June 1, 2009

6. Hire a LEED/Sustainability Consultant

by Environmental Building Strategies in LEED Tags: Consulting, Green Building, LEED, USGBC 408 Comments

Lighting (especially Daylighting), energy modeling, LEED Documentation, and sustainability experts are just a few crucial aspects of a successful LEED project. Hiring a firm that can provide expertise in a package is often your best bet. They will understand how energy modeling affects LEED EA credits and even better they will be able to advise on the several synergies that exist within LEED.

For instance, Increasing Fenestration with the appropriate glass can increase thermal resistance, allow for Daylighting, allow thermal comfort for occupants, reduce electrical lighting requirements, reduce HVAC demand, and increase credit for EA all the while reducing operating costs for the building which in turn will affect the Net Operating Income (NOI) of the property.

Be careful when choosing a LEED Consultant – there are so many out there these days however many of them aren’t sustainability experts and few offer the full breadth of services. Being able to Document a LEED project isn’t enough – often a good question to ask is something like, “How will the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of my West Facing Fenestration affect my tenants and which Tvis value would you recommend as a result?” If they can’t answer a more challenging question like that one then they shouldn’t be hired.

Also, with the launch of LEED 2009, your consultant should be able to communicate the affects of the transition from older LEED Versions to the new 100 Point scale under LEED 2009 and how urban projects are more greatly impacted.

–The EBS Team–