This article is in response to an article originally printed in the Dallas Morning News on Sunday, January 8, 2008. The original article can be found here. An abridged version of this response also appeared in the Dallas Morning News here on Sunday, January 27, 2008.

I recently read an article by Daniel Brook regarding eco-friendly, or green, buildings. In his article, Daniel criticizes issues with LEED, a rating system that is widely being utilized by the building industry as a benchmark for green buildings. While some of Daniels’ criticisms are valid, I don’t believe that the issue is as simple as he makes it out to be.

This article unfairly portrays the green building movement solely on the basis of one or two examples. Buildings are complex and encompass many different technologies. What works for one building may not work for another. And this is where LEED comes in. LEED is a voluntary rating standard based upon different sustainable categories. Buildings can achieve points by going above and beyond common building practices, and reducing their overall environmental impact. This can be done through environmentally friendly use of a building’s site, water use reduction, energy use reduction, environmentally friendly use of materials and resources, or the indoor environmental impact on occupants.

The building industry has reacted positively. In the five years or so that the LEED system has been available, there have been over 10,000 different projects registered with the intent of being more environmentally friendly. This equates to over 2.7 billion square feet of building space. 

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of being part of the design and construction teams for the Hensley Field Operations Center , a sustainable vehicle maintenance center for the City of Dallas . This facility achieved LEED Gold certification, and hosts a myriad of sustainable technologies. And yes, it did take advantage of some of the easy credits. But, by utilizing the LEED system as a guideline throughout the design and construction of the facility, we were able to see how all of our sustainable strategies were tied into each other, and the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. The result of this is a facility that has a water use reduction of over 50% and an energy use reduction of over 25%, as compared to a conventional building. This building also utilized recycled materials for over 25% of its materials, and prevented 85% of its construction waste from going to a landfill. Is this reduction and environmental impact any less striking because there is also a bike rack?

The green building movement is still young and growing. When I became involved in our local USGBC North Texas Chapter in 2002, there were less than a dozen individuals. But jump to 2008 where we have over 700 members! Even more striking is that we have over 3,300 individuals who subscribe to our weekly e-mail newsletter focusing on sustainable building. In the last two and a half years, we’ve sent over 285,000 e-mails!

And our professionalism continues to grow. There are two individual certifications associated with the LEED rating system. In North Texas , almost 1,000 design professionals have successfully achieved the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) designation. And we have over 500 construction professionals that have been trained under the Green Advantage designation. North Texas is one of the largest markets nationwide for Green Advantage, and hosts monthly workshops that have continuously been sold out for the last year!

Ultimately, sustainability begins with individuals. And those individuals have to decide for themselves their level of participation, or lack thereof. The goal is to reduce the environmental impact of our buildings. Is LEED the only way to achieve this? Of course not. But I do believe that LEED is helping to raise awareness of sustainability, and contributing positively towards sustainable buildings. The industry is starting to make huge strides, but there is still work to be done. We need to continue this discussion about sustainability. All of our buildings can reduce their environmental impact, regardless of their scale. We can continue to improve as an industry, and positively impact the built environment. And that starts with you!

Michael Kawecki is a Project Manager for O'Brien Associates, a sustainable architectural firm. He recently completed the Hensley Field Operations Center, a LEED Gold certified facility, and has been involved in sustainable building since 2002. For additional information regarding this article, please contact Michael at mkawecki@usgbcnorthtexas.org. All comments are the sole responsibility of the author.

This article was originally posted 1/29/08.