Mike Opitz PE, LEED AP
Certification Manager, LEED for Existing Buildings
U.S. Green Building Council
You’ve read the first LEED for Existing Buildings FAQ in this series; you understand what greening your building and high performance operations can do for you, and you want to explore LEED for Existing Buildings certification in more detail. What happens now?
This month we present the second in our LEED for Existing Buildings FAQ series, where we explain how to get started with your project and to see the process through to certification application. We’ll take you from the very beginning through the certification submittal of the LEED for Existing Buildings documentation.
What do I do first?
Become familiar enough with the LEED for Existing Buildings rating system so you can summarize what it’s about, and have an exploratory meeting with the key decision makers in your facility. At the very least this should include the owner, facility manager, O&M department heads (HVAC shop, grounds, purchasing, etc.), any applicable O&M contractor representatives, and any relevant upper management not already covered. Ideally this meeting also includes an experienced green building or LEED advocate and relevant product vendors.
Get folks on board with exploring LEED for Existing Buildings by making the business case: greening the building will make it a more high performing building, helping the bottom line because many green strategies have attractive payback times. Cite examples from case studies of certified projects. Walk through each credit briefly as a team to get a feel for what’s involved in earning it. Stress the following general concepts to help educate people and get them comfortable with the goal of greening your building:
- Most LEED for Existing Buildings requirements are simply best green O&M practices that market leaders and innovators are already doing; LEED for Existing Buildings simply encourages combining many of these best practices under one roof.
- Generally LEED for Existing Buildings itself does not require any major renovations or building upgrades, but rather operational changes such as equipment performance testing or analysis, measurements of resource use, policy changes, and records of performance over time. However, older facilities may need some mechanical system upgrades to comply with minimum requirements (generally because they don’t comply with certain modern codes).
- Earning a LEED for Existing Buildings certification will help ensure you’ve captured all your sustainable and high-performance building potential, and will provide a specific, market-recognized accomplishment that your facility team can be proud of.
My facilities team is excited about LEED for Existing Buildings. Now what?
Audit your building to determine how likely it is that certification is possible, the effort needed to meet the technical requirements, whether any capital retrofits are necessary, and if so, what their approximate payback time and total initial investment is. Assign each prerequisite and credit to the proper department and ask them to assess whether they’re already meeting the requirements. You may be pleasantly surprised by how many of the green practices you’re already implementing!
Pay special attention to the prerequisites during this process, as they are required elements: you must comply with them in order to achieve LEED certification. Some of the LEED for Existing Buildings prerequisites are especially worthy of a careful look:
- Water prerequisite 1 – most of the water fixtures in the building need to consume no more water per use than fixtures that comply with the Energy Policy Act of 1992, otherwise retrofits will be required.
- Energy prerequisite 2 – the building needs to use energy more efficiently than the average building of a similar type, such that it scores at least a 60 in the online Energy Star rating tool. If it doesn’t, then operating changes will be required, e.g., turning equipment off when not in use, repairing the HVAC system, etc. In extreme cases some system upgrades may be needed.
- Indoor Environmental Quality prerequisite 1 – each air-handler in the building must supply at least as much ventilation air as that required by ASHRAE 62.1-2004 according to the space type, the square footage served, and the design occupancy. This must be shown by measurements under design-case operating conditions. Any air-handler that falls short must be repaired and retested (an exemption is allowed if the system was not originally designed to provide the ventilation air flow required by ASHRAE 62, and if the project team demonstrates this to USGBC).
Deciding to pursue LEED for Existing Buildings certification
With your audit done you now know whether you can meet all the prerequisites, and you have some idea of whether you can earn at least the 32 points needed for a LEED for Existing Buildings certification. Do you have a rough sense of which green practices your team is already doing? For all the rest, is your team willing to make any required changes in their operational routines? Are they willing to track and document their green practices over time? Can your team make the needed changes at a reasonable cost in staff time, consultant time (if applicable), and, potentially, system upgrades? If the answer to all this is yes then you’re off and running!
We’re going for it. Now what?
Now it’s time to get serious about evaluating the LEED for Existing Buildings requirements in more detail to figure out the most sensible path for your facility to achieve certification. First make another pass through all the LEED for Existing Buildings credits as a team, revising initial priorities and estimates of effort needed with lessons learned from your building assessment. Come out of this meeting with firmer decisions and commitments after addressing the following questions:
- What is your target certification level: certified, silver, gold, or platinum? Are you pursuing a few extra points so you’ll have a safety margin?
- Does your team wish to pursue any innovation credits?
- Which equipment upgrades are needed to comply with LEED for Existing Buildings, if any? Do any other upgrades have an attractive payback even though they’re not needed for certification? Can any needed equipment upgrades be done at the same time as other planned construction activity?
- Who is in charge of writing up any new green policies needed?
- Exactly which operational changes are needed in the building? Is this a good time to roll in other changes too, even though not technically required by LEED for Existing Buildings? Who should be in charge of implementing each change?
- How much time and money is needed to make the changes, and what level of approval from management will be required for each?
- How should all changes be sequenced so that all can be in place for at least a 3 month Performance Period (reporting period), the minimum time required for an initial LEED for Existing Buildings certification? What are your target Performance Period start and end dates?
- Does your building have any unusual situations that make it unclear how to apply any LEED for Existing Buildings requirements?
- Does the team already have the LEED for Existing Buildings technical and procedural knowledge needed to get through the process efficiently? If not, do you want to acquire it internally or hire a consultant?
Tap into USGBC resources as needed
Every project team should take full advantage of the resources USGBC makes available. The first step is to register your project, which costs only a few hundred dollars. This immediately gives your team access to the following resources:
- The LEED Online system for managing and preparing your LEED for Existing Buildings certification application
- LEED for Existing Buildings credit templates, in LEED Online, that define which supporting documentation is needed and streamline your compliance calculations
- Credit interpretation rulings (CIRs) for all versions of LEED
This is also a good time to purchase the LEED for Existing Buildings Reference Guide, which includes several hundred pages of further detail on how to apply the LEED for Existing Buildings credits in a real building, along with helpful resources for further information. This is considered a must-have resource for every LEED for Existing Buildings project. USGBC also offers workshops targeted at LEED for Existing Buildings, where participants attend a full-day training session led by a LEED for Existing Buildings expert. Workshop attendees are offered discounts on the purchase of Reference Guides as well as access to CIRs.
Also remember that if you’re uncertain about the exact requirements of a credit, either in general or in your facility’s situation, and if CIRs and the Reference Guide provide no further clarity, you can always contact USGBC directly for customer service at leedinfo@usgbc.org or 202-828-7422. If you’d like to participate in an ongoing general LEED for Existing Buildings customer service group discussion, consider joining the LEED for Existing Buildings Participants conference call that occurs on the second Monday of each month (all registered project contacts are invited to attend).
Implement and track your operational changes and performance
With a solid path to LEED for Existing Buildings certification defined and buy-in from your upper management and entire project team, all that remains is executing your plan and tracking your sustainable performance during at least a 3-month period.
Schedule and implement any equipment upgrades as soon as possible in order to leave ample time for final testing, adjusting, and fine-tuning. Draft your new (or revised) sustainable operations policies, seek comment from all interested parties, and get them approved by management. Keep any relevant contractors or suppliers in the loop, writing green specs into RFPs as necessary. Remember that a key goal of LEED for Existing Buildings requirements is to institutionalize an efficient, effective process of reporting, inspections, and review so that it becomes a standard business practice in the market. Since you’ve already committed to making sustainable operational changes in your facility, be sure to invest the necessary time up front to set up your organizational processes so that following them over time will be as easy as possible.
Initial certifications in LEED for Existing Buildings require that operational performance be tracked and reported for at least a 3-month Performance Period. Track your actual performance as described in each LEED for Existing Buildings credit you are pursuing.
Prepare your certification application
Check our Web page describing the certification process to make sure you fully understand everything needed in the application. Be proactive by paying attention to the details: the best way to a swift, easy certification review is to use the LEED for Existing Buildings credit templates as your guide for deciding what to include with your submittals. Make sure you understand what is requested, and provide exactly what the templates ask for. Pay special attention for any Innovation credits you are pursuing, and ensure you provide full support documentation as specified in the LEED for Existing Buildings Reference Guide.
Conclusion
This article has provided a general approach for exploring LEED for Existing Buildings certification for your facility and for managing the process of preparing your building for certification. Attention to detail is a must, and taking a whole-building view throughout the process will help you find synergistic effects among your various greening strategies, providing the most benefits to your facility for the least effort. Most buildings will find the process straightforward, but if your facility is unusual in some way just use common sense and good technical judgment, and if you get stumped contact USGBC for specific guidance on how to apply LEED to your situation.
Good luck!
