Green building. When you read or hear those words, what comes to mind? Modern Building? Efficient? Sustainable? Accountable? Clean? Environmentally Friendly? Reduced GHGs?
A quick web search with the words green building returns numerous definitions using one or more words listed above. Most descriptions agree that, throughout a building’s life cycle, the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance have been – and continues to be – done in ways that are environmentally responsible, resource-efficient, and with an unwavering focus on sustainability. But what or who confirms that the goal of reducing the overall negative impact of buildings on people and the environment has indeed been achieved? In other words, what is the measure of sustainability? Since the early nineties, several methods have been developed to assess, rate, and certify the sustainability of buildings. These include the British BREEAM, the German DGNB System, the Australian Green Star, the Canadian BOMA BEST, the GSAS used in the Middle East, and LEED – the focus of this article – among others.
What is LEED?
- LEED, which stands for, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rating system used worldwide to recognize healthy, highly efficient, and cost-effective buildings. [1]
The LEED green building certification program was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and has several LEED rating systems based on various types of buildings and projects. Four certification levels exist – Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum, and can be attained by any building based on a performance credit point system as summarized in Figure 1. This scoring system evaluates building performance from the environmental and human benefits’ perspective, using environmental impact categories and a weighting scheme developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) respectively. [2]
Since 1993, when the development of LEED began, several rating systems and versions have emerged, from its first version focused on New Construction in 1998, to LEED 2009, also known as version 3, to LEED v4 introduced in 2013. The latest version includes six rating systems for Green Buildings, Building Design & Construction (BD+C), Interior Design & Construction (ID&C), Building Operations & Maintenance (O+M), Residential, Cities and Communities, and Recertification.
Although not within the scope of this blog, it is worth noting that LEED also grants professional credentials to recognize individuals’ core understanding of green building principles and in-depth expertise in sustainability and the LEED rating system.
Why Seek LEED Certification with the help of Analytics Software?
- Because the LEED framework for green building design, construction, operations and maintenance is performance-driven, an energy analytics platform will help make sure buildings and occupants are using resources efficiently while keeping safer and healthier environments inside and out.
- Because a suitable analytics software provides the infrastructure to support continuous improvement processes – a core LEED ethos. Throughout the life of each building, continuous flow of data enables continuous and automated analysis of that data to make sure the building is performing optimally.
Data collection, analysis and visualization are integral to the pursuit of LEED certification. Why? If you have ever tried to do a task without the right tool on hand – and can recall how frustrating that is – you will know why. Simply put, having the right analytics platform has the potential to improve the odds of success when implementing programs that are based on continuous improvement philosophies. This is evident when looking closely at the BD+C rating system and the available credits under the Energy and Atmosphere (EA) discipline.
For instance, under the Enhanced Commissioning Credit, up to 4 points are possible when Path 1 – Enhanced Commissioning, and Path 2 – Monitoring-Based Commissioning are achieved. The former involves the development of an ongoing commissioning plan, and the latter, monitoring-based procedures to assess energy performance. Furthermore, there is a connection here to ongoing building performance within the O+M rating system and the 33 available credits under the EA discipline on Energy Performance. The LEED v4.1 BD+C guide states that monitoring-based commissioning, “is a powerful strategy for tracking building performance in real-time”, ensuring “ongoing building quality control and operations and may help improve the project’s energy performance score”. [4]
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in a 2019 publication on “Building Analytics and Monitoring-Based Commissioning: Industry Practice, Costs, and Savings”, describes Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) as “an ongoing commissioning process with a focus on analyzing large amounts of data on a continuous basis”. [5] It goes on to explain how Energy Management and Information Systems (EMIS) technologies are used in the MBCx process to organize, present, visualize, and analyze this data. To learn more about EMIS, we suggest a couple of earlier blogs focusing on Energy Information Systems and Fault-Detection and Diagnostics. Referring to a study where buildings achieved between 3 – 47% energy savings, the article mentioned earlier states that “participants reported that this performance would not have been possible” without the help of EMIS technologies. A much earlier report summarized the three additional energy savings streams that are possible with MBCx relative to traditional Retro-Commissioning (RCx). [6]
How to Leverage Analytics Software to obtain and maintain LEED Status?
- Gain a thorough understanding of the LEED rating system to evaluate and select the most suitable software – Upon strategizing a plan to achieve LEED certification, evaluate and select – if appropriate – the software platform that would best support that strategy.
- Integrate software functionality within the Ongoing Commissioning Plan and Monitoring-Based Procedures – Figure out the LEED credit requirements to determine the building data points to be measured, energy resource metering needs, and performance evaluation criteria.
- Setup your software platform to meet LEED requirements – Configure the required metrics, including performance indicators and energy baselines needed to ensure ongoing building quality control and operations and to assess the performance of energy and other resource-consuming systems.
If you are not quite familiar with LEED, begin learning the latest LEED version 4.1. Once an appropriate rating system is selected based on your project, links to various guides are available for download under the resources section in each of the six ratings, including Recertification of previously certified LEED buildings. Registering a LEED project would be next if it has not been done already.
LEED certification is administered by the Green Business Certification Inc.™ (GBCI), allowing the USGBC to focus on maintaining the LEED rating system while GBCI’s responsibility falls on the implementation of such system through third-party technical reviews and verification of LEED-registered projects. Note that, depending on the project location, it may be necessary to contact a national organization or service provider to guide you through the certification process. For instance, in Canada – the world’s second-largest market for LEED – this process is administered by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and its implementation arm, GBCI Canada. GBCI is also incorporated in Europe and India to continue its global mission to drive forward sustainability performance and the adoption of green business practices.
Selecting a suitable analytics platform or EMIS to help navigate the LEED certification process is no easy task. Two articles that provide an evaluation framework for both, Energy Information Systems and Fault-Detection and Diagnostics, should assist in this decision-making process.
The commissioning plan, developed under the guidance of the LEED rating system, should now guide the analytics software implementation. Typically, the first step is to identify and organize meters, and configuring baselines for each of them would follow. In the LEED BD+C system, two disciplines, Water Efficiency (WE) and Energy and Atmosphere (EA) list Building-Level Metering as prerequisites in all building categories including new construction and major renovations, from schools and retail to hospitality and healthcare. [4] Sub-metering in both disciplines also provides additional points under the “Advanced Energy Metering” credit. Moreover, metering supports the ongoing performance described under LEED O+M given that effective water and energy management depend on metrics to validate that building systems are operating as designed. Energy Information Systems such as CopperTree Analytics’ Kaizen Energy keep the various resource meters in separate groups for proper accountability as shown in Figure 1, while allowing users to drill-down onto each resource to see more granular consumption data with its corresponding baseline and full dashboard interactivity as appreciated in Figure 2.
Figure 1. With Kaizen Energy, users can create meter groups to organize the various resources and equipment categories in a building. Figure 2. Interactive dashboard with hover-over summary values and drill-down capabilities from monthly to daily breakdowns.
LEED can be overwhelming, no question, especially to someone just beginning to get familiar with a green building standard that is continually evolving. Even though LEED does not explicitly mandate an analytics tool, EMIS platforms that support data-driven and performance-centric processes such as monitoring-based commissioning are here to help achieve and maintain the higher standards of sustainable buildings, now and into the future. Whether your organization is in pursuit of LEED or is only evaluating options at this time, it is never too early to get a full demo of CopperTree’s Energy Analytics and Fault-Detection and Diagnostics Platform.
[1] U.S. Green Building Council. 2021. Value of LEED
[2] Wikipedia. 2020. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
[3] U.S. Green Building Council. 2021. LEED rating system.
[4] U.S. Green Building Council. November 2020. LEED v4.1 Building Design and Construction – Getting Started Guide. Source: https://www.usgbc.org/leed/v41#bdc, pages: 128-130
[5] Kramer, H., Lin, G., Curtin, C., Crowe, E. and Granderson, J. 2019. Building analytics and monitoring-based commissioning: industry practice, costs and savings. Energy Efficiency. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
[6] Mills, E, Mathew, P. April 2009. Monitoring-Based Commissioning: Benchmarking Analysis of 24 UC/CSU/IOU Projects. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Written By:
CopperTree Analytics
More By This Author
