PNNL-15858 Sustainable Building Rating Systems Summary K.M. Fowler E.M. Rauch July 2006 Completed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle. Completed for the General Services Administration under Contract DE-AC05-76RL061830.iDISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, not Battelle Memorial Institute, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or Battelle Memorial Institute. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY operated by BATTELLE for the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY under Contract DE-AEC05-76RL01830iiExecutive Summary The market place of the design and construction of high performance buildings is dynamic and evolving. Professionals through out the building industry use assessment rating systems to evaluate and differentiate their product or design. GSA is a significant participant in the building industry and it is critical for GSA to evaluate the performance of projects. Since 2003, all GSA projects are to use and achieve a certified rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Enviromental and Energy Design (LEED®) green building rating system. In order to keep pace with the evolving and developing rating systems available, Section 609 of the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006 (PL109-115, signed November 30, 2005), states: “… the Administrator shall report to the relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction on the progress and next steps toward recognition of other credible sustainable building rating systems within the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) sustainable building procurement process.” This summary document was prepared to offer information on sustainable building rating systems for GSA’s consideration in their response to this request. This document does not provide a recommendation for GSA but rather a summary of the information found for each sustainable building rating system. GSA buildings are typically built for a 100 year life following stringent guidelines to enhance the asset value. GSA’s Design Excellence program compels design teams to create the highest quality buildings. It is commonly recognized that a whole building, integrated design approach upholds a sustainable or green building design, which in turn provides the optimal performance for the desired design goals. Sustainable design tools used for GSA projects must set parameters to improve quality, decrease the life cycle environmental impact, and optimize life cycle costs of the buildings. The tools must support long-term performance for an innovative and flexible future. GSA must evaluate its buildings consistently using one system in order that the projects can be compared equally with other GSA buildings, other Federal buildings, and the U.S. building market. Using one sustainable building rating system allows for comparisons and benchmarking of existing buildings as well as a mechanism to track GSA’s progress toward designing and operating the best buildings for their occupants. The information compiled in this document was collected from January 15 – May 1, 2006 through literature reviews and internet available information. Information was also provided directly from the rating system owners. Sustainable building rating systems evolve, therefore a time frame was used to create absolute boundaries. The rating systems change frequently to adjust to the market which makes capturing the current state behind the scenes a challenge. Although publicly available information and rating system provided information do not tell “the whole story”, this is documentable information for the rating system selection process. Additionally, there are green building experts that can offer anecdotal information on their experience with these rating systems. This type of information was not solicited or included due to the challenge of ensuring a balanced and currently accurate review.iiiThis summary is organized in sections which sequentially collect, narrow and filter the building rating system information to those which would be fitting for GSA’s business objectives. Section I positions the purpose of the document. Section II lists the numerous systems that were found during the search for whole building analysis tools. This search identified many tools that were not applicable to the review but known in the buildings’ industry. Appendix B lists these tools for reference. Additionally, in Section II, the list of building rating systems is shortened by combining rating systems with multiple country applications or systems that were tailored from other applications. Next, Section III outlines the screening criteria used to narrow down the review to rating systems that would be potentially usable to GSA. Section IV further narrows the summary by defining the GSA drivers for sustainable design and rating systems which were used to develop review criteria. Section V specifically defines the review criteria to filter each rating system’s features. Section VI provides summary descriptions of each rating system which advanced through the screening analysis. Subsequently, Section VII presents the quantifiable and comparable information for the five selected sustainable building rating systems. Finally, the document summary in Section VIII provides a brief highlight of the information found for each of the selected rating systems but, as noted above, does not offer recommendations. The review criteria of were defined to address GSA drivers for sustainable
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