LEED Site Selection

In the various Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems several categories exist including: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation and Design.

The US Green Building Council (USGBC) focuses on Sustainable Sites as a way to wholistically examine a building, including its location relative to other businesses, transportation, and the local environment.  This approach is a good one because it allows for considerations not only of the performance of the building systems, but also includes the transportation impacts associated with the construction of the building and the daily commute of the workers.  For example, there is no point in building an energy efficient building at a location where virgin forest land currently sits that requires a 45 mile commute for workers via single occupancy vehicles.  Likewise, the best building could use less energy if it is positioned in such a way to take advantage of natural sunlight, which will reduce the light required by the occupants and reduce heating costs in the winter.

Why does it matter?

While you may really want to have great mountain views out your office windows and a peacful place to contemplate the hard choices we sometimes have to make at work, the middle of a mountain range is not the most environmentally appropriate place to put an office, or for the matter any, building.  LEED focuses on locating buildings near mass transit, limiting parking to promote its use, encouraging carpooling and alternative  fueled vehicles by providing dedicated parking spots, and generally support the use of alternative means of getting to the office.

Where will you build your next project?...how about downtown?

While you're at it try and pick a brownfield site and clean it up!