Defining Green
I had the opportunity to review your article, “Green Building Movement Gains Even More Momentum”. Thanks for taking the time to learn more about the Green Building Initiative and our efforts to accelerate the adoption of green building principles and practices. I would like to address one rather significant misperception.
Our efforts to establish Green Globes as an American National Standard through the American National Standards Institute and those of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and the U.S. Green Building Council to establish a minimum standard under ANSI are fundamentally different.
The Green Building Initiative—a recognized ANSI standards developer—is taking the Green Globes environmental design and assessment tool through the ANSI process. This means essentially handing over our rating system to a technical committee comprised of some of the leading thinkers in the field who will have autonomous control over development of the standard. As per ANSI rules, we will release the revised standard for public comment and resolve any issues that arise from those comments before submitting it for final approval. When this process is complete, we anticipate that the Green Globes rating system will be the first and only American National Standard for commercial green building.
The USGBC/ASHRAE/IESNA process will not subject the LEED rating system to a consensus process. Rather, their effort is to create a set of minimum criteria for commercial green building. Under this process, LEED itself will not go through an ANSI process, as USGBC is not an ANSI accredited standards developer. Nor will it be open for public debate through ANSI and therefore will not become an American National Standard.