regionalism

Rural Illinois (photo credit: SAL)

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) created a program called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) to serve the public as a green building assessment system. Therefore, LEED acts as a third-party verifier that quantifies just how “green” a building, community, or even a group of buildings are.

LEED was created in the US and has been in use amongst design professionals since 1998. Since then, the non-profit organization has made many changes. However, this year they unveiled their most significant system advancements. At the top of the list of changes made is a new concept called Regionalism.

In an interview with Bruce S. Fowle, FAIA and LEED AP of FX FOWLE, he talked about LEED’s need for a weighted point system that depended on a project’s regional locale. He had offered comments to the USGBC for years with suggestions.

In Fowle’s words, “It does not make sense for a building in New York City to get as many points for photovoltaic cells (PV’s) as it does for the same type of building that also has PV’s in Arizona.” The reason being that there is a much greater opportunity to harvest solar energy in the desert! Likewise, to make drastic efforts toward water conservation in New York City also doesn’t make as much sense as if one would save as much water as possible in Nevada.

The point of Regionalism is not to simply downplay some types of green building systems to then place others in the limelight. Rather, it is a system that helps to direct green building teams in different areas of the country to focus on what green systems would MOST benefit the society in that one particular region.

And so, we have been introduced to the 2009 V3 LEED’s most revolutionary idea since its inception… let’s see how it works now in the coming years. The USGBC promises, furthermore, to continue to refine their building assessment system so that we may better achieve our international environmentally friendly goals.

Article: "LEED Awards Extra Credit for Regional Considerations." Green Building Insider, June 25, 2009. http://www.greenbuildinginsider.com/articles/20090625