Green Building Rating Systems – Summary

I’ve reviewed three of the more-well-known green building rating systems in previous weeks. Since the strategies for building green are fairly similar, a lot of the information used in determining the green building ratings are somewhat similar. The delivery systems of these rating systems differ.

The best way to see which system is going to work best for your organization and your school is to do more research applicable to your specific goals. There are resources available to help you determine which is best. You can hire a green building consultant to lead your school district or school through a needs assessment, and after obtaining information on the systems, you can make a decision. Do the research; the data is out there to show that green building does not necessarily cost more. When you think about green from the standpoint of how much money is spent over the lifetime of a building, you need to build green from a standpoint of spending your money wisely. If you know that you can build a building that will alleviate utility costs, provide a healthier environment, and reduce absenteeism, why wouldn’t you build that way? Use ACEF as one of your resources. Start with a district-wide Indoor Environmental Quality program.

A few takeaway facts:

CHPS: 86 completed CHPS schools and approximately 300 underway seeking CHPS recognition.

Green Globes: Over 150 commercial facilities in the U.S. have been certified using Green Globes.

LEED: There are 8,508 LEED Certified projects and 23,775 LEED Registered projects.

You can build green for both new and for existing buildings. Industry projections point to an avalanche of existing building green building certifications in the coming years, since there are so many more existing schools than new. Existing schools have many more challenges to overcome in maintenance and Indoor Environmental Quality, among other issues. Thirty to forty percent of a typical building’s life cycle costs occur during the design and construction phase, with the remaining sixty to seventy percent cost occurring during the rest of the building’s life. Since the design and construction phase of a building’s life cycle is typically 2-5 years, with the rest of the life cycle at 45-50 years, it only makes sense to maximize the return on the more expensive phase of a building’s life cycle (that’s in constant dollars).

www.chps.org
www.gbci.org
www.greenglobes.com
www.nist.gov

Green Building Rating Systems Comparison – Green Globes

Starting three weeks ago, I’ve been profiling three of the most well-known green building rating systems that can be used in school construction, both new and renovations. Green Globes is a green building rating system developed by the Green Building Institute. A rating system is available for new and existing buildings, and commercial and residential, Green Globes utilizes a scoring system of 1,000 points.

Green Globes relies on a web-based, interactive scoring system that GBI says allows users to know how many points their building will obtain throughout the certification process. The threshold for certification is reached when 35% of the 1,000 points needed are obtained; and at that point an assessor is assigned and the certification will continue. Unlike LEED and CHPS, there are no prerequisites other than the 35%.

At the culmination of scoring, a building audit is done by an assessor to confirm green strategies.

Green Globes buildings are rated on a scale of one to four, with one being the lowest level of certification and four the highest level of certification. To obtain a Green Globe rating, the project must be third-party verified.

Buildings are rated in seven areas, with the maximum number of points possible as follows:

1. Project Management, worth a maximum of 50 points
2. Site, 115 points
3. Energy, 380 points
4. Water, 100 points
5. Resources,100 points
6. Emissions, Effluents, and other Impacts, 75 points
7. Indoor Environment, 200 points

The project questionnaire is simple, with many yes/no questions, with minimal documentation needed.

One interesting aspect of Green Globes is you can sign up for a free thirty-day trial period.

Similar to the other two rating systems profiled, LEED and CHPS, the website is a good resource with a lot of other information.

www.greenglobes.com

Green Building Rating Systems and Schools, Part 1

Twenty percent of the population of the U.S. spends their day in a school. Many schools are not healthy environments. Those charged with providing a healthy learning climate for students can and should make changes to foster student health. In the search for providing a better learning experience for students what tools do administrators need to ensure the learning environment is the best possible for students and staff? The case can also be made that, as public schools are funded by taxpayers, school administrators should be good stewards of public monies by building in a way that reduces the environmental impact of schools. This, in turn, saves taxpayer money when the use of water and utilities are reduced.

Sustainable or green building rating systems have been developed in order to assist schools to determine “what exactly is green?”, “how green?”, and “what exactly is it I need to do to provide a healthy environment?”

Three rating systems that are used most frequently to help in providing healthy schools are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), CHPS (Collaborative for High Performance Schools) and Green Globes.

LEED was originally developed in 2000 by the US Green Building Council. It is used in the United States and other countries, with a version specifically for schools. LEED for Schools was updated in 2009 to include both new and existing school projects.
CHPS was founded in 1999. There have been 86 CHPS schools completed nation-wide. CHPS has developed state-specific school building performance criteria for twelve states, with more underway.

Green Globes rating system was developed in 2000 under the name Green Globes for Existing Buildings. It was updated in 2002 and the rating system is applicable to all types of commercial construction, including schools.

Each of these rating systems looks at building design and construction from a holistic standpoint. Each is voluntary and third-party verified.

Next week we'll look at the specifics of rating systems.

What LEED is http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988
CHPS Fact Sheet http://www.chps.net/dev/Drupal/node/164
Green Globes http://www.greenglobes.com/about.asp