As the keeper of the LEED brand in Canada, Thomas Mueller doesn't care for phrases such as “designed to LEED” or “LEED-like” that are sometimes used by developers to promote their building projects in brochures and on websites.
As president of the Vancouver-based Canada Green Building Council, Mr. Mueller oversees a third-party verification process that awards LEED certification only to buildings that meet internationally recognized standards of sustainability.
Only projects registered with CaGBC, or those which have achieved LEED certification, are allowed to use the brand in promotional material, Mr. Mueller says.
Yet LEED – which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – has become almost a generic term among developers, architects, designers and contractors to describe high standards of green design, construction and operation.
And some in the industry are playing a little loose with the term, using phrases such as LEED lite, LEED shadowing and spirit of LEED to describe projects that may aim to be green but have not achieved the actual status.
Since February of 2002, 154 buildings across the country have gained one of the four LEED rankings: 35 certified, 52 silver, 58 gold and nine platinum. They include office, industrial/manufacturing, government and institutional, retail and residential buildings.
An additional 1,253 projects across the country are registered with CaGBC as LEED projects that are aiming to get the certification upon completion – but there are likely just as many that are borrowing the term's instant credibility without going through the process of proving they meet its standards, Mr. Mueller estimates.
“We think there's an equal or maybe even higher number of projects that are just using LEED to better design their projects, but that are never registered or certified through us.”
Because LEED is an open-source rating system that can be obtained for free, Mr. Mueller doesn't have a problem with developers who use the guidelines to build greener buildings. But those using LEED terminology without permission will get a phone call from the CaGBC asking them to either register the project or remove references to LEED in their marketing materials.
“We ask them not to use the terminology and they usually comply. They usually didn't know it's a protected trademark,” says Mr. Mueller, who says he recently saw a sign on an office building construction site promoting the project as “designed to LEED,” even though it wasn't registered with his organization.
In the past two years, CaGBC has asked the owners of five to 10 projects to refrain from using LEED terminology if they do not intend to register, Mr. Mueller says.
It's a fine balance between protecting the brand and being too overzealous about it, he acknowledges. “We don't want to be the LEED police,” he says.
Whether a developer will pursue LEED certification is usually influenced by the additional administrative costs they must incur, says Doug Webber, green building practice leader for the Toronto engineering firm Halsall Associates Ltd.
Developers can spend as much as $50,000 in administrative costs to document a new building's green features, from design through construction, according to the CaGBC. Mr. Webber believes the cost is worth it because LEED certification “is essentially a quality assurance process that shows that what you paid for, you're getting.”
Still, in this troubled economy, a recent survey of more than 900 U.S. building professionals showed mixed feelings for LEED certification. While 93.4 per cent agreed it was worth the time and effort to build green, just 66.2 per cent said it was worth obtaining official LEED certification, down from 77.4 per cent who felt that way in 2007, according to the third annual green building survey conducted by Los Angeles-based law firm Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis, technical consulting firm Constructive Technologies Group Inc. of Irvine, Calif., and the U.S. construction industry publication Green Building Insider.
