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By Eric C. Peterson
It’s formally known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, but the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) landmark certification program is more commonly known by its acronym, LEED. And it’s changing the face of the American workplace.
The future office workplace is going to be more open, with greater personal control over everything from lighting to HVAC, and it will occupy a smaller footprint. That’s the consensus of LEED-certified architects and designers, who also say that the changing, more youthful workforce will have a lot to do with how everything plays out. And LEED (or “green” or “sustainability” in the broader sense) raises a new set of legal and financial issues.
“The green revolution was like water building up against a dam, and within the last 24 months everything came rushing out,” says Matthew Jarmel, a principal of Jarmel Kizel Architects in Livingston. “Now everybody wants to do it.”
And whether or not everyone actually tries to get their building certified, more designers and builders are at least following LEED guidelines. “It’s going to become part of every project, whether or not you register and follow exact USGBC rules,” says Jennifer Hirsch, a LEED-certified designer for TSC Design in New York. “We’ve already seen the change from past decades.”
But there are some stumbling blocks as the office of the future takes shape. One of them is the relative newness of the movement. “Everybody feels compelled to do something without really understanding what they’re doing,” Jarmel says. “As a result, there are a lot of poor decisions being made relating to cost efficiency. It’s not so much costly from a construction standpoint as [it is about] the administrative cost of doing LEED certification. The architect, engineers, and builders have a lot of reporting work to do, and that can literally double the soft costs of a project.”
There is also more than USGBC’s LEED program at work here. “There are different rating systems in every country,” Hirsch notes. “Every one is a little different; in the future we hope the process can be streamlined across the world.”
Thanks to the current state of the economy, the LEED/green movement is a bit in the doldrums, at least for the short term. “We’re seeing clients who want to be green-sensitive, but with the economics of it they’re taking a more cautious look,” says Jack Miller, vice president of marketing and business development for JRS Architect in Princeton. “We’ll probably see a bit of a lag from the momentum we’ve had.”
More companies are, for those reasons, making an end-run of sorts by following LEED guidelines but not actually going through the certification process. “They may be looking at certain fabrics, paint, and carpet for interior fit-outs, but they’re looking at it a bit more economically,” Miller says. “Unless an organization is actually positioning itself as being on the cutting edge of LEED and green and see it as a marketing ploy, they’re using sustainable materials but not going for LEED certification.”
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