Building to LEED-Silver May Not Survive First Encounter
Translating the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification into a standard for all international construction—which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has pledged to do—may be impossible.
Creating high-performance facilities is not the issue, but holding to a LEED rating is problematic. “LEED is a very U.S.-based standard, and trying to take that and apply it overseas is difficult. But the Army mandate is ‘do it,’” says Jeanette Fiess, who represented the Corps’ LEED Sustainability Directorate of Expertise at a November “LEED Awareness” workshop for Corps staffers in Oberammergau, Germany. The directorate, a virtual entity with experts in many Corps districts, is trying to figure out how to comply.