Amy Levin and friends photo: Heidi Glenn, NPR

The best way to learn more overall about this amazing project is to hear the story that recently aired on NPR's All Things Considered.

But BuildingGreen LIVE decided to talk a bit more with Amy Levin to learn just how and why a realtor took such a deep plunge into the world of green building.

Coming from a family of realtors, Amy has been involved in housing, property improvement, and property investment most of her life. But about two years ago, she became convinced that building green presented a real opportunity — that building green can pay builders back, even though there may be some additional up-front cost, because the public is willing to pay for the small premium. She set off looking for an existing property to prove it.

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With the addition of three new case studies from the 2008 AIA COTE Top Ten awards (Aldo Leopold Legacy Center - Platinum; Yale University Sculpture Building and Gallery - Platinum; Macallen Building Condominiums - Gold), BuildingGreen.com now features over 100 LEED certified building case studies from the High Performance Building Database (HPB).

HPB is a great tool for researching the strategies used by other designers to achieve design goals and create successful (and sometimes unsuccessful green designs). The ratings page of LEED case studies shows the points awarded to the project. Pages such as site & water and materials describe design characteristics of the projects and strategies used, and in addition the energy page includes simulation and/or actual energy use where available.

Photo: Yale Sculpture Building; credit: Peter Aaron, Esto

"Can a four-level house with a three-car garage and a kitchen full of energy-hungry Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances truly qualify as a model of environmental responsibility?

Photo by Douglas Healey for The New York Times

NRDC is trying to prove that it can, by applying for LEED certification."

NRDC?! The Natural Resources Defense Council?! Say it ain't so!

It ain't so. This NRDC is NRDC Residential — a division of the National Realty and Development Corporation.

Read the article in the New York Times.

Dear LEED-AP Exam Taker,

The attached document (see the end of the post) is a (free) sample LEED-AP exam designed to help you assess your command of the LEED-NC material in preparation for the LEED-AP exam. The questions are challenging, so unless you really know the material, you will have to go back to the LEED Reference Guide and other sources to understand the answers – and that's the point.

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I was glad that my employer, BuildingGreen, picked up the cost of my LEED-AP exam. Becoming a LEED Accredited Professional through the Green Building Certification Institute (the new manager of the exam for the U.S. Green Building Council) costs a small chunk of change, in addition to the study time. How do firms approach this investment?

The Zweig Letter, "the voice of reason for architecture, engineering and environmental consulting firms," a weekly newsletter that we subscribe to, recently ran an article by Khrista Trerotola asking, "How does your firm get employees LEED accredited and how is the process handled and the costs covered?" From the article:

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In November 2007, the Research Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released A National Green Building Research Agenda, in which it set priorities for green building research and called for funding of this research. (BuildingGreen's Alex Wilson is a member of this committee.) The agenda outlined four major areas of research: delivery process and performance evaluation; integrated building systems; buildings' interactions with local environments; and buildings' interactions with occupants.

At the time, USGBC committed to $1 million in research funding; now, it has doubled that commitment and set aside $500,000 for research on occupant impacts in K-12 school facilities. This reflects the USGBC's recent emphasis on green schools, which included a new website devoted to the topic.

Several grants will be awarded in two general ranges: $50,000 to $150,000, and $150,000 to $250,000. Projects should focus on one of the areas identified in the research agenda, should be multidisciplinary in approach, and should be relevant to LEED technical development.

USGBC will be accepting pre-proposal abstracts from February 12 through March 6, 2008. After reviewing these pre-proposals, USGBC will ask selected applicants to submit more detailed proposals for the final phase of the award process.

This interior features Plyboo bamboo flooring and cabinets made with Plyboo panels.

The company's backstory is interesting: According to Smith (who incidentally has a degree in Mandarin Chinese), they started in 1989 out of a simple fascination with bamboo — it didn't really have anything to do with being green. They used Paul Hawken's book, Growing a Business (predecessor of The Ecology of Commerce), to guide their venture. Initially, they imported bamboo plywood to make decorative boxes "that nobody bought" (at first). The end of the lean years really started when the flooring thing came along in 1993. Consistently introducing new product lines and innovations since then, the company has grown by 25 to 40 percent per year since... with a rousing 70 percent increase in 2007.

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Innovation point for the Hearst Tower in New York: reduced steel in the structure.

One way that teams are getting more sophisticated is in knowing which innovation points are the best bet. It's now well established, for example, that certain specific activities — like entering a case study in DOE's Database — earn you a relatively easy innovation point for "occupant education." To find that information, however, you had to talk to someone in the know, or dig through the online database of credit interpretation requests (CIRs). The scorecard that USGBC publishes listing the points each project has achieved identifies the innovation points by name, but it doesn't provide any details on what was done to achieve those points.

For years, designers have been pleading for a more accessible list of previously approved innovations. Why force everyone to reinvent the wheel? If the point of LEED is to help the industry as a whole innovate its way to greener buildings, shouldn't USGBC be doing all it can to share that information?

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Back on November 5, Nadav Malin posted here about "the imminent creation of the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI)." The USGBC is now distributing the following press release:

LEED AP Credential Now Administered Through GBCI.org

Over the last seven years, the LEED Professional Accreditation program has verified that more than 43,000 building professionals have an understanding of green building techniques, the LEED® Green Building Rating System™ and the certification process.

Now, with USGBC's enthusiastic backing, the LEED AP credential will be administered by a separately incorporated organization, the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). The formation of GBCI creates administrative independence between the LEED Rating Systems and the LEED AP credential — an important requirement in seeking accreditation for professional credentialing programs by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

USGBC will continue to handle development of the LEED Rating Systems and offer LEED-based education programs. GBCI will manage all aspects of the LEED Professional Accreditation program including exam development, registration and delivery.

Nothing will change for LEED Accredited Professionals except that the LEED AP Directory listing can now be updated at the GBCI Web site, www.gbci.org. GBCI.org is also the place to learn about LEED Professional Accreditation, register for the LEED AP Exam, find LEED Accredited Professionals in your area, and access your LEED AP exam records.

Visit GBCI today!