Blog Post

Replacing LEED's heavy metals: Silver, Gold, Platinum

 How can LEED hope to transform the building industry in an environmental mold if, to highlight the achievements of buildings, it relies on outmoded stores of value whose extraction and use does vast environmental and social harm: Silver, Gold and Platinum? Those, of course, are the three top tiers of achievement for green buildings in the LEED Rating System. The lowest tier? Plain-vanilla "Certified." C'mon, USGBC, you couldn't pull out palladium or beryllium as a consolation prize? These tiers are also spreading a pox of heavy metals in the green building world. They've recently been spotted in the NSF-140 sustainable carpet program, and in the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) product certification program, whose founders, William McDonough, FAIA, and Michael Braungart, Ph.D., should know better. Speaking of C2C, it was Braungart himself who suggested to me last year that there should be a more environmentally conscious tier system. His suggestion at the time was something like: 3) Microbe

2) Ant

1) Butterfly

I guess he likes insects and other creepy crawlies. I've come up with a few ideas of my own, and please send me yours. The best ideas will be noted, with proper credit, in a future post on BuildingGreen.com. I'll also present them to USGBC. The fundamental problem is that LEED is a point-driven, hierarchical system, and nature resists that. So we could go with: 3) Fox

2) Panda

1) Tiger

But what does that say about our sympathy for animals with faces, out of all of the species in the world? To put the lie to that focus, we could come up with a tier system just with mammals that have become globally extinct this decade: 3) Western black rhino

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2) Pyrenean ibex

1) Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey

Or, how about a little reminder of what our future looks like if we don't change our environmentally destructive ways: 3) Tyrannosaurus rex

2) Brontosaurus

1) Stegosaurus

Or, from a more human perspective: 3) Jimi

2) Elvis

1) Tupac

I can see it now.... "We are pleased to award a LEED-Elvis certification to this new drug-treatment center." In all seriousness, here is my suggestion for a system appropriate to my region (New England). These three species are found together in the same forest, with none "on top" of the hierarchy: 3) Hemlock

2) Beech

1) Maple

Sadly, all three are faced with threats of anthropogenic origin: the woolly adelgid, beech scale, and climate change, respectively.

Published July 17, 2008

(2008, July 17). Replacing LEED's heavy metals: Silver, Gold, Platinum. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/blog/replacing-leeds-heavy-metals-silver-gold-platinum

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Comments

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 28, 2008 - 4:51 am

How's this one:

Good
Better
Best

Good Luck!

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 28, 2008 - 10:43 am

Ahh, but Tristan, you have not calculated the carbon impact of adopting the new nomenclature you propose! Imagine all the extra paper needed to explain the new less-intuitive approach and all the energy consumed while people sit in front of their computers trying to grasp (or remember) the new LEED levels.

For those of you who object to the Silver, Gold and Platinum nomenclature, I am starting a new carbon offset company that will allow you to purchase carbon equivalents for LEED silver, gold and platinum awards. We only accept Mastercard Microbe and American Express Dolphin.

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 28, 2008 - 7:39 am

How about:

Rock, Paper, Scissors (salvaged of course).

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 18, 2008 - 7:10 am

I’ve been apologizing for USGBC's heavy metal choices for years. One gold ring represents the extraction of 10 tons of rock and the emission of 595 lbs of CO2. I appreciate that the USBGC was just trying to tap into our cultural competitive spirit, but at some point we must confront the hypocrisy.

Tristan's essay may be light hearted, but the subject is serious. Janine Benyus will be at Greenbuild again this year. Perhaps we should honor her and Biomimicry with consideration of new nomenclature that represents the evolutionary development of organisms. Braungart was on target. Microbe (certified), Oak, Bee and Dolphin – this would represent an evolution of green building and honor the natural systems we claim to defend.

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 17, 2008 - 3:24 am

In Tristan's defense (I know the guy), he wasn't being for real. This was a bit of fun. Tristan's written a fair bit about LEED here on our blog, LIVE, including two very popular posts about studying for the LEED AP test (one included a sample test that he put together), getting professionals in firms LEED accredited, a call for the USGBC to start selling a PDF of the LEED Reference Guide, and more. (He also wrote a popular Green Building Jokes post.) See them all at http://www.buildinggreen.com/live/index.cfm/2007/10/30/Tristan%20Korthal...

That said, I totally see how it could be read as a frivolous (and bizarre) attack. But it wasn't, really. Part of the thing about our blog is that it's a place to be looser and have a little bit of fun now and then. Everything else we do at BuildingGreen tends to be pretty serious and deep and rigorous... like the feature story in Environmental Building News that Tristan and Jennifer Atlee wrote titled "Cradle to Cradle Certification: A Peek Inside MBDC's Black Box." (Since that subject came up in his post and your comment.) See it at http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2007/2/1/Cradle-to-Cradle-...

Heather, I hope you continue to call it like you see it as you weave through all the red herrings, spurious claims, and just plain dumbstriking goofiness that's popping up with increasing frequency in the green building industry. It's vitally important that we all do.

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 16, 2008 - 6:17 pm

Is this guy for real? Tristan, you should be ashamed of yourself. With all the good work being done by USGBC/LEED and organizations like MBDC with their Cradle to Cradle certification program, all you can do is ping on the names used for their rating system? What's next, an attack on the Olympics for giving out Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals?

You clearly have too much time on your hands...

BuildingGreen Basic Member

July 20, 2008 - 1:07 pm

...I would concur the irony is indeed rather blatant and I had wondered if color might be an efficacious representation of level, although this may not be as effective in appealing to the merchant sector...