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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-do-1/">http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-do-1/</a><br>
<h1><a
href="http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-do-1/">Lawsuit
Claims Major "Green" Building Certification Makes False Claims
on Energy Savings</a></h1>
<div class="byline"> By <span class="upper black"><a
href="http://www.baycitizen.org/profiles/jim-gunshinan/">Jim
Gunshinan</a></span><span class="sep">|</span><span
class="red">December 17, 2010 12:31 p.m.</span> </div>
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<div class="media innerImage"> <a class="fancy_image"
href="http://media.baycitizen.org/uploaded/images/2010/12/through-prediction-performance-how-do-we/lightbox/Henry5.jpg"
title=""> <img src="cid:part1.02040003.06060306@aim.com"
alt="" width="197" height="222"> </a> </div>
<p>Henry Gifford, a mechanical systems designer and principal at <a
href="http://www.energysavingscience.com">Gifford Fuel
Savings, Inc.</a> in New York City, is suing the <a
href="http://www.usgbc.org">U.S. Green Building Council
(USGBC)</a> for millions of dollars. Gifford, in the class
action suit, claims that the USGBC has committed fraud in the
selling of its Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED)
program, and has unfairly kept work away from people like him
who are not involved in the program. (Photo of Henry by Travis
Roozee.)</p>
<p>There is a LEED for New Construction (NC), LEED for Homes, and
LEED for Existing Buildings (EB), among other certifications.
The rub for Gifford is that LEED is a very popular and
widespread program—some municipalities require LEED
certification for new city buildings—that makes claims about
energy efficiency that it can’t back up. The claims of energy
saving attract builders and developers to seek LEED
certification, and people in architecture firms, building energy
consultants, and others in the building industry have rushed to
become LEED approved providers; that means they are able to help
builders meet the building requirements and fill out the
paperwork needed to apply for certification. Buildings with LEED
certification draw higher rents and people with “LEED AP” after
their names make money shepherding builders through the
certification process.</p>
<p>The issue hinges on a study commissioned by the USGBC in 2008.
The New Buildings Institute (NBI) study compared buildings that
are LEED certified with similar buildings that are not
certified. NBI claims that LEED buildings use about 25-30% less
energy than conventional buildings. But according to Gifford,
who examined the data from the study, LEED buildings actually
use about 29% more energy than conventional buildings. Gifford
has legitimate concerns about how NBI gathered, sorted, and
analyzed the study data. For example, the data on LEED buildings
was submitted by a small percentage of LEED building owners;
those who take the trouble to keep records and who want to share
information on how their building performs. In another example,
the mean energy use of one set of buildings is compared to the
median energy use of another set, possibly skewing the results
in favor of the LEED buildings.</p>
<p>The USGBC counters that they do not guarantee energy savings.
They model energy use using a software program and only certify
that a buildings meets its design specification—sustainable
wood, recycled steel, interior building material that doesn’t
off-gas noxious chemicals, and so on—with predicted energy
efficiency only a part of the requirements for certification.</p>
<p>Gifford has been a thorn in the side of the USGBC for years.
His criticism, along with that of others, has pushed the USGBC
in the right direction. The LEED EB program requires that
buildings actually perform; that they save as much energy as is
predicted through the modeling software. USGBC is encouraging
LEED NC building owners to take part in the LEED EH program;
they are also asking LEED NC building owners to submit
energy-use data that can be used to a study the effectiveness of
the program. But this is not required for LEED NC certification.</p>
<p>Gifford is afraid that in the future someone will do a thorough
study of green building performance energy will be so important
that we will start to measure it,” writes Gifford in a recent
Press Release. “And I predict that when that happens, building
energy efficiency will start to be measured by building energy
use. At that time, the currently popular systems based on
computer predictions of energy use will be shown to be useless,
and abandoned.”</p>
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