Governments feel the force of nature

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In Broken Arrow, Okla., Craig Thurmond is struggling with the role of government in the green-building movement.
A building consultant and City Council member, Thurmond leads a committee sifting through proposals to put green in Broken Arrow’s building codes.
Standards such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the widely used system devised by the U.S. Green Building Council, will make construction more expensive, Thurmond fears, hurting Broken Arrow as it competes against other Tulsa suburbs for commercial and residential development.
“Competition is the marketplace,” Thurmond said. “Over 20 percent of the cost of a house is regulation. Do you want to regulate the housing market out of your community?”
Monterey, Calif., no longer asks that question. It decided that if government doesn’t lead, no one will, so it passed green-building laws. All new municipal buildings must qualify as LEED silver, the third-highest (of four) on the rating scale, and requirements for green building of commercial and residential buildings are being phased in.
“I see it as mandatory to push the industry,” said Dana Strickland, a building technician for the city of Monterey. “The benefit is to get it moving until the public is made aware and industry is made aware and the demand is there, or else it would never actually bloom.
“Our program is voluntary for the first year. We’re using it as an education and learning curve on how it’s better for the environment. And then it’s mandatory.”
The movement to require green building is growing but still modest-sized. As of Aug. 1, USGBC records show 98 U.S. cities, 25 towns, 29 counties, 31 states, 12 federal agencies, 15 public school jurisdictions and 38 institutions of higher education have some type of LEED standards.
Most have incentives or public-awareness campaigns. Those requiring LEED or another standard usually target public construction. Just 18 cities and one state, Connecticut, require green standards for commercial projects, according to studies by the Tulsa-based environmental consulting firm, The Green Team. Eighteen cities also demand green residential building.
Those 98 cities — up from 90 on July 1, and including Boston, San Francisco, Dallas and Austin, Texas — represent more than 14 percent of U.S. population centers of 50,000 or more, according to Brooks Rainwater, director of local relations for the American Institute of Architects.
In Thurmond’s view, demand should precede laws.
“Nationally, (green building) is starting to become important,” he said. “But here (in Tulsa suburbs), there still isn’t that much focus on it.”
In the eight years of LEED standards, the USGBC has granted plaques to 1,574 U.S. buildings, from the lowest LEED level, certified, through the highest, platinum. However, 10,058 buildings are in some stage of LEED review, according to the USGBC’s Web site.
“That shows the trend and how much has taken place,” said Tim O’Dell, a Kansas City-based vice president with Key Construction, which operates in 40 states.
In this age of construction inflation, critics fear that forcing the use of sustainable materials and energy-conservation systems will increase construction costs by 1 to 10 percent or more. Required certification by LEED or other green-building groups may tack on another 1 to 5 percent.
Recent studies, including one by Austin, Texas, found green building requires only 1 to 2 percent more in upfront capital, with a payback in energy savings in one to two years.
“It’s truly a market-driven situation now,” O’Dell said, “and so contractors and subcontractors and suppliers are really jumping on the bandwagon, and we’re starting to see you can get into a LEED-certified building with not a huge increased cost, maybe nothing. As you start going for gold or platinum (LEED’s two highest ratings) and some of the higher-end buildings, you’re starting to see some of the costs driven up a little bit.”
But most of the governments requiring or even recommending LEED standards are using the two lower LEED levels, certified and silver.
Austin adopted its green-building standards in 1998. From studying 10 years of performances of municipal, commercial and residential buildings, Austin Energy Green Building Manager Richard Morgan said the city’s program delivered energy savings of between 15 and 40 percent.
The fears of Thurmond, the Broken Arrow city councilman, haven’t proven true. While construction lagged in some cities requiring LEED, officials often attribute their slowdowns not to green laws, but to the nation’s credit crunch and the housing-market deflation.
Austin seems buffered from such economic storms, as its building boom keeps booming.
One drawback emerges for the governments that require not only the adherence to LEED standards, but also the winning of LEED awards. Applying for LEED certification can be costly. The basic application fee is $450 for USGBC members, $650 for nonmembers, but the USGBC also charges about 3.5 cents per square foot of a building.
In response, the Oklahoma Legislature chose a frugal approach. This year, it passed a law requiring all state-owned construction projects topping 10,000 square feet to follow either the standards of LEED or the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes. But the law included an escape route: The state Department of Central Services may skip certification if the cost of applying would not be re-couped within five years.
Florida this year rewrote its LEED requirement for public buildings, in part to escape required certification costs, broadening its standard to include elements of Green Globes, the Florida Green Building Coalition and other options. The laws in 11 other states and in many municipalities include LEED, but also offer options.
“With the LEED program, it tends to be a very expensive process of documentation and the criteria you have to meet,” said Larry Maxwell, vice president of communications for the American Institute of Architects Florida and chairman of the Florida State Commission on the Environment. “Is your money better spent paying a little extra to the architectural and engineering team to better prepare the building rather than pay some third party to tell you whether you met the goals or not?
“At the end of the day, it really comes down to what do you get for your money. Is it necessary to spend all this money to say what a good boy I am?”
At the end of some day, perhaps in the near future, all the wrangling over government regulation and LEED certification may evaporate.
Jack Crowley, a University of Georgia professor with the College of Environment and Design, said he expects, as green building spreads, market competition will spur the development of better, cheaper and more efficient systems that overcome cultural resistance and bottom-line economics.
“I think what you’ll see in the future is a lot of buildings will not even bother going for LEED certification,” he said. “Rather, the technology’s so pervasive, it’s just out there and people start using it.”
Kirby Lee Davis is the Tulsa, Okla., bureau chief for The Journal Record, which, like The Daily Reporter, is owned by Dolan Media Co.