GSA Using LEED

More Than 1,200 Businesses and Organizations Commend GSA for Using LEED to Support Innovation and Save Taxpayer Dollars

Washington, DC - (July 25, 2012) - More than 1,200 leading businesses and organizations representing a wide array of industries across all 50 states today sent a letter asking the General Services Administration (GSA) to continue to use the LEED green building rating system to advance innovation in construction and save taxpayer dollars.
The signatories commended GSA for its leadership in improving the energy and environmental performance of federal buildings, citing the recently released sustainability and energy "scorecard" from the White House's budget office. That study showed that federal government investments in energy efficiency over the last four years are expected to save as much as $18 billion in lifecycle energy costs.
"Our nation's top private-sector leaders agree: The LEED high-performance building rating system saves businesses money and helps deliver higher profits through reduced operating costs. The same is true for LEED federal facilities, which are saving American taxpayers millions of dollars a year," said Roger Platt, Senior Vice President of Global Policy and Law, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
Signatories of the letter are architects, engineers, builders, contractors, designers, planners and product manufacturers. These include Skanska, Tishman Speyer, and Kohler Co., in addition to other high-profile business leaders. They lauded GSA's decision to mirror the private sector in the use of LEED certification to reduce operating costs, save money and eliminate waste. They also agreed that deviating from LEED would add cost to projects. The executives urged GSA to continue to use the LEED building rating system and to focus on the "usability, market acceptance and effectiveness of rating tools rather than distractions focused on a single issue."
"Support for the continued use of LEED by GSA is both broad and deep. Our more than 13,000 member companies are fully engaged in the development and use of LEED. Businesses and organizations are certifying 2 million square feet of real estate to LEED each day. Clearly there is incredible agreement on the value of LEED and green building in general," Platt said.
For a full list of signatories, or to view the letter, visit bit.ly/GSAletter.
About USGBC and LEED:
The U.S. Green Building Council is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of healthy, efficient green buildings. USGBC is predominantly known for the publication of the LEED Green Building Rating System. Private sector leaders established LEED in 2000 and it has quickly become the most widely used, voluntary, market‐driven building rating program in the country. LEED is largely responsible for the explosive growth of energy‐efficient, high-performance construction, which supports or creates nearly eight million jobs across all 50 states and contributes $554 billion to the U.S. economy annually. 48 companies in the Fortune 100 use LEED certification to reduce operating and energy costs and to increase their bottom lines. LEED-certified buildings are also saving U.S. taxpayers tens millions of dollars every day through these same efficiencies.
USGBC is working with all stakeholders, including companies across all sectors of the building industry, to ensure that LEED remains the most widely used and accepted high performance building rating system in the country. Nearly 1,300 product manufacturers are members of the U.S. Green Building Council, which oversees LEED. Manufacturers are the third largest segment of USGBC membership, behind architects and engineering firms, and builders and contractors.

Green Building Initiative President Testifies Before Congress

Ward Hubbell, president of the Green Building Initiative, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of green building practices, testified today in support of an open playing field for green building certification in the federal sector, particularly within the General Services Administration (GSA).

In his testimony, Hubbell urged the GSA to reconsider its LEED-only policy, arguing that competition will lead to innovation in the green building sector and citing examples from other government agencies including the State Department and Veterans Administration who have used the Green Building Initiative's Green Globes rating system to assess and certify numerous buildings.

"An open playing field has given several federal agencies much more flexibility to choose an assessment and rating tool that best fits their needs," noted Hubbell. "The American public benefit from competition in the form of reduced government expenditures and enhanced environmental outcomes. Government agencies benefit from competition in the form of better customer service and labor savings. The market benefits by incenting suppliers to improve their product and service offerings and increase value."

Hubbell added that Green Globes is well suited to sustainability assessment needs of federal government agencies because its interactive, web-enabled platform enables a) a cost effective, and practical assessments of large numbers of buildings, b) a mechanism for tracking building environmental performance through time, c) criteria that overlap with a significant portion of the Federal Guiding Principles, and c) a cost effective, credible third party certification option. These are the attributes that have led to the recent high-volume deployment of Green Globes with Veterans Affairs.

The Green Building Initiative is the exclusive licensee of Green Globes, a nationally recognized green building assessment and rating system. The GBI's Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings is now an ANSI standard.