Although many may not realize it, the construction industry is starting to turn Green, and that pace is accelerating.
In a week of very mixed news on Healthcare, Iran, and other topics here is some unabashedly good news. For those who care about Green, and for me.
A bit of backstory.
There is a push for Green buildings in the US, certified by the USGBC, the US Green Building Council. To promote the use of Green building technologies, the USGBC has developed the LEED standards, a method of evaluating buildings for their energy efficiency and environmental responsibility. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and it consists of a series of prerequisites and credits that may be applied to a building. Here is how buildings are scored:
Certified: 26-32 points
Silver: 33-38 points
Gold: 39-51 points
Platinum: 52-69 points
You can see that to just be Certified requires a certain degree of efficiency and environmental responsibility. For example, to achieve any LEED rating the building must pass all the prerequisites. One of these is for Sustainable Sites, and the prerequisite requires erosion control during building construction. Right there making a building a LEED building helps the environment.
Right now the demand for Green buildings is growing. Every day building owners realize that building to LEED standards provides a better, more efficient workplace that saves money directly through energy savings and indirectly through improved comfort for the building occupants leading to greater productivity.
As a testament to the interest in Green buildings, the USGBC was backlogged with requests to take the LEED Accredited Professional exam under the current version of the standard. How do I know this? Because I was one of the people stuck in the backlog to meet the registration deadline. Being a LEED AP is something I've wanted to do for a while, and this was impetus for me to get it done. Me and several thousand other people across the US.
Today, I passed the LEED AP exam.
That is very exciting for me, both personally and professionally, but what is exciting generally is the range of people taking the exam with me.
Some are architects and engineers, but a number of the people there were from construction companies, and they were also talking about all the other people in their organization that had taken the exam. Many project managers and site supervisors have taken the LEED AP test, and more are doing it every day. I see this in the people I meet on jobsites that are LEED APs. It's not just the design professionals, but the construction managers as well.
This is very good for the future of Green buildings. Knowing what make a building Green is very important, and knowing how to put Green concepts into practice helps make every building Green.
Learn more about Green buildings here.
(A quick shout-out to the brave folks on the GUS (Give-Up-Smoking) list. Preparing for the LEED AP exam was extremely intense and stressful and at one time would have run me through more than a pack a day. Yet through this process the desire for a cigarette never came back. It has been a long time since I quit the habit, but understand that by stoppig you can be truly free. If you are on the GUS list and trying to quit, help me celebrate passing the exam by skipping one cigarette.)