improve the aSE and DAmax metrics, but do not improve the quantity of
daylight penetration in the space characterized by sDA. Increasing window size will
improve daylight availability, but also increases the potential for glare and therefore only
improves the sDA metric.

For this option, demonstrate through annual computer simulations that 300 lux are achieved
for 50% of the hours between 8 AM and 6 PM local time for a full calendar year. Basically, if
you are going to do this simulation, you have to show that the project is bringing in 300
watts of daylight for the regularly occupied floor.

When you are measuring or modeling, you have to measure two times during the year. In the
past, you could measure at certain times to get an ideal situation, but now you are given two
time periods during the year to measure. You are also taking into consideration the climate:
the ASE and spatial daylight. In its basic form, the ASE is a measurement of area that
exceeds 1,000 watts of direct sunlight, for more than 250 hours throughout the year. This
evaluates glare. Your project has to be below 10% of the area that meets this template. That’s
across all projects.

Illuminance Calculations

Option 2 is also a computer simulation using illuminance calculations. This simulation is

modeling at 9 AM and 3 PM on the equinox. There is a bit of a difference here, but it’s still
based on the time of year data. A daylighting consultant will determine the simulation
inputs, including the exterior building geometry, site plan, floor and furniture plan, interior
finishes, glazing, and local climate data. This data will be input into an illuminance
simulation to determine the illuminance values for all regularly occupied floor areas and to
verify the project does not exceed the credit requirement values. It is more simplified than
Option 1 and yields fewer points.

Measurement

With Option 3, you can do a physical measurement where you are measuring the daylight
illuminance levels in the space at a certain time of year, and then 4 months later, take the
measurements again. By doing this, you can prove the project is bringing enough daylight
into the space. The lighting designer will determine where the measurements will be taken,
and then use a lighting measure in the actual space to record the data. The IES lighting
handbook provides more information about light meters.

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Daylight Modeling for Ideal Results

Many of the challenges already outlined can be overcome with a detailed daylighting
analysis or daylight modeling. Daylighting analysis is an essential component of any
attempt to incorporate natural lighting into a design. It is used as a way to predict available
daylight, and as a result, the lighting energy used in a space or an entire building. A
daylighting analysis or model is best developed before a design is implemented based on
assumptions about local climate conditions and building operations rather than actual data.
A daylighting analysis will take into consideration factors such as light levels in different
locations; the effects of various features such as overhangs, glazing types and placements,
space configurations, ceiling heights, and window treatments; as well as schedules for use
of the space.

The goal of such an analysis is to establish the optimal combination of fixtures, features,
and architectural design elements across multiple points during the day, week, or month in
order to produce the maximum uniform daylight (measured in design lux levels) with
minimum negative heat transfer for two-thirds of the daytime. To accomplish this task,
designers will use either physical modeling or computer modeling software.

Building Orientation

Would you rather have your office window facing north, south, east, or west? What about
your bedroom window?

Perhaps one of the most important factors in achieving effective daylighting results is
building orientation. We already know that the sun tracks from east to west in the sky, which
impacts how much sunlight glazing receives depending on their location within the building.
As a result, building orientation must be considered early on in order to achieve effective
daylight design results.

To start, for buildings constructed in the Northern Hemisphere, the orientation should be
along the east-west axis if at all possible. This will ensure glazing receives as much daylight
exposure as possible along the north and south faces of the building. Next, it’s important to
locate those spaces which will get the most use and can benefit the greatest from daylighting
so that their windows face either south or north, especially if side lighting will be a large
part of the design rather than top lighting.

If budget is a concern, a single-story building will be more affordable in terms of

daylighting designs. It’s always more expensive to install systems such as atriums,
courtyards, and advanced optical lighting systems. Though buildings with fewer floors
require more land, they allow for the maximum use of side lights and roof monitors without
complex and expensive systems for bringing daylight deep into the building.

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Account for Shading from Landscaping and Adjacent Buildings

Neighboring buildings and landscape features can also either help or hinder your daylight
harvesting efforts. For instance, if adjacent buildings are taller and/or positioned in such a
way as to create shade, daylight results will be substantially lower. The same is true for large
trees and other landscaping features. It’s therefore important to consider the overall site
layout including next door sites to avoid unintentional shading.

That said, strategic use of landscape designs and shade from adjacent buildings can benefit a
daylight scheme if they provide shade during summer months but (because of the angle of
the sun throughout the year) permit more daylight penetration during winter months. Careful
consideration of the sun’s orientation from season to season is extremely important when
contemplating the impacts of these neighboring structures and features.

Account for Reflectance from Adjacent Surfaces

How light is reflected off of surfaces external to a building will have an impact on the
effectiveness of a daylighting design. Too much reflectance will result in unwanted glare;
not enough will diminish the potential to reduce reliance on electric lighting. Therefore, any
daylight design should take the adjacent surfaces into consideration.

Technology and Trends

We mentioned thinking about things like glare control or heat gain, building in things like
atriums and skylights, and using shallow floor plates. That’s what they ask that you design so
light comes in well. If you look at buildings designed 120 years ago, everybody was smart
about this design because there weren’t light switches on the wall, and everyone was taking
advantage of daylight. We’ve gotten away from that because it’s been so easy to put a light
here or there.

Occupancy

Once the construction project is complete and all hammers and nails have been put away, it’s
important to test and measure the results of a daylighting design. Often referred to as a post-
occupancy analysis, this step involves evaluating the combination of physical designs and
human interaction with them in order to tweak the system with modifications to the physical
features and/or changes in human behavior. Normally this type of analysis involves measuring
light levels at various times of the day and different times of the year. A good method for
accomplishing a post-occupancy analysis is to go through a formal project commissioning,
which is a systematic method for ensuring all of the daylighting systems perform as expected
both individually and collectively. These systems are measured against the contract, design
intent, and operational requirements. Going through this step helps to guarantee that quality
work is done on your project, that all

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 systems are calibrated properly, and often provides an opportunity for the installers to orient
building occupants on the use of the daylighting systems.

A typical model of limited complexity will take anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks once your
analyst has all the required information. This includes floor plans, site plans, roof plan with
elevations and sections, plus information about the kinds of materials, fenestration visual
transmittance, surrounding buildings, site conditions, location, and the structure’s intended
use.

Case Study

From a visible, tangible aspect, the most sustainable feature the LEED certified HKS
headquarters in Dallas, Texas has is an LED lighting system that’s fully integrated with a
window shade system. It is a complete daylight autonomy system. There are daylight
sensors and occupancy sensors. The conference rooms are set with vacancy sensors, so you
have to physically turn on light if you want light.

HKS did a lot of computer studies for their site. The energy modeler looked at glare issues
and daylighting issues. The existing building had a lot of single pane glass, which was a big
concern in Texas in the summer. There was also concern about having a lot of glass on the
lower level. Originally the plan had a lot of workstations on the lower level, and the glare
would have hit the workstations, as well as those on the upper levels. The energy study
made the team realize having shades on all 4 sides of the building would be necessary. The
energy study influenced the design decisions by showing it wasn’t so much the direct
sunlight that would cause the glare, but the sunlight bouncing off the adjacent buildings
around the project site.

The daylight harvesting is gradual and built into 4 segments for the room, where automated
shades are built into the daylighting system. The shades and daylighting system are all
controlled by an iPad app from Lutron. The app allows manual changes to the lights and
shades. Sensors on the windows monitor the daylight and cloudiness. Wireless sensors
dropped down from the ceiling talk to the system and dim the lights throughout the day.
When someone walks in the office in the morning, all of the lights are off. The occupancy
sensors kick everything on.

One of HKS’ impressive energy achievements is reducing the lighting power density down
to 0.6 watts per square foot. The hard work to get this number came from smart lighting
design and using all LED lighting—about 95% LED through the entire project. However,
the lighting runs at about 75% of that because the employees said they could work with less
light. Each desk has task lighting with built in sensors. When the light doesn’t sense any
motion, it turns itself off, further saving energy.

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IEQ Credit 8 | Quality Views
This credit can earn 1 point. The intent is to give building occupants a connection to the
natural outdoor environment by providing quality views. Where daylighting is getting light
in, you get views looking out.

75% Direct Line of Sight

The requirement is to achieve a direct line of sight to the outdoors via vision glazing for
75% of all regularly occupied floor area.

Your view glazing in the contributing area must provide a clear image of the exterior, not
obstructed by frits, fibers, patterned glazing, or added tints that distort color balance. In
addition, direct line of sight also means not obstructed by furniture, doors, or partitions. Site
lines can be drawn through interior glazing, such as glass partitions.

Quality of Views

On top of that quantity requirement, 75% of views must meet at least 2 of the following
quality requirement:
▪ Multiple lines of sight to vision glazing in different directions at least 90 degrees
apart
▪ Views that include at least two of the following: (1) flora, fauna, or sky; (2)
movement; and (3) objects at least 25 feet from the exterior of the glazing
▪ Unobstructed views located within the distance of 3 times the head height of the
vision glazing. What that means is if you have a window that is 7 feet tall, you have
to have views from at least 21 feet inside the building to the outdoors.
Unobstructed horizontal distances equal to 3 times the head height of windows.
▪ Views with a view factor of 3 or greater, as defined in the standard, Windows
and Offices: A Study of Office Worker Performance and the Indoor
Environment.

Interior Design

Identify sight lines from regularly occupied space to exterior views. As we’ve seen in the
definitions, this means areas with direct line of site to the perimeter of the building’s
glazing—basically windows or transparent parts of the building walls. Teams must include
full-height partitions and other fixed construction items in their drawings, and any items that
are in the building before it is furnished. Teams must identify all regularly occupied rooms or
areas and determine the total floor area in square feet or square meters.

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 Then teams should use a floor plan and construct sight lines for each window or glazing and
determine what areas have direct lines-of-sight to the outdoors.

Remember that movable furniture and partitions may be included in this credit but are not
required.

Healthcare

For healthcare projects, inpatient units must meet the view requirements. And the building
floor plates need to be arranged in a particular way to support views to both staff and patients.

For warehouses, the requirements need only be met by the office portion of the building.

IEQ Prerequisite Schools | Minimum Acoustic Performance

Schools is the only rating system that requires acoustical performance as a prerequisite. In
K-12 schools, there is a direct correlation between how quiet a room is and how good test
scores are. It’s that simple.

The prerequisites and credits in LEED are considered minimum good practice for acoustics,
according to acoustical consultants and experts in learning environments. Green building
teams and occupant groups may choose to go beyond these credits to create better sound
quality and noise control based on the use of spaces and functional goals.

The prerequisite is based on 3 parameters: HVAC background noise, exterior noise, and
reverberation time. For the scope of this prerequisite, only look at typical classroom spaces.
Natatoriums, auditoriums, performance spaces, and special education classrooms are exempt
because they all have unique acoustic requirements.

Referenced Standards

Among the reference documents most valuable for design is the 2011 ASHRAE Handbook –
HVAC Application, which covers sound and vibration control precepts as well as reference
noise criteria (NC) and room criteria (RC) in various types of interior spaces. Best practices
can also be found in ANSI Standard S12.60–2010 and AHRI Standard 885–2008; or a local
equivalent for projects outside the US.

Background Noise

HVAC systems may only have a maximum of 40 decibels in classrooms and learning areas.
Designers can analyze sound pressure levels from HVAC equipment. Other

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 equipment, like plumbing, electrical, and lighting systems are exempt. Field testing must be
done after construction and before occupancy.

Exterior Noise

High-noise sites are defined as having a peak-hour noise level of 60 dB. Projects at least
one-half mile (800 meters) from any significant noise source (e.g., aircraft overflights,
highways, trains, industry) are exempt. Otherwise, project teams should design acoustic
treatments and other measures to minimize noise intrusion from exterior sources. In
addition, design classrooms and other core learning spaces to control sound transmission
between spaces.

Reverberation Time

Reverberation time is a measure of how long a sound continues to reflect off surfaces after
the source has stopped emitting the sound. In a school environment, a short reverberation
time improves understanding of speech and removes unnecessary barriers to learning. The
design strategy to reduce reverberation time is to install sound absorptive finishes on the
walls, ceilings, and floors.

Reverberation time is basically a function of room volume or size divided by the absorption
of the surfaces and construction assemblies. The bigger the volume, the longer the
reverberation time; the better the absorption of surfaces, the shorter the reverberation time. A
large concert hall with wood wall panels and a concrete floor will have long reverberation
time results, while a small office with carpet and a suspended acoustical ceiling will have
reverberation times on the shorter end of the range.

Short reverberation times (RT) of 1 second or less are better for spaces requiring high levels
of speech intelligibility, such as classrooms. In concert halls and theaters, it is the opposite:
long RT times add resonance and increase perceived loudness in the spaces. RTs of 1.5
seconds or greater are typical in these performance spaces.

There are two different sets of referenced standards and requirements for reverberation time
based on the size of the room.
▪ Path 1 is for small rooms less than 20,000 cubic feet (566 cubic meters).
▪ Path 2 is for large rooms over or equal to 20,000 cubic feet (566 cubic meter).

Path 1 contains two options. Option 1 is a prescriptive path. Project teams design the total
surface area of acoustic wall panels, ceiling finishes, and other sound-absorbent finishes to
meet or exceeds the total ceiling area of the room. The goal is to specify materials with a
Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) of 0.70 or higher. Compliance can be met by providing
100% acoustical ceiling tiles, exempting the surface area of diffusers and lights.

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 Path 1: Option 2 is to confirm through calculations that rooms are designed to achieve
reverberation time guidelines stated ANSI Standard S12.60-2010.

Path 2 requires calculations demonstrating achievement of recommended reverberation times

for classrooms and core learning spaces described in the NRC-CNRC Construction
Technology Update No. 51, Acoustical Design of Rooms for Speech.

Program Design Strategies

The school concept and classroom layout also impact acoustics, and while there are many
novel teaching approaches, not all are good for speech intelligibility. Open-plan classrooms
can improve student-teacher interaction, but they also impede proper acoustical design. Some
open classrooms use space dividers, which can improve visual privacy and concentration but
are poor acoustical isolators. Schools with hard-surface walls and resilient floors cause echoes
and reverberation, which limit speech understanding and only get worse when the teacher
raises his or her voice.

Consult with an expert or the ANSI standard. The key is to specify products that reduce
sound transmission. Architects are quite good at this. Be able to identify the materials that
will help you qualify for these reverberation times and acoustical performance
requirements. These decisions could reach to the building envelop to improve the thermal
insulation.

One of the least costly and fastest ways to achieve proper classroom acoustics is by using
sound-absorbing lay-in ceiling tiles (NRC of 0.70 or better) and a low-pile carpet, which
limits noise created by students. Furniture and bookcases can cut back wall echoes. Larger
lecture halls with theater-style seating benefit from absorptive fabric panels, acoustical tiles,
and plasters on the walls; the ceiling can be used as a hard, reflective surface to project the
teacher’s voice to the back of the hall.

IEQ Credit 9 | Acoustic Performance

For too long, green buildings sacrificed acoustic quality for other benefits like open space
planning, daylight, and efficient HVAC design. The intent of this credit is to provide
guidelines for all building types to enhance occupants’ comfort, productivity, and
communications through acoustic design. Building upon the School prerequisite, the
principles of good classroom acoustics are also relevant to meeting rooms, conference rooms,
and auditoriums for business and especially healthcare facilities.

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 Project teams will look at each occupant space to address the needs of the users, and what
privacy or sound requirements are needed. There are 4 performance areas which must be
evaluated for this credit:
▪ HVAC background noise
▪ Sound isolation
▪ Reverberation time
▪ Sound reinforcement and masking

Background Noise

Permissible HVAC background noise is defined in the 2011 HVAC Application ASHRAE
Handbook, chapter 48, Noise and Vibration Control. Consider strategies like locating noise
generating equipment over corridors rather than conference rooms. In addition, calculate
and measure sound pressure levels per AHRI Standard 885-2008, or a local equivalent. In
drawings, highlight sound transmission paths and identify adjacencies for sound isolation.

Sound Isolation

For sound isolation, meet the composite sound transmission class (STC) ratings listed.
Sound isolation can be achieved through published manufacturer’s data, calculating the
values for the assemblies, or measuring the STC rating for all assemblies. When using
published data, select wall and door assemblies that meet the requirements.

For the calculations, identify the STC ratings for all the assemblies during the design phase
to make sure the averages comply with the requirements. Calculations allow choosing
materials where some may have higher or lower STC ratings, as long as they average out. If
measurements are done, they must occur after substantial completion. Measure the noise
isolation class for all assemblies.

Sound Reinforcement and Masking

For all large conference rooms and auditoriums seating more than 50 persons, evaluate
whether sound reinforcement and AV playback capabilities are needed. Exterior windows
must have an STC rating of at least 35, unless outdoor and indoor noise levels can be verified
to justify a lower rating.

For projects that use masking systems, the design levels must not exceed 48 dBA. Ensure
that loudspeaker coverage provides uniformity of plus or minus 2dBA and that speech
spectra are effectively masked.

For school projects, HVAC background noise must be reduced to 35 decibels. Design
classrooms and other core learning spaces to meet the sound transmission class (STC)
requirements of ANSI S12.60–2010 Part 1, or a local equivalent.

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Reverberation Time

Projects must meet the time requirement table in the reference guide. Room type and
application organize spaces such as office teleconference versus laboratory testing.

Rating System Adaptation

There is an adaptation for healthcare projects, where acoustics play an important role.
There are two options for the goal of either speech privacy or material selection. The
LEED requirements are adapted from the 2010 FGI Guidelines for Design and
Construction of Health Care Facilities.

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Key Terms
ASHRAE 62.1
Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE)
Active Ventilation
Passive Ventilation
Mixed-Mode Natural Ventilation
Entryway Systems
Cross Contamination
Exfiltration
MERV-13
Densely Occupied
TVOC
FloorScore®
Greenguard Certified
SCS Indoor Advantage
Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS)
BIFMA Level (If 7.6.1 and/or 7.6.2 were achieved)
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
ultra-low-emitting formaldehyde (ULEF)
NSF 332
Greenguard Gold
ASHRAE 52.2
Flush-out
ASHRAE 55
Lamp Life
Color Rendering Index (CRI)
Luminance
Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)
Work Plane
Daylight Autonomy
Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE)
Reflectance
Background Noise
Reverberation Time
Sound Transmission Class (STC)

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Chapter 9 – Innovation

Overview

Innovation is a flexible category used to award points for performance and creativity. The
category is flexible because the points in this section are not necessarily earmarked for
specific items completed or designed, there is total user control. The Innovation credit (IN)
category has 2 credits:
▪ Innovation
▪ LEED Accredited Professional

Three Approaches

Option 1 is called Innovation and can earn 1 point. This option rewards projects for
achieving significant, measurable environmental performance using a strategy not
addressed in the LEED green building rating system. You can think of this as outside-the-
box thinking. The goal is to invent an idea that isn’t part of LEED but has a measurable
environmental impact.

Option 2 is to achieve one of the pilot credits from USGBC’s pilot credit library. This option
can earn 1 point. Look at https://new.usgbc.org/ for current pilot credits, as they change
regularly.

Option 3 is Additional Strategies. Additional strategies allow project teams to earn 1 to 3

points for Innovation, defined in Option 1; 1 to 3 points for Pilot credits; and 1 to 2 points for
exemplary performance. Project teams can use any combination of innovation, pilot, and
exemplary performance strategies.

Exemplary performance is when a project meets the exemplary performance threshold in a

credit. The exemplary performance point is typically earned for achieving double the credit
requirements or the next incremental percentage threshold.

Innovation

The first option—innovation—is where you can use your creativity. Think about your
project, your project situation, where it’s situated, your project team, the project owner, and
what the unique conditions are. What are the environmental issues that exist outside of the
LEED rating system? The LEED rating system cannot cover every green building idea or be
revised to cover every new technology, so the system allows for innovative performance.
Innovation is used to describe new and unique ways of exceeding green building or operating
goals in a significant and, most importantly, measurable way that is not covered in the LEED
system.

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 Innovative strategies must meet 3 criteria:
▪ The strategy must demonstrate a quantifiable environmental performance benefit
▪ The strategy must be applied comprehensively (i.e., wherever possible on the
project). For example, one project used a snow melting system to eliminate the use
of chemicals to melt snow. Using the snow melting system on 10% of the
walkways and chemicals on the remaining 90% would not be considered
comprehensive. The snow melting system would need to be used for 100% of the
walkways.
▪ The strategy must be a superior design choice compared to standard building
design.

The requirements for compliance include defining what the threshold of achievement is and
proposing submittals to demonstrate how those requirements are met. When proposing how
an IN credit is going to be achieved, project teams must describe the design strategy and
approaches for implementing those strategies. Look at the structure of an existing LEED
credit to design your own.

Borrowing Credits

Innovation points can also be earned by achieving selected credits from other LEED rating
systems, as long as the credit isn’t already part of the project’s rating system. For example,
implementing Indoor WE credit from one of the ID+C rating systems isn’t innovative, since
the BD+C rating systems already have that credit. Implementing the Design for Flexibility
option from the Interiors Life-Cycle Impact Reduction credit of the ID+C rating system
might be an option.

Pilot Credits

The Pilot Credit Library facilitates the introduction of new credits to the LEED rating
systems. The process allows projects to test more innovative credits that haven't been
through the complete drafting and balloting process.

It is developed as a component of USGBC's existing process of ongoing credit research and

evaluations. Pilot credits are great for learning opportunities. Pilot credits provide focused,
real-world credits which create a professional and experiential feedback opportunity for the
volunteers who serve as LEED credit authors. Pilot testing allows one to make informed
decisions about the technical merit and feasibility of LEED ideas and helps promote the
development of smarter and more effective LEED strategies. It is a crucial step in
recognizing whether the ideas are appropriate to be integrated into LEED in the future or
not. If, after certain evaluations, the LEED pilot credit is deemed ineffective, it can either be
modified or completely removed.

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 All registered projects may apply for a pilot credit. There are individual credit documents
which will determine if the credit is available for the project types.

To apply for a LEED pilot credit, project teams can register at the USGBC website. Project
teams can register for multiple pilot credits. For an effective registration, be sure to have
your project ID, project name, rating system, project type, and project administrator's
information.

Pilot credits are part of the IN credit we’re talking about here. The pilot credit uses the IN
credit template when applying for the credit in LEED-Online. This template and the
documentation must be uploaded to LEED-Online for review.

Pilot credits in the Innovation section are worth 1 point each. Project teams can earn up to the
maximum allowable number of points available in the IN credit. If the project points are
already used for other innovation strategies, only the remaining IN credits will be available
for pilot credit use.

Case Study

Before we leave the topic of Pilot Credits, let’s look at and example: the Ergonomics
Strategy pilot credit. Ergonomics is something most people have heard about.

The requirements of this pilot credit are to identify the activities and building functions
which can benefit from its application in ergonomics by selecting proper ergonomic
furnishings and equipment and providing ergonomics education. Consult current
ergonomics standards and guidelines that are relevant to the tasks that will be performed in
the building. The requirements list several referenced standards.

Before designing the interior such as the lighting, thermal environment, office layout,
individual workstation and design, workstation and equipment, consult and analyze
occupant needs first. Review potential design options with occupants. Analyze occupant
needs through the following criteria:
▪ User characteristics such as age, size, weight, shape, gender, and
ability/disability
▪ Tasks performed in terms of its importance and priority of tasks, and the
frequency of the duration
▪ Equipment materials used along with the storage requirements

Demonstrate that the key principles were incorporated in the interior design which promotes
occupant well-being in terms of health, performance, and satisfaction.

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 Provide ergonomics education and training to all users when installing furniture and
equipment.

Exemplary Performance

Performance above and beyond the LEED requirements is rated ‘exemplary.’ An example
of exemplary performance is to meet the next incremental step of the requirements. The
exemplary performance point is typically earned for achieving double the credit
requirements or the next incremental percentage threshold.

If a credit requires 20% or 30% for points, achieve 40% for exemplary. If a credit
requires 50%, the next threshold is likely 95% or 100%.

Timeline

The most important part of successfully achieving the IN credit is planning early. As early
as the pre-design phase, any team member can start thinking about how exemplary
performance can be achieved, or what new technologies are available that might be
beneficial for an innovation or pilot credit strategy.

Project teams should confirm early on the eligibility for an IN credit. A note on the basic
criteria: projects must exude a significantly better standard than the standard sustainable
design practices. This is ‘outside but inside the box’ in regard to designer creativity. Ask
yourself, what can we implement and execute to have building performance benefit the
occupants and the environment?

LEED Accredited Professional

This credit encourages the team integration required by a LEED project and to streamline
the application and certification process

At least one principal participant of the project team must be a LEED Accredited
Professional (AP) with a specialty appropriate for the project.

▪ A LEED Green Associate does NOT count for this credit.

▪ A LEED AP without specialty—legacy LEED APs—do not qualify for this
credit.
▪ The LEED AP submitted for the credit must have an active credential at the time of
the certification review.

‘Principal participant’ is defined as a person who is working on all aspects and contributing
to the total project.

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 A landscaper who is a LEED AP and shows up at the very end of construction to plant a few
trees is NOT the spirit of this credit though some projects in the past get away with this
approach just to earn this point.

This has to be one of the easiest points to earn on a project. On a LEED v4 project, you can
almost guarantee there is a team member that has the appropriate LEED AP with specialty
on the project.

Specialty Designation

With LEED v4, the LEED AP credit requirements changed to require the LEED AP have
the specialty be appropriate for the LEED rating system being used for the project. A New
Construction project requires a LEED AP with a BD+C specialty to earn the LEED AP
credit.

Benefits

The LEED AP will help streamline the process, so it’s a good idea to have them on the
project anyway. Engage the LEED AP to participate during the certification application
process, and/or hire a LEED AP consultant for project support.

The LEED AP should:

▪ Participate in the LEED application and certification process
▪ Be knowledgeable about green building principles and practices
▪ Be familiar with LEED requirements, resources, and processes
▪ Assist with the design and construction process

A LEED AP is not required for projects, but the presence of a LEED AP will significantly
aid in any LEED project.

People new to LEED and the LEED rating system will often ask if having more LEED APs
will earn a project more points. This is not true. One—and only one—point is awarded for
having a LEED AP on a project who is acting in the role of a principal participant.

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Chapter 10 – Regional Priority

Overview

Because some environmental issues are unique to a locale, USGBC regional councils have
identified distinct environmental zones within their areas and allocated 6 credits to
encourage design teams to focus on regional priorities. A project that earns a Regional
Priority credit automatically earns 1 point in addition to any points awarded for that credit.
Up to 4 extra points can be earned in this way.

For the area that your project is located, 6 credits have been identified as regional
priorities, but only 4 of those points can be achieved. So, while you have 6 to choose
from, a project can earn a maximum of 4 bonus points.

Regional priority credits and points are for normal LEED credits. They are not new credits
written for each region. Project teams don’t have to do anything special to attempt and earn
them, such as getting exemplary performance. When a project is registered with LEED-
Online, the project’s location is used to automatically credit the project with any regional
priority credits that are earned, up to 4 points.

Timeline

When a project is in the pre-design stage, identify what regional priority credits are available
for the project. By determining the regional priority credits early on it may help guide the
project team on what credits the project should pursue. This will help the project team
estimate how many points the team is targeting and learn which credits USGBC deems
particularly important in your project’s location.

Research

What LEED credits are priorities in your area? Visit https://www.usgbc.org/rpc and try out the
search tool. Early on in your project design, review the credits that can earn your project extra
points and discuss if achieving these credits should be a project goal. Wherever your project is
located, check the website and find out which Regional Priority Credits have been identified
by the Regional Chapter as important credits.

Note that each rating system may have different RP credits associated with it.

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