Green group crams to pass test

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LEED has a credibility problem.
Since 2001, the U.S. Green Building Council and an affiliate have trained, tested and titled 57,000 contractors, architects and other building professionals as LEED APs, short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professionals. Until the end of last year, the USGBC was both teaching the LEED AP curriculum and overseeing the exams — a decided conflict of interest in the intricate world of professional accreditation and certification.
“If the same people train as certify, they teach to the test,” said Roy Swift, an executive with the American National Standards Institute, a private nonprofit that has been accrediting occupation-qualifications programs since 1918.
For contractors, having LEED AP employees means big business. The green-building movement represents a serious, lucrative shift as millions of people demand a nonpolluting, nonwasting environment. They are willing to pay extra for conservation, especially because conserving saves operating costs.
Properly trained and professionally certified experts are a must if the building council is to help keep the green times rolling. And so the USGBC is making changes.
Beginning this year, the council created a separate organization, the Green Building Certification Institute, to administer the exam and grant the LEED AP designation. Coming soon are new examinations.
Next year, the GBCI will apply for accreditation from the American National Standards Institute so the LEED AP designation will have more technical stature than merely six raised capital letters on a business card.
Getting accreditation means “we are showing the world a third party, ANSI, looked at what we do and gave it the gold seal of approval,” said Beth Holst, vice president of credentialing at the GBCI.
The ANSI’s credibility is in its independence as a disinterested outside party that evaluates whether a test accurately measures a person’s “knowledge, skills and ability to do the job,” Swift said.
The green certification process needs ANSI accreditation, he said, so the public — the ultimate consumers — will have confidence in such designations as LEED AP. He estimates there are 3,000 agencies conferring impressive-sounding titles, but very few have passed the stringent third-party review that results in accreditation.
“You can give anyone any initials you want,” Swift said. “You can designate someone a certified top-spinner, if you want. There is no federal definition of ‘certification.’”
“The message is,” Swift said, “let the buyer beware.”
The Green Globes, an organization that competes with the USGBC for green-building supremacy, received its ANSI accreditation in 2005.
If ANSI grants accreditation to the GBCI next year, another complication arises: What happens to the 57,000 who already passed the test?
For most of the people holding the LEED AP designation, the change will not matter much.
“We need to give the LEED APs time to become current with the new requirements,” Holst said. “We’re still figuring that out. We have to set up a new rating system, but we can never take away anyone’s old LEED AP designation.”
That “never take away” policy technically conflicts with ANSI standards. If the GBCI earns accreditation from ANSI, the LEED APs who wish to retain the title will have to take continuing-education courses. Such courses will ensure they are recognized as certified LEED APs, Swift and Holst said.
But some of those 57,000 may decide not to continue their studies.
“There has to be some kind of distinction,” Holst said, between those who stay current and those who refuse to. “We may add an asterisk” to some people’s designations, she said, “or change the name.”
Swift is adamant that an ANSI-accredited organization must require a person to meet ANSI-approved standards before being certified. It “will have to have policies and procedures to take away the certification” of those who violate the ethics of the occupation or show they are incompetent, he said.
That’s just fine with Peter D’Antonio, a LEED AP and president of PCD Engineering in Longmont, Colo. He served on the board of the Colorado chapter of the USGBC from 2004 to 2007.
“I’ve criticized (the test) in the past,” D’Antonio said. “People with no practical experience in green building were passing the test.”
He said he likes the current test, which he called “more robust” than previous versions, and he looks forward to the ANSI accreditation so the LEED AP title will have more meaning.
Getting the ANSI accreditation will be a valuable tool for the GBCI, said Joel McKellar, a researcher and in-house LEED consultant for the architecture firm of LS3P Associates Ltd. in Charleston, S.C.
“I don’t think anyone can argue with ANSI,” he said. “Their standards are recognized all over the place.”
But McKellar, a LEED AP, said he will withhold judgment on how accreditation will affect his credentials. He isn’t opposed to continuing education to keep his LEED AP up to date, but he said his professional experience on LEED projects is proof of his knowledge.
Holst said GBCI executives are discussing the details of the continuing education. She said she envisions “a minimum cost, like a yearly fee, relatively small, maybe $40 or $50 a year.”
McKellar said he won’t mind taking courses, as long as they’re not expensive.
“If they’re free courses, that’s one thing,” he said. “But it can’t be seen as another new revenue-producer for the GBCI.”
Jim Stasiowski is a reporter for Dolan Media Co. Becky Hurley is a staff writer for The Colorado Springs Business Journal, which, like The Daily Reporter, is owned by Dolan Media.