LEED certification to hinge on energy and water usage figures

The data sharing is part of LEED 2009’s Minimum Program Requirements. The US Green Building Council has said that is to inform building owners on how they are doing, and is “simply a ground rule for entering the system”.

Projects can comply by providing energy and water usage data annually; by recertifying on a two-year cycle; or by the owner allowing USGBC to access the data directly from the utility provider.

Kay Killman, sustainability associate at Hilson Moran, said: “This move will make sure that developers are more diligent. This kind of approach forces them to think about energy and water usage more than they may have before.”

Ricardo Moreira, director of XCO2 Energy, said the move was an excellent opportunity to gather data on buildings in use.

“This will allow for a closer assessment of the benefits of LEED for a large stock of certified buildings, as opposed to the much smaller samples used in existing research,” Moreira said. “It may also help to highlight the gap between energy modelling and real energy use.”