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LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a Green Building rating system for the construction of environmentally sustainable buildings. This was developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). The inception of LEED happened in the year 1998 and has till date encompassed more than 14000 construction projects across the United States of America and has also been introduced in more than 30 countries across the globe. The rating system of LEED has been accredited both at a national and international level as the design standard for environmentally sustainable buildings- green buildings. The organization that is responsible for the constant monitoring of this particular system is the USGBC which constantly updates information about LEED, provides necessary training, and provides LEED certification to professionals as well as buildings (General Administration - State of Washington, 2008).
“LEED is flexible enough to apply to all building types – commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle – design and construction, operations and maintenance, tenant fit out, and significant retrofit. And LEED for Neighborhood Development extends the benefits of LEED beyond the building footprint into the neighborhood it serves.”
Sustainability as defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development is one that meets the present day needs without conciliating the capability of future generations in meeting their individual needs. Today, the word sustainability has taken a lead role in every task of the corporate world. It had indeed become a buzz world in today’s business environment. In order to be termed as sustainable, products or byproducts are to be recycled to produce reusable material instead of disposing them. Reduce; Reuse and Recycle are the watchwords of the day.
Development programs are aimed at the development of the people on the economic, social, cultural and educational fronts. These programs are undertaken by the government as well as non-government agencies. The implementation of development programs requires mutual interdependence of the political, economic, technical aspects.
However, an interesting point that is to be recollected is that though sustainability is today’s buzz word, it has been in existence since the times when there was limited availability of energy and transportation was extremely costly. During such times, construction projects used to look for cost-effective measures like the usage of regional raw materials instead of procuring them from distant places in order to save money as transportation was too expensive and much of a hassle. Rain water was retained in the sites for various purposes like consumption, sewage etc. There used to be natural ventilation in buildings and there were also considerable amount of air changes that resulted in extremely high air quality indoors (Sahni, 2009).
Process Planning and Design can be explained as the total allocation and account of the various stages involved in the complete implementation phase of a particular project and the connections existing between these various stages that in turn empower the system to work resourcefully.
According to the USGBC, the important and most significant considerations for the sustainability of a project are the selection and continuous and efficient management of the building site all through the construction process. However, the category of sustainable sites does not encourage previously used and dismantled sites, reduces the impact of a building on the ecosystem and the waterways, encourages and supports regionally apt landscaping, motivates and encourages smart and economical choices of transportation, and takes necessary measures to prevent soil erosion, pollution related to construction etc. (USGBC, 2008).
Water efficiency in one of the categories of the credit ration under LEED. This category of credit rating encourages smart and optimal usage of water and the usage of highly efficient machinery and equipment that support minimal water usage are encouraged.
As the time passed and improved technology and resources resultant in adequate amount of energy, sustainability took the backseat and became less important. However, the changes in many of the world economies that took place recently have necessitated the need for sustainability once again and thus LEED became prominent.
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has recently publicized the details of the latest certification program of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Version 3 popularly known as LEEDv3 or LEED 2009 (Chee, 2009). The USGBC launched the new
LEEDv3 on the 27th of April 2009 and had made significant changes to the already existing LEED criteria. The USGBC has set a final date for the usage of the current LED criteria until the 29th of June 2009 and has made it clear that all the projects that are to be undertaken post this date need to adhere to the new guidelines according to LEEDv3.
The changes incorporated into LEED v3 will have an impact up on the resolves of designers, proprietors as well as the design specialists who take up the LEED certification program for their real estate ventures. “Clients may have to decide quickly which LEED version they will choose for projects currently under development or planned for development, and therefore should understand the changes integrated into LEED v3 and the impacts they may have on LEED certification of current and planned projects.”
For obtaining a LEED certification, it is required that the real estate projects or the construction ventures stick to specific Minimum Program Requirements (MRPs) of LEED as laid down by the USGBC.
The MRPs describe the various types of buildings that the LEED Green Building Rating Systems were designed to assess, and are taken up in order to serve three goals as listed below:
- “to give clear guidance to customers,
The requirements in MRP document of the USGBC will supposedly apply to all and only the projects that are being certified under the LEED 2009. “Projects that upgrade to LEED 2009 from earlier versions of LEED are subject to the MPRs. It is expected that MPRs will evolve over time with the LEED rating system, however only those MPRs in place at the time that a LEED project registers or upgrades will apply to that project (USGBC, 2008).”
All the project that are being constructed under the LEED guidelines are to be necessarily taken up or constructed on an already existing piece of land and a permanent location. This guideline is included in the MRPs of LEED.
The main objective of LEED is to evaluate every single project undertaken is to achieve a considerable level of sustainability. Potential of each and every facility is to be understood and evaluated well by the facility executives.
The changes that have been incorporated in the new LEEDv3 include the following:
Credit harmonization, Revised system of rating, Credit weighting, Regionalization, Updating of online tools, Revised and novel certification model.
The ‘extra credit’ category of LEEDv3 gives an opportunity of gaining extra credits for exceptional performance and implementation of innovative strategies to facility executives. In addition to this, the new version of LEED also includes a clause of ‘regional priority’ which gives scope to facility managers to tailor the LEED program that they undertake according to the area or location of the facility.
Quality is also one aspect that is considered and monitored under the LEED. The cost of quality can be divided into three major categories, namely cost of prevention, cost of detection/appraisal and the cost of failure. Prevention costs are those costs that are incurred in preventing defects in the construction. This category includes the investments made in machinery, technology and training programs, data collection and analysis, and vendor certification. Investments in this category bring high returns including benefits gained from increased customer satisfaction and reduced scrap losses and rework expenses.
Detection or appraisal costs are those costs that are associated with evaluating the quality and performance of the construction projects and the machines used therein. These costs include inward materials inspection, test and inspection throughout the transformation process, equipment maintenance etc. The cost of failure can be attributed to the non-compliance and non-performance of the project. These costs can be categorized as internal and external failure costs. Internal failure costs refer to the costs incurred when defects are found and these include scrap, repair, retesting, downtime, losses due to process variability and disposition of defective items. These costs can be eliminated if defects are minimized or eliminated within the system.
Acceptance plans are also equally important. They are used to verify the quality of raw materials, purchased parts and various components used for the project. Acceptance plans are used to verify both incoming raw materials and outgoing materials also.
The physical disposition of the facilities of a project and its various parts for the purpose of achieving quickest and smoothest production and this is referred to as the layout of the plant.
In addition to the initial layout of the machines and various other infrastructure related facilities, the aspect of plant layout encompasses modifications or alterations in the existing layout along with any kind of additional development in the process of production. Put in other words, a pant layout is a floor plan for determining and arranging the machinery and equipment so as to enable rapid material flow at an extremely low-cost and also the bare minimal handling process from the stage of receiving the raw material to the point of shipping the final product or the finished goods.
Facility decisions are taken after checking the suitability of a location. The suitability of a location is dependent on various factors like demand for the products or services, the markets for which the product is being developed for, the guidelines and regulations of the country, the infrastructure like roads, electricity, communication facilities etc., and the availability of required manpower. Developing new technology involves considerable inputs in the form of labor, time and money.
References
Chee, L. (2009, March 26). U.S. Green Building Council Releases Details on New LEED Version. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.dwtrealestatelawnw.com/2009/03/articles/real-estate-law/sustainability/us-green-building-council-releases-details-on-new-leed-version/
General Administration - State of Washington. (2008, April 15). Leadership in Energy and Environemntal Design. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.ga.wa.gov/Eas/green/LEED.html
Sahni, R. (2009, September). LEED v3: How it has Changed. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.facilitiesnet.com/green/article/LEED-v3-How-it-has-Changed--11137
USGBC. (2008). LEED - Introduction. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988
USGBC. (2008). LEED 2009 Minimum Requirement Programs. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2014
