LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health

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LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health

Guest Blogger

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

LEED certification has emerged as the green standard of approval for new buildings in the United States. But the criteria used for determining the ratings largely ignore factors relating to human health, particularly the use of potentially toxic building materials.

The LEED program — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is playing an increasingly important role in the drive to make buildings in the United States greener and more energy efficient. LEED is now the most prominent and widely adopted green building certification program in the country, with architects and developers striving to earn LEED’s coveted platinum or gold rating, and an increasing number of local, state, and federal regulations beginning to incorporate LEED standards into official building codes.

But LEED — sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, an industry group — has a glaring and little-known drawback: It places scant emphasis on factors relating to human health, even as the largely unregulated use of potentially toxic building materials continues to expand. One of LEED’s major accomplishments — saving energy by making buildings more airtight — has had the paradoxical effect of more effectively trapping the gases emitted by the unprecedented number of chemicals used in today’s building materials and furnishings. Yet, as the threat from indoor air pollution grows, LEED puts almost no weight on human health factors in deciding whether a building meets its environmental and social goals.

I was lead author of a report on this issue that was released in May, and I recently met with Green Building Council executives, who made it clear that LEED’s management is deeply committed to an energy efficient future. Yet it also was apparent that the certification system is unlikely to soon focus on health with respect to hazardous chemicals.

At this point, LEED, a voluntary set of standards created by architects, engineers and builders, can award its highest level of certification —platinum — to a structure that earns no credits for air quality. In practice, the average LEED-certified building achieves only 6 percent of its total points for “indoor environmental quality,” the category most closely tied to health, although some of these credits are often given for lighting and thermal comfort rather than assurance of reduced exposure to dangerous substances.

This fact points up a serious flaw in the program: The job of setting standards for new construction — particularly health standards — should not be left to a private-sector organization dominated by members who profit from the sale of goods and services to the building sector.

The potential threats to human health — data suggest that increased chemical exposure in indoor environments may be one reason behind a rapid rise in childhood asthma, for example — require more aggressive action, primarily from the federal government. Because the public interest in healthy, energy-efficient, and environmentally safe buildings is enormous — and well beyond the capacity, financial interests, and willingness of the building industry to manage — the nation needs a comprehensive federal law to control the chemical content of the built environment. LEED is simply not up to the job.

This essay, by John Wargo, is part one of three. Be on the look out for Part two tomorrow!

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of

Healthy Child Healthy World.

Posted by Jenny on 08/30/2010 at 12:38 PM

Well said Mr. Kaplan. I couldn’t agree more.

Posted by Brian Kaplan on 08/25/2010 at 09:47 AM

LEED certainly has its flaws but it is a consensus based system that I really believe works as intended and it will only improve. The majority of USGBC members put their faith in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) system (http://j.mp/9pZSok) which reflects the well-researched belief that our built environments (office buildings, houses, schools, warehouses, retail, airports, etc) consume between 70-80% of the world’s energy. The consensus was that this energy consumption combined with the obvious source of the energy (fossil fuel) greatly contributed to the production of greenhouse gasses and the pace of climate change. Further, it was agreed that architects and engineers have the ability, if not the responsibility, to greatly reduce the pace of climate change. The membership of the USGBC voted on the priorities of green building and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency was agreed to be the highest priority. That’s not to say that interior toxicity isn’t dealt with in a strong and decisive manner. LEED gives value to efforts to reduce chemical infiltration based on stringent standards (South Coast Air Quality Mgmt Dist, Greenseal, etc) but I agree that the credits do not necessarily follow the weight of BEES. (http://j.mp/btcw86).

This article gives the impression that LEED doesn’t address the issue of human health at all: “LEED puts almost no weight on human health factors in deciding whether a building meets its environmental and social goals.” when it gives up to 6% of credit in the complicated system of design and construction that includes recycled materials, the location of manufacture of building products, mitigation and treatment of stormwater runoff, among other things. I think LEED does a remarkable job of balancing the remarkably complicated task of building a building. The article also states that the USGBC is a private-sector organization dominated by members who profit (what industry organization isn’t?) but its membership is actually dominated by the designers and engineers who believe in the transformational value of green building. The USGBC’s mission was to engender market transformation which it has done. The USGBC has done far more than the NIST, the EPA, the DOE, or any other governmental authority in driving change in the construction industry and is far more stringent than any governmental standard. Because it’s a consensus based system with members committed to promoting green building, every member has the right to build their case about what they believe in. In fact, LEED now has regional priority credits so that if a the members of a chapter in Utah believe that water efficiency is more important than interior toxicity because their climate allows more naturally ventilated buildings but they have less access to water, they can choose to increase the value of and “incentivize” water efficiency in LEED based on their ZIP codes.

All that said, LEED is not the only system certifying green buildings and there are other, more advanced certification systems that are gaining momentum – passive buildings and net-zero energy buildings among others, that respond more directly to local climate conditions and relate building performance in a different way than LEED. Ventilation standards around the country responded in the 80s and 90s to Legionnaires Disease and the Sick Building Syndrome of the 70s when that energy crisis sealed buildings shut for the sake of energy use reduction. Building codes don’t allow less than a certain level of outside, filtered ventilation in buildings anymore, in fact they continue to increase with every update by ASHRAE. It’s good that this writer is bringing the issue to the forefront because it needs to be understood but LEED isn’t the problem – it’s the poor education our architects and engineers receive and the poor governmental standards that only improve when our best architects and engineers continuously push the codes with their best practices. Building codes ALWAYS benefit from industry organizations because they represent the best practices of that industry and codes are ALWAYS watered down by the needs and lobbying of landlords and developers who are, much more than we are, out there to make a buck.

So I believe it’s okay to knock LEED to a point but only as far as you’re willing to make it change. I’m glad the writer met with the USGBC to highlight this issue but being rebuffed shouldn’t stop the conversation. The USGBC started as a grass-roots organization with 11 members 15 years ago and it responds well to grass-roots efforts within its ranks. Others who believe that interior toxicity is an important issue should continue to lobby the USGBC at the chapter and national level as well as NIST and the product certification institutes to continually improve our built environment.

Posted by Andrew Pace on 08/24/2010 at 07:06 AM

Not only do I agree, but I’ve written several articles dealing with this very subject. LEED bases many of the indoor air quality “points” on the VOC ratings of interior products. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a volatile organic compound is a carbon based molecule that is readily vaporized at room temperature, that could react with nitrogen and ultraviolet light and create low-level smog.

The EPA is not the HPA (Human Protection Agency). The EPA regulates VOCs solely because of outdoor air pollution. In no way does the EPA allude to human heath as their reason for regulation. However, many paints and coatings that are sold as “eco-friendly” and “green” are still just as dangerous to humans as are their high VOC counterparts.
VOC’s are not always toxic or dangerous to humans. Peel the skin off an orange and you’ll be emitting 850 grams per liter of VOCs into the air. But to 99.9% of us, oranges aren’t harmful.
Toxins are not always VOCs. Acetone, ammonia, butyl acetate, formaldehyde precursors, masking agents, crystalline silica …and on and on. These ingredients are commonly used in low VOC or zero VOC coatings, because they are not regulated as volatile. However, they can be extremely hazardous to humans.

Feel free to contact me directly if I can be of any assistance.

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