Green building is about more than saving money, but policymakers are embracing the business case for LEED and other rating systems--with sometimes confusing results.
A school bike rack is standard, but it doesn't help anyone if the bike rack stays empty. Schools, like all buildings, need to find ways to bridge the gap between design features and the people who end up using them. (Photo: Century Cycles)
What is it about the bike racks?
They seem to come up every time someone has a bone to pick with LEED. So it was in a recent op-ed about public buildings designed to state-mandated LEED Silver standards--the subject of a preliminary report (PDF) on energy savings in public buildings in the state of Washington. I've been keeping an eye on the responses to this report, because I think we'll be seeing green building rating systems used more and more frequently as political footballs as budget-starved states start to rethink requirements established during better economic times.
In the op-ed, the regional director of a conservative think tank lashes out against what he perceives to be green frills:
Only 18 percent of the extra cost to make Lincoln Heights a green school ... was spent on energy efficiency elements. The other 82 percent was spent on mandates like electric car outlets and large bike racks, which did not yield energy savings. Those additions, while costly, were included not because of any real need, but solely to help meet the state's requirements.
This critique has some pretty serious flaws. LEED rating systems do not require bike racks or electric car outlets, so neither is a "mandate." LEED has very few absolute requirements, in fact--the main reason it doesn't work very well as legislation unless the law gives specific guidance on which credits must be achieved.
Furthermore, the credit for bicycle storage and changing rooms (SSc4.2 in LEED for New Construction), is a pretty popular credit to pursue--in part because it costs almost nothing in a building whose program already includes changing rooms and showers. The report doesn't give us fine-grained data, but the idea that even a "large" bike rack could account for a significant portion of a multi-million-dollar construction budget is simply laughable. And don't we normally put bike racks at schools anyway? That's standard equipment, not an extra cost.
LEED is not a building code
With all that said, though, I think this commentator has hit upon a very important point: if I understand it correctly, the State has required that all public buildings be designed to certain standards (LEED and some similar statewide systems), based on the assumption that energy savings will pay for any added construction costs. But it failed to require any actual energy savings.
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