From: Green Stormwater
LEED Certification
Taryn Holowka, communications manager for the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), compares green building certification to the nutrition label on food packaging.
“If you’re a building owner and contract people to construct your building, you may spend so many millions of dollars and you really don’t know what you’ve got,” she says. Green building certification, she says, not only provides peace of mind, “but it’s a type of verification that everything is built and operating exactly as it was intended to.”
Aside from its environmental benefits, green building as a business decision makes good sense
It’s a $12 billion-a-year industry and it continues to be fueled by increased consumer demand.
Says Jeff Gephart, a Vermont green building program representative, “There is a lot of forecasting out there across the spectrum—the National Association of Home Builders says this is already a significant market and is going to grow significantly.”
While the USGBC is the most notable of national green building certification programs, there are also 70 chapters throughout the United States on regional levels that act as an extension of USGBC efforts. Other regional groups operate independently.
The USGBC began in 1993, the same year that then-President Bill Clinton announced plans to “green” the White House to provide a role model in efficiency and waste reduction.
One of the key elements in green building is LEED—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—a nationally recognized voluntary rating system for building design, construction, and operation.
Performance is measured in five key areas: water efficiency, sustainable site development, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Credits for stormwater measures fall under the sustainable site development, new construction category.
One point is awarded for quantity control in stormwater design. The intent of the credit is to “limit disruption of natural water hydrology by reducing impervious cover, increasing onsite infiltration, reducing or eliminating pollution from stormwater runoff, and eliminating contaminants.”
Two cases are presented for the requirement. In Case 1, existing imperviousness is less than or equal to 50%. In that case, one must implement a stormwater management plan that prevents the post-development peak discharge rate and quantity from exceeding the pre-development discharge rate and quantity for the one- and two-year 24-hour design storms.
Or, one must implement a stormwater management plan that protects receiving stream channels from excessive erosion by implementing a stream channel protection strategy and quantity control strategies.
In Case 2, existing imperviousness is greater than 50%. In that case, one must implement a stormwater management plan that results in a 25% decrease in the volume of stormwater runoff from the two-year 24-hour design storm.
Potential strategies to acquire the credit include designing the project site to maintain natural stormwater flows by promoting infiltration; specifying vegetated roofs, pervious paving, and other measures to minimize impervious surfaces; and reusing stormwater volumes generated for non-potable uses such as landscape irrigation, toilet and urinal flushing, and custodial uses.
One point is awarded for quality control of stormwater design.
The intent of the credit is to limit disruption and pollution of natural water flows by managing stormwater runoff.
The requirements include implementing a stormwater management plan that reduces impervious cover, promotes infiltration, and captures and treats the stormwater runoff from 90% of the average annual rainfall using acceptable best management practices (BMPs).
BMPs used to treat runoff must be capable of removing 80% of the average annual post-development total suspended solids load based on existing monitoring reports. BMPs are considered to meet these criteria if they are designed in accordance with standards and specifications from a state or local program that has adopted these performance standards or there exist in-field performance monitoring data demonstrating compliance with the criteria. Data must conform to accepted protocol (such as Technology Acceptance Reciprocity Partnership, Washington State Department of Ecology) for BMP monitoring.
Potential technologies and strategies include the use of alternative surfaces (vegetated roofs, pervious pavement, or grid pavers) and nonstructural techniques (such as rain gardens, vegetated swales, disconnection of impervious surfaces, and rainwater recycling) to reduce imperviousness and promote infiltration, thereby reducing pollutant loadings.
Also, sustainable design structures and techniques can be used—such as low-impact development and environmentally sensitive design—to design integrated natural and mechanical treatment systems such as constructed wetlands, vegetated filters, and open channels to treat stormwater runoff.
LEED programs include retail, schools, multiple buildings and on-campus building projects, neighborhood development, homes, core and shell development projects, commercial interior projects, existing building operations and maintenance, and new commercial construction and major renovation projects. LEED programs are being developed for health care and labs.
LEED was developed to provide a consistent, credible standard for what constitutes a green building and is based on a consensus-based process. Many federal and state agencies choose LEED as a standard.
Those seeking LEED certification must be familiar with the system and take recommended workshops. They typically have professional expertise, such as being an architect, an engineer, a facility manager, or an interior designer.
Different tracks are tied to specific professions. A core competency is required, and the tracks go above and beyond those competencies. LEED-certification hopefuls also must take an exam.
Nearly 40,000 people are now LEED-accredited professionals. Those who have been certified are able to serve on a building team and guide a project through a green building LEED process.
“In essence, you make sure the entire project team is on the same page and that they are going green from the beginning,” says Holowka.
The first step toward LEED certification is to register a project. To earn certification, a building project must meet certain prerequisites and benchmarks—or credits—within a variety of categories.
Depending on the number of credits, projects can earn Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification. Through working for LEED certification, buildings have reduced operating costs, increased health benefits, and conserved natural resources.
The USGBC also is developing ongoing education to respond to rapidly changing green technologies.
“LEED was developed to be a guideline to define green building,” says Holowka. “Before there was LEED, anyone could say they had a green building and really didn’t know what it took to make a green building.”
LEED works with the building as a whole, including its water use, as well as energy, materials, and indoor air quality, for example.
“All of those things are taken into consideration and dealt with in the LEED system, so it really is a rigorous and comprehensive system,” says Holowka. “It’s third-party verified.”
Holowka says the building industry has been slow to change, but now the USBGC has more than a billion square feet involved in LEED, representing a “significant portion” of the building industry.
Nearly 900 projects have been certified over the past seven years, with some 6,500 projects in the construction process that aim for LEED certification.
“It’s really growing,” Holowka notes. “Last year at this time, those numbers were half of that. It’s pretty amazing to us that something like this could catch on. But there are a lot of issues out there today like energy, climate change, and water issues that are driving this.”
Initially, the USGBC had developed LEED for new construction and pilot-tested the program for residential homes.
“We thought all of the interest would be coming from the builders who wanted to differentiate themselves in the market as being a green homebuilder,” she says. “We’re actually seeing the demand coming from the consumers.”
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When the USGBC launched its LEED rating system seven years ago, it had 300 member companies. Now, there are more than 9,000.
“This definitely is a growing field and we’re hoping it will get better,” says Holowka. “We’re hoping one day we will put ourselves out of business, because one day it won’t be green building—it will just be the way it is done.”
October 2007
From: Green Stormwater
LEED Certification
Taryn Holowka, communications manager for the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), compares green building certification to the nutrition label on food packaging.
“If you’re a building owner and contract people to construct your building, you may spend so many millions of dollars and you really don’t know what you’ve got,” she says. Green building certification, she says, not only provides peace of mind, “but it’s a type of verification that everything is built and operating exactly as it was intended to.”
Aside from its environmental benefits, green building as a business decision makes good sense
It’s a $12 billion-a-year industry and it continues to be fueled by increased consumer demand.
Says Jeff Gephart, a Vermont green building program representative, “There is a lot of forecasting out there across the spectrum—the National Association of Home Builders says this is already a significant market and is going to grow significantly.”
While the USGBC is the most notable of national green building certification programs, there are also 70 chapters throughout the United States on regional levels that act as an extension of USGBC efforts. Other regional groups operate independently.
The USGBC began in 1993, the same year that then-President Bill Clinton announced plans to “green” the White House to provide a role model in efficiency and waste reduction.
One of the key elements in green building is LEED—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—a nationally recognized voluntary rating system for building design, construction, and operation.
Performance is measured in five key areas: water efficiency, sustainable site development, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Credits for stormwater measures fall under the sustainable site development, new construction category.
One point is awarded for quantity control in stormwater design. The intent of the credit is to “limit disruption of natural water hydrology by reducing impervious cover, increasing onsite infiltration, reducing or eliminating pollution from stormwater runoff, and eliminating contaminants.”
Two cases are presented for the requirement. In Case 1, existing imperviousness is less than or equal to 50%. In that case, one must implement a stormwater management plan that prevents the post-development peak discharge rate and quantity from exceeding the pre-development discharge rate and quantity for the one- and two-year 24-hour design storms.
Or, one must implement a stormwater management plan that protects receiving stream channels from excessive erosion by implementing a stream channel protection strategy and quantity control strategies.
In Case 2, existing imperviousness is greater than 50%. In that case, one must implement a stormwater management plan that results in a 25% decrease in the volume of stormwater runoff from the two-year 24-hour design storm.
Potential strategies to acquire the credit include designing the project site to maintain natural stormwater flows by promoting infiltration; specifying vegetated roofs, pervious paving, and other measures to minimize impervious surfaces; and reusing stormwater volumes generated for non-potable uses such as landscape irrigation, toilet and urinal flushing, and custodial uses.
One point is awarded for quality control of stormwater design.
The intent of the credit is to limit disruption and pollution of natural water flows by managing stormwater runoff.
The requirements include implementing a stormwater management plan that reduces impervious cover, promotes infiltration, and captures and treats the stormwater runoff from 90% of the average annual rainfall using acceptable best management practices (BMPs).
BMPs used to treat runoff must be capable of removing 80% of the average annual post-development total suspended solids load based on existing monitoring reports. BMPs are considered to meet these criteria if they are designed in accordance with standards and specifications from a state or local program that has adopted these performance standards or there exist in-field performance monitoring data demonstrating compliance with the criteria. Data must conform to accepted protocol (such as Technology Acceptance Reciprocity Partnership, Washington State Department of Ecology) for BMP monitoring.
Potential technologies and strategies include the use of alternative surfaces (vegetated roofs, pervious pavement, or grid pavers) and nonstructural techniques (such as rain gardens, vegetated swales, disconnection of impervious surfaces, and rainwater recycling) to reduce imperviousness and promote infiltration, thereby reducing pollutant loadings.
Also, sustainable design structures and techniques can be used—such as low-impact development and environmentally sensitive design—to design integrated natural and mechanical treatment systems such as constructed wetlands, vegetated filters, and open channels to treat stormwater runoff.
LEED programs include retail, schools, multiple buildings and on-campus building projects, neighborhood development, homes, core and shell development projects, commercial interior projects, existing building operations and maintenance, and new commercial construction and major renovation projects. LEED programs are being developed for health care and labs.
LEED was developed to provide a consistent, credible standard for what constitutes a green building and is based on a consensus-based process. Many federal and state agencies choose LEED as a standard.
Those seeking LEED certification must be familiar with the system and take recommended workshops. They typically have professional expertise, such as being an architect, an engineer, a facility manager, or an interior designer.
Different tracks are tied to specific professions. A core competency is required, and the tracks go above and beyond those competencies. LEED-certification hopefuls also must take an exam.
Nearly 40,000 people are now LEED-accredited professionals. Those who have been certified are able to serve on a building team and guide a project through a green building LEED process.
“In essence, you make sure the entire project team is on the same page and that they are going green from the beginning,” says Holowka.
The first step toward LEED certification is to register a project. To earn certification, a building project must meet certain prerequisites and benchmarks—or credits—within a variety of categories.
Depending on the number of credits, projects can earn Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification. Through working for LEED certification, buildings have reduced operating costs, increased health benefits, and conserved natural resources.
The USGBC also is developing ongoing education to respond to rapidly changing green technologies.
“LEED was developed to be a guideline to define green building,” says Holowka. “Before there was LEED, anyone could say they had a green building and really didn’t know what it took to make a green building.”
LEED works with the building as a whole, including its water use, as well as energy, materials, and indoor air quality, for example.
“All of those things are taken into consideration and dealt with in the LEED system, so it really is a rigorous and comprehensive system,” says Holowka. “It’s third-party verified.”
Holowka says the building industry has been slow to change, but now the USBGC has more than a billion square feet involved in LEED, representing a “significant portion” of the building industry.
Nearly 900 projects have been certified over the past seven years, with some 6,500 projects in the construction process that aim for LEED certification.
“It’s really growing,” Holowka notes. “Last year at this time, those numbers were half of that. It’s pretty amazing to us that something like this could catch on. But there are a lot of issues out there today like energy, climate change, and water issues that are driving this.”
Initially, the USGBC had developed LEED for new construction and pilot-tested the program for residential homes.
“We thought all of the interest would be coming from the builders who wanted to differentiate themselves in the market as being a green homebuilder,” she says. “We’re actually seeing the demand coming from the consumers.”
When the USGBC launched its LEED rating system seven years ago, it had 300 member companies. Now, there are more than 9,000.
“This definitely is a growing field and we’re hoping it will get better,” says Holowka. “We’re hoping one day we will put ourselves out of business, because one day it won’t be green building—it will just be the way it is done.”