Essentials Of Obtaining Leed Certification Environmental Sciences Essay

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a voluntary, consensus-based, market­-driven program that provides third-party verification of green buildings through a rating system. It was founded by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Robert K. Watson headed it, Founding Chairman LEED Steering Committee from 1995 until 2006.

USGBC is accepted and followed all over the world for the establishment of green buildings. Through this we can confirm that the buildings are environmentally friendly and offer and offer a positive work environment. To show that your building is “Green” LEED certification must be achieved. In many countries around the world LEED certification is well-known for determining sustainability of the building.

It is a nationally accepted organization for design, operation and construction of high performance green buildings. This ensures the buildings are environmentally compatible, provide a healthy work environment and are profitable. In the United States and in a number of other countries around the world, LEED certification is the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability. Achieving LEED certification is the best way for you to demonstrate that your building project is truly “green.

For a building to attain LEED certification it must fulfill some basic requirements, and earn a minimum number of points delineated in the LEED rating system under which it is registered. LEED registration can be done by submitting the required documents online as per asked by the system. This online workspace allows an administrator to build a project team, assign credits to appropriate individuals and submit it to USGBC for review.

GREEN BUILDING

Green building (known as green construction or sustainable building) denotes to a structure and a process that is environmentally liable and resourceful from the starting to the end of the building’s life-cycle.

The main aim of green buildings is to minimize the overall impact of the built surroundings on the health of humans and natural environment through:

• Use of energy, water and other resources efficiently.

• Enhancing productivity of employees and protecting the health of the occupants.

Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation.

Reduce operation maintenance costs.

A related concept is natural building, which is commonly on a smaller scale and inclines to give emphasis on the locally accessible natural materials. Sustainable design and green architecture are few other similar topics. The idea of sustainable development can be trailed to the energy (especially fossil oil) calamity and the environment pollution problem in the 1970s. Environmental, economic, and social benefits are some of the motives for green building.

Green building practices offer an opportunity to create environmentally-sound and resource-efficient building’s by using an integrated to design. The entire life-cycle of the building and its components is considered, as well as the economic and environmental impact and performance. More and more designers, builders, and building owners are becoming interested and involved in green building. National and local programs encouraging green building are growing and reporting successes, while hundreds of demonstration projects and private building across the country provide tangible examples of what green building can accomplish in terms of comfort, aesthetics, energy and resource efficiency.

Green building together gets a huge range of practices, techniques, and skills to minimize and finally eliminate the effects of buildings on the environment and human health. It often stresses taking benefit of renewable resources, e.g., using sunlight through passive solar, active solar, and photovoltaic techniques and using plants and trees through green roofs, rain gardens, and fall of rainwater run-off. Many other techniques are used, such as using wood as a building material, or using packed gravel or permeable concrete as a replacement for conventional concrete or asphalt to improve replenishment of ground water.

LEED RATINGS

LEED has grown as its foundation in 1998 to extra precisely signifies and incorporate growing green constructing technologies. LEED NCv1.0 was the early version. These undertakings helped USGBC to gain vision of the necessities for such a locale arrangement and it was next grasped on by LEED NCv2.2, that was released in 2005,and v3 in 2009. A lot of constructions nowadays yet pursue NCv2.2 version.

Today, LEED embodies a set of nine locale arrangements for the design, assembly and procedure of constructions, residences and neighborhoods. Five overarching groups correspond to the specialties obtainable below the LEED Accredited Expert program. That set presently embodies of:

Green Building Design & Construction

LEED for New Construction

LEED for Core & Shell

LEED for Schools

LEED for Retail: New Construction and Major Renovations

LEED for Healthcare

Green Interior Design & Construction

LEED for Commercial Interiors

LEED for Retail: Commercial Interiors

Green Building Operations & Maintenance

LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance

Green Neighborhood Development

LEED for Neighborhood Development

Green Home Design and Construction

LEED for Homes

After four years of progress, upholding credits across all LEED locale arrangements and pondering credits established on environmental priority, USGBC dispatched LEED v3, that includes a new constant progress procedure, a new edition of LEED Online, a adjusted third-party certification plan and a new set of locale arrangements recognized as LEED 2009. In reply to concerns that LEED’s necessities are bulky and tough to discover, in 2009 USGBC upheld the progress by Constructing Green, LLC of LEED user, a third-party resource that encompasses orders and assistance, composed by professionals in the earth, on requesting LEED credits and the LEED certification procedure.

LEED 2009

In LEED 2009 there are 100 likely center points distributed across five main trust categories: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Power and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, plus an supplementary 6 points for Change in Design and an supplementary 4 points for Native Priority. Constructions can prosper for four levels of certification:

Certified: 40-49 points

Silver: 50-59 points

Gold: 60-79 points

Platinum: 80 points and above

The LEED for Homes rating system is different from LEED v3, with different point categories and thresholds that reward efficient residential design.

Prerequisites and credits

Goal of the credit system

The purpose of the LEED 2009 trust arrangement is to allocate points “based on the possible environmental encounters and human benefits of every single credit.” To give stress on these encounters, the USGBC depends on the environmental encounter groups of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Instruments for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Supplementary Environmental Encounters (TRACI) as a basis for weighting every single credit. LEED 2009 makes reference to the environmental-impact weighting scheme industrialized by the Nationwide Institute of Standards and Knowledge (NIST) in allocating trust weights.

Categories

Points are distributed across major credit categories such as Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality.

Prerequisites

Basic fundamentals that are encompassed in LEED 2009 contain compliance alongside all environmental regulations and regulations, occupancy scenarios, constructing permanence and pre-rating completion, locale borders and area-to-site ratios, and obligatory five-year allocating of finished constructing power and water use data from the onset of occupancy (for new construction) or date of certification (for continuing buildings). Every single of the presentation groups additionally have deeds in every single group that are needed and accord no points.

LEED 2009 Credit Weighting Process

A three-step weighting procedure has been described for LEED 2009:

1. A collection of reference constructions are utilized to assess the environmental encounters of each constructing looking for LEED certification in a arrangement locale scheme.

2. NIST weightings are utilized to assess the comparative meaning of these encounters in every single category.

3. Data considering actual encounters on environmental and human condition are utilized to allocate points to individual groups and measures.

This arrangement aftermath in a finished average for every single locale scheme established both on actual encounters and the comparative significance of those encounters to human condition and environmental quality. In supplement, the LEED council appears to have allocated trust and compute weighting established on the marketplace implications of point allocation.

From 2010 constructions can use carbon offsets to accomplish Green Domination Credits for LEED-NC (New construction Certification).

Bonus credits

In supplement to the 100 points constituted by the five (5) main groups (Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Power and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality), an supplementary 6 bonus points can be obtained for credits in Change in Design and 4 bonus points are obtainable for improvements in LEED-selected groups ambitious to encounter Native Priorities.

LEED for Homes

Further presentation groups in the LEED for Homes locale arrangement are Locations and Linkages (recognizing the significance of transportation admission, open space, and physical attention outdoors) and Awareness and Education (recognizing the demand for constructions and areas to teach occupants).

LEED PROCESS

LEED certification is attained afterward presenting an request documenting compliance alongside the necessities of the locale arrangement, additionally paying registration and certification fees. In order to craft a building’s point awards in every single trust cluster, constructions requesting for certification are matched alongside a hypothetical baseline constructing described by a LEED methodology.

Certification is agreed merely by the Green Constructing Certification Institute (GBCI), that is in price for the third party verification of undertaking compliance alongside LEED requirements.

The request study and certification procedure is grasped in LEED Online, USGBC’s web-based instrument that uses a sequence of alert PDF forms to computerize filing documentation and contact amid undertaking teams and GBCI’s assessors

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BENEFITS OF LEED CERTIFICATION

LEED certified constructions are made so that resources are utilized extra effectually after contrasted to standard constructions simply. LEED certified constructions furnish healthier work and living settings, that adds to higher productivity and enhanced operative condition and comfort. The USGBC has amassed a long catalog of benefits of requesting LEED strategy, that scopes from enhancing air and water quality to cutting solid rubbish, benefiting proprietors, occupiers, and area as a whole.

As a constructing tenant you will:

1) Create a healthier, cleaner nature that in coil way extra gratified dwellers and employees.

2) Improve your standing as a firm that cares concerning the nature and our future.

3) Lower the working prices and relish tax benefits and incentives for green buildings.

4) Experience spontaneous and measurable aftermath by maintaining power, water and supplementary resources in the end cutting your carbon footprint.

As a constructing proprietor or operator you will:

1) Get the instruments you demand to have an instant and measurable encounter on your buildings’ performance.

2) Gain the benefits of third party verification. This stamp of approval can give you an frontier from the rest.

3) Earn a competitive supremacy – green constructions have outstanding appeal to a producing number of assorted buyers.

4) Attract savvy tenants looking to gain from all that green constructions offer.

5) Earn commercial gains from your investment in green constructing design.

CHAPTER 2: FACTORS THAT MEASURE LEED

Prerequisites and credits in the LEED 2009 for New Construction and Major Renovations address 7 topics:

1) Sustainable Sites

2) Water Efficiency

3) Energy Efficiency

4) Materials and Resources

5) Indoor Environmental Quality

6) Innovation & Design

7) Operations and maintenance optimization.

8) Waste reduction

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2.1. SUSTAINABLE SITES

The roots of any construction project are in the concept and design stages. The concept stage, in fact, is one of the most important steps in a project life cycle, as it has the maximum impact on cost and performance. In designing environmentally ideal buildings, the objective is to reduce the total environmental impact related with all life-cycle stages of the building project. However, building as a process is not as simplified as an industrial process, and varies from one building to another, never recurring itself identically. Also, buildings are much more complex products, composed of various materials and components each comprising various design variables to be decided at the design stage. A change in every design variable may affect the environment during all the building’s related life-cycle stages.

Some example of the possible points given for sustainable site in LEED.

Alternative Transportation

We can reduce pollution and other land development impact from automobile use by locating the project within ½ mile to a metro station, subway etc.

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Stormwater Design

We can reduce the disruption and pollution of natural water flows by managing stormwater runoff. Implement a storm water management plan.

Stormwater management at Yale Univeristy, Science Hill

Heat Island effect

Reduce heat islands (thermal gradient differences between developed and undeveloped areas) to reduce impact on microclimate and human and wildlife habitat.

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2.2. WATER EFFICIENCY

The main aim of conserving water is sustainability, energy conservation and habitat conservation. Reducing water intake and protecting water quality are key aims in sustainable building. One major issue of water consumption in many areas is that, the demands on the supplying aquifer surpass its ability to refill itself. To the maximum extent possible, facilities should rely on the water that is stored, consumed, purified, and reused on-site. Waste-water may be reduced by developing water conserving fixtures such as ultra-low flush toilets and low-flow shower heads. Bidets help eradicate the use of toilet paper, minimizing sewer traffic and increasing chances of re-using water on-site. Point of use water treatment and heating enhances both water quality and energy productivity while reducing the amount of water in circulation. To minimize the effect on wells or water treatment plants, quite a few choices are there. “Greywater”, wastewater from locations such as dishwashing or cleaning mechanisms, can be utilized for subsurface irrigation, or if indulged, for non-potable reasons, e.g., to flush toilets and clean cars. Rainwater collectors are utilized for comparable purposes.

Landscape irrigation counts for nearly one-third of all residential water use. That numbers to extra than seven billion gallons each day. Water efficiency is one of the main groups of the LEED® Rating System, and the number of WE credits obtainable depends on the kind of certification sought. The main WE cases to understand for LEEDâ„¢ certification are:

â- Water-efficient landscaping: reduce use by 50 percent, no potable use or no irrigation

â- Innovative wastewater technologies

â- Water-use reduction: by 20 or 30 percent

Water efficient landscaping

Reduce or eliminate the use of portable water for irrigation, try using only rainwater, recycled wastewater or greywater.

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Innovative Wastewater Technologies

Reduce use of portable water for building sewage conveyance through the use of water conserving fixtures eg: water closets, urinals

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2.3. ENERGY & ATMOSPHERE EFFICIENCY

Green buildings mostly include measures to minimize energy consumption – both the embodied energy needed to extract, process, transport and set up building materials and operating energy to offer services like heating and power for equipment.

As high-performance buildings require less operating energy, embodied energy has supposedly much greater importance – and may make up to 30% of the overall life cycle energy consumption. Research such as the U.S. LCI Database Project show buildings built mainly with wood will have a lower embodied energy than those built mainly with brick, concrete or steel.

To lower operating energy use, designers use details that minimize air leakage through the building envelope (the barrier separating conditioned and unconditioned space). They also indicate high-performance windows and surplus insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors. Another plan, passive solar building design, is often applied in low-energy homes. Designers lay windows and walls and place awnings, porches, and trees to shade windows and roofs during the summer while increasing solar gain in the winter. Also effective window placement can provide more natural light and reduce the need for electric lighting in the day time. Solar water heating further reduces energy costs.

Onsite production of renewable energy via solar power, wind power, hydro power, or biomass can ominously reduce the environmental impact of the building. Power generation is often the most expensive characteristic to add to a building.

Renewable Energy

Support and identify increasing levels of on- site renewable energy self- supply in order to reduce environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel energy use eg: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass etc

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Minimum Energy Performance

Create the proposed building with lowest level of energy efficiency, all buildings must exceed the minimum energy performance requirements of ASHRAE/IESNA standard 90.1-2004.

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Fundamental Refrigerant Management

Reduce ozone depletion and encourage early compliance with the Montreal Protocol(an global accord projected to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the creation of countless substances trusted to be accountable for ozone depletion) while reducing global warming.

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2.4. MATERIAL EFFICIENCY

Building materials generally believed to be ‘green’ consist of lumber from forests that have been approved to a third-party forest standard, quickly renewable plant materials such as bamboo and straw, dimension stone, recycled stone, recycled metal and other products that are non-contaminated, reusable, renewable, and recyclable (e.g. Linoleum, sheep wool, panels made from paper flakes, compressed earth block, adobe, baked earth, rammed earth, clay, flax linen, sisal, sea grass, expanded clay grains, coconut, wood fibre plates, calcium sand stone, concrete etc. ). The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also advices using recycled industrial stuff like coal combustion products, foundry sand, and demolition debris in construction projects. Building materials should be separated and manufactured locally to the building site to reduce the energy implanted in their transportation. Where likely, building elements should be manufactured off-site and delivered to site, to increase gains of off-site manufacture including reducing waste, increasing recycling (because manufacture is in one location), high quality elements, less noise and dust.

Storage & collection of Recyclables

Assist the minimization of waste generated by building inhabitants that is hauled to to and disposed of in landfills. Provide an area where the assortment of non- hazardous materials for recycling like paper, glass, plastic etc. takes place.

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Construction Waste Management

Sidetrack construction, demolition and land- clearing debris from disposal in landfills and incinerators. Redirect recyclable recouped resources back to the producing process. Redirect reusable materials to appropriate sites.

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2.5 INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY CREDIT

The Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) sort in LEED standards was made to deliver comfort, well-being, and productivity of inhabitants. The LEED IEQ group conversations concerning the design and assembly strategies especially: indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal quality, and lighting quality.

Indoor Air Quality hunts methods to minimize volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and supplementary air impurities such as microbial contaminants. Constructions depend on a properly projected ventilation arrangement (passively/naturally or mechanically powered) to give suitable ventilation of cleaner air from outdoors, filtered air as well as scarce procedures (kitchens, dry cleaners, etc.) from supplementary occupancies. Across the design and assembly procedure selecting assembly materials and inside finish stuffs alongside zero or low VOC emissions will enhance IAQ. Most constructing materials and cleaning or maintenance produce emit gases, a little of them contaminated, such as countless VOCs encompassing formaldehyde. These gases can have a harmful encounter on a person’s condition, comfort, and productivity. Evading these produce will rise a building’s IEQ. Green Star encompasses necessities on use of low-emitting interior. .

Also vital to indoor air quality is the manipulation of moisture accumulation (dampness) managing to mold development and the attendance of bacteria and viruses as well as dust mites and supplementary organisms and microbiological problems. Water intrusion across a building’s envelope or water condensing on chilly spans on the building’s inside can enhance and tolerate microbial growth. A well-insulated and tautly sealed envelope will minimize moisture setbacks but suitable ventilation is additionally vital to remove moisture from origins encompassing human metabolic procedures, cooking, soaking, cleaning, and supplementary activities.

Personal temperature and airflow manipulation above the HVAC arrangement attached alongside a properly projected constructing envelope will additionally assist in rising a building’s thermal quality. Crafting a elevated presentation luminous nature across the alert integration of daylight and mechanical light origins will advance on the lighting quality and power presentation of a structure.

Solid wood produce, generally flooring, are frequently tabulated in settings whereas occupants are recognized to have allergies to dust or supplementary particulates. Wood itself is believed to be hypo-allergenic and its flat factions stop the buildup of particles comparable in soft finishes like carpet. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America advices to use hardwood, vinyl, linoleum tile or slate flooring instead of carpet. The use of wood produce can additionally develop air quality by absorbing or remitting moisture in the air to reasonable humidity.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke Control

Reduce the contact of building inhabitants, indoor surfaces, and ventilation air distribution systems to Environment Tobacco Smoke (ETS). Smoking should be disallowed in the building.

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Construction IAQ Management Plan

Minimize indoor air quality setbacks emerging from the construction procedure in order to aid uphold the comfort and well- being of construction operatives and building inhabitants.

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Low- Emitting Materials

Minimize the amount of indoor air contaminants that are odorous, irritating and harmful to the comfort and well- being of installers and inhabitants. Paints with minimal VOC( Volatile Organic Compounds) should be preferred.

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Controllability of Systems

Provide a elevated level of lighting arrangement manipulation by individual occupants or by specific clusters in multi- occupant spaces like classrooms, session spans to advance the productivity, comfort and well- being of constructing inhabitants.

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2.6 INNOVATION & DESIGN PROCESS

This credit acknowledges special designs and projects with extra points for the exceptional performance of the constraint set by the LEED for New Construction Green Building Rating System or innovative presentation in Green Constructing groups not specifically addressed by the LEED for New Construction for Green Building Rating System.

Design Process ID credit

Substantially exceed a LEED for New construction performance credit such as energy performance or water efficiency. Apply strategies that demonstrate a comprehensive approach and quantifiable environment or health benefits.

Substantially exceed a LEED for New construction presentation trust such as power presentation or water efficiency. Apply strategies that determine a comprehensive way and quantifiable nature.

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2.7 OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OPTIMIZATION

How much ever sustainable a building may have been in term of its design and construction, it can only be so if it is managed operated and maintained nicely. Making sure that operations and maintenance (O&M) staffs are part of the project’s planning and development process will assist maintain the green principles designed at the start of the project. All feature of green building is combined into the O&M stage of a building’s life. The addition of new green technologies also falls on the O&M staff. Even though the goal of waste reduction may be put on during the course of design, construction and demolition stages of a building’s life-cycle, it is in the O&M stage that green practices such as recycling and air quality enhancement take place.

2.8 WASTE REDUCTION

Green architecture tries to minimize waste of energy, water and materials used at the time of construction. During the construction stage, one goal should be to minimize the amount of material leaving to landfills. Well-designed buildings also help minimize the amount of waste produced by the people as well; by giving them on-site solutions such as compost bins to minimize matter going to landfills.

When buildings reach the end of their valuable life, they are naturally demolished and towed to landfills. Deconstruction is a process of harvesting what is normally considered “waste” and retrieving it into useful building material. Lengthening the valuable life of a structure also minimizes waste.

Centralized wastewater treatment systems can be expensive and use a lot of energy. A substitute to this procedure is converting waste and wastewater into fertilizer, which get rid of these costs and shows other aids. By gathering human waste at the source and putting it to a semi-centralized biogas plant with other biological waste, liquid fertilizer can be formed. Practices like these deliver soil with organic nutrients and create carbon sinks that eliminate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offsetting greenhouse gas emission.

CHAPTER 3: LEED IN DUBAI

Green constructions are exceedingly inspired in Dubai. A new resolution on the implementation of green constructing specification and standards in the emirate of Dubai has been delivered by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice -President and Prime Priest of UAE and Ruler of Dubai. As each the new resolution, competent from 2008, all proprietors of residential and business constructions and properties in the emirate of Dubai have to comply alongside the globally understood environment- approachable specifications to coil Dubai into a healthy metropolis that meets the demands of best habits and the benchmarks of pollution- free sustainable development. The said resolution will boost Dubai’s constant efforts to advance globe endeavors to face environmental trials, by requesting this resolution Dubai becomes the early metropolis in the Middle East to accept green constructing specification.

MECSD( Middle East Center for Sustainable Development ) a consulting firm for sustainable development, a company that helps you provide LEED certification. The mission of MECSD is to promote innovations, enabling sustainable development in the Middle East and globally. MECSD has almost 30 LEED certified projects under them, out of which 3 are LEED platinum certified

Mr Loveleen Raval an energy engineer who works for MECSD enlightened me more about how LEED certification works in Dubai. Projects in Dubai follow the LEED NCv2.2. version.

LEED CERTIFIED BUILDINGS IN DUBAI

Pacific Controls Headquarters

LEED rating: Platinum

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Metito Headquarters

LEED rating: Gold

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Abn Amro Bank Interior Works Project

LEED rating: Gold

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Dubai Academic City- Phase 3

LEED rating: Silver

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CONCLUSION

The report is a compilation of the explanation of the topic of LEED.

The main aim of LEED is to attain sustainable environment.

All the factors measuring LEED are important for the improvement of the society.