Pay Attention to Proposed Version of LEED EB:O&M

Those of you interested in pursuing the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance certification should pay attention to the draft that is currently open for public comment. And, you better hurry if you would like to make some comments; the comment period ends on January 14. I received a call from the director of sustainability for a hotel company recently and he expressed concern about one part of the proposed new version of LEED EB:O&M. The section he is concerned about pertains to one of the options hoteliers would choose for earning credit for energy efficiency. Option No. 3 is the option in question.

As Option 3 currently stands, a hotel would have to demonstrate an energy efficiency improvement of at least 20 percent, normalized for climate and building use, by comparing the building's site energy data for the previous 12 months with the data from three contiguous years of the previous five. Buildings without four consecutive years of site energy data would be ineligible. What the person who called me is concerned about is the efficiency improvement of at least 20 percent. He believes, and I agree, that the bar has been set too high, especially for larger hotels. What do you think? Is a 20 percent energy efficiency improvement really doable for all hotels that would be eligible for LEED EB:O&M?

Those pursuing LEED EB:O&M would also have the option of earning an Energy Star rating of at least 69, but that is not exactly easy either (see my recent column). Or, they could demonstrate energy efficiency at least 19 percent better than the average for typical buildings of similar type by benchmarking against national average source energy data provided in the Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool.

The bottom line is that it is not going to be easy, when the new version of LEED EB:O&M is in place, for hotels to earn that LEED designation. Now is your chance to add your opinion. Click here to access the LEED Public Comment page and the click on the "Expand" button adjacent to the EB:O&M Draft title.