A recent survey conducted by California law firm Allen Matkins showed strong, broad support for green building in general, but also indicated less enthusiastic support for the USGBC’s LEED certification program as the primary benchmark of the movement.  Specifically, the survey found that respondents’ willingness to obtain LEED certification had slipped from 76% in the previous year’s survey, to 66% in this year’s results.  What gives?

The survey included responses from 900 design professionals, contractors, subcontractors, construction planners, building owners and others in the industry.  According to Bryan Jackson, one of the survey’s authors, the primary reasons for the decline in willingness to obtain LEED certification have to do with competition from other certification agencies, newly enacted green building regulations and concerns over carbon footprints.  While some of these new or emerging regulations require LEED certification, the majority do not favor a specific rating system.

It’s worth pointing out that although greenhouse gases and carbon impacts – likely to be highly regulated in the future, sooner rather than later – are issues that LEED has only indirectly addressed.  At least until recently.  New LEED requirements being introduced this year include a “carbon overlay” that tries to account for greenhouse gas emissions And another notable change coming down the pipe from LEED in 2009 is the ability to weight regional differences, which impact SS credits in particular.  For example, a school, hospital or other institution being constructed in a rural or less-dense suburban area may be challenged to gain SS credits and thus put at an immediate disadvantage to an infill location.

Notably, the survey also highlighted the lack of consensus in the development and construction community regarding the risks and costs involved with building green.  Survey respondents “felt that construction risks increased for green projects compared with traditional projects” and the authors (Allen Matkin evidently specializes in construction law) are focused on addressing green building and sustainability implications in construction contracts, leases, design agreements other legal documents.  Says the survey author Jackson, “When people draft contracts without addressing these issues, you have fights about who is responsible.  We want everyone involved to be as educated as possible so that we can write contracts in a way that will avoid litigation down the road.”  Clearly a good practice to follow.

The survey also heralds the growing use of Building Information Modeling (BIM), which employs computer-aided design to produce three-dimensional models of projects for incorporating green design elements from the very start of and throughout a project.  Although many of those surveyed estimate that green construction adds between 1% and 4% to the cost of a project, those who use BIM “say that if you design for green and sustainable elements from the very beginning, you will be able to come out with a project in that could certify to Green, LEED, Gold or Silver without spending any more than conventional construction, which is pretty amazing” according to survey results.

At our firm, we have seen this to be the case as well.  Integrated design-build efforts, aided by thorough understanding of high-performance and sustainable construction principles – and further streamlined through BIM technologies – usually mean that our clients can “go green” and achieve LEED certification at little or no cost.  In fact, the combination of time savings, tax credits, higher operating margins and project differentiation often mean that a LEED project is in fact more lucrative than a traditional project.