LEED, Efficiency Standards, and Risk Fa 08
Overview
What are green buildings?
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Standard
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is one of the primary certification and ratings systems for sustainable buildings. It was developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide guidelines and ratings system for evaluating "Green" buildings.
Background Information
Green building is focuses on improving the efficiency with which buildings use resources such as energy, water, and virgin materials. This building practice also reduces impacts on human health and the environment during the building's life cycle. The buildings are designed to reduce waste as well as pollution and environmental degradation. Ideally the buildings protect the occupant's health, improve occupant's prodcutivity, and efficiently use resources. It achieves these goals through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal.
Effective green building can lead to 1) reduced operating costs by increasing productivity and using less energy and water, 2) improved public and occupant health due to improved indoor air quality, and 3) reduced environmental impacts by, for example, lessening storm water runoff and the heat island effect. Practitioners of green building often seek to achieve not only ecological but aesthetic harmony between a structure and its surrounding natural and built environment, although the appearance and style of sustainable buildings is not necessarily distinguishable from their less sustainable counterparts.
