How is our built environments?

The buildings sector accounts for about 76% of electricity use and 40% of all U. S. primary energy use and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making it essential to reduce energy consumption in buildings in order to meet national energy and environmental challenges. In addition to the energy consumption, the indoor environment quality is highly related to human health condition, given the fact that we spent arounf 90% of our time indoor.

What is green building compared to non-green building?

What is the benefit of green building?

What is green building rating systems?

The Development of
Green Buildings

|Timeline of US Rating System|

• 1990
• 1992
• 1993
• 1995
• 1998
• 1999
• 2000
• 2006
• 2008
• 2014

• 1990

  BREEAM is launched in the United Kindom, Europe, which is the 1st in the world. It is the world’s leading sustainability assessment method for masterplanning projects, infrastructure and buildings. It recognises and reflects the value in higher performing assets across the built environment lifecycle, from new construction to in-use and refurbishment. BREEAM does this through third party certification of the assessment of an asset’s environmental, social and economic sustainability performance, using standards developed by BRE. This means BREEAM rated developments are more sustainable environments that enhance the well-being of the people who live and work in them, help protect natural resources and make for more attractive property investments.

  However, at this the United State do not have any rating system that could be used for green building designs.

  
  

• 1992

  In 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced ENERGY STAR as a voluntary labeling program designed to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  At this time point, there is not specific part in the ENERGY STAR that is designed for building system.

• 1993

  The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and operation.

• 1995

  The ENERGY STAR label for new homes was first offered in 1995. At that time, the ENERGY STAR guidelines focused on improvements in several key areas of the home, including high-performance windows, tight construction and ducts, and efficient heating and cooling equipment, along with third-party verification by a certified Home Energy Rater. These initial guidelines stayed in effect for 10 years, with some regional modifications to reflect more rigorous local codes or construction practices.

  
  

• 1998

  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) was created by the U.S. Green Building Council, USGBC in 1998. It is the sustainability rating system developed in the United States, assessing the operation, design, and construction of buildings. It is intended to provide a list of ways to implement and measure green buildings. LEED is a comprehensive green building rating system which was first designed in United State.

• 1999

  The First ENERGY STAR label was awarded to a commercial office building. This is a remarkable improvement for building industry, however, the ENERGY STAR is a rating system for all kind of objects.

• 2000

  The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system was officially unveiled in 2000. Although LEED is mostly focused on the United States, it has been leveraged in 167 countries and is the most widely used third-party verification for how green a building is.

  LEED has two very different components: Accreditation and certification. Accreditation is awarded to an individual in the form of LEED Green Associate, LEED Accredited Professional which is also known as LEED AP, or LEED Fellow.

  We could say that till now we have a the first and in-used rating system that was designed specifically for builings industries.

• 2006

  The Living Building Challenge is introduced by the Cascadia Green Building Council. It is an ever-evolving program shaped by the incredible experiences of our project teams as they continually break new ground. Over time, feedback from a diverse array of stakeholders actively using the challenge helps us understand how to refine and improve the program to have the greatest impacts.

  Remarkablely, it is the first rating system that incorporate human factors into the rating process.

• 2008

  The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) was launched which is the only green building rating system for homes and apartments approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), as an American National Standard. The NGBS provides a blueprint for builders to follow for the design and construction of new and renovated single-family homes and multifamily apartment buildings.

• 2014

  The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is intriduced to the building industry, which explores how design, operations and behaviors within the places where we live, work, learn and play can be optimized to advance human health and well-being. Covering seven core concepts of health and hundreds of features, WELL is a flexible building standard and represents the future of design. the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness

  
  

  Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies(EDGE) was launced which reveals the systems and solutions that work best for climate, bringing international cachet to your certified project without losing the local context. Meet the growing expectations of customers by creating value and positively impacting their lives, resulting in greater profitability and a healthier environment for all.

  
  

  Worth to mention that, the building standards and rating systems are no longer only focus on the energy along but also extend its scope to human well-being and climate impact.

|Composition of Rating System|

The Comparison Between
Two Rating systems

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most.

WELL (The WELL Building Standard) is a performance-based system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health and wellbeing.

Although, both of the building rating system are aiming to improve the built environment in a sustainable way, they are different in their main consideration of the criteria. To be specific, LEED tends to evaluate the project from the standpoint of building performance, such as energy consumption and environment quality. However, for WELL, it credits the project from residents’ perspective, for instance, WELL cares about residents’ thermal and visual comfort, mood and behavior. When it comes to the consideration of human factors, it is harder to achieve compared to the building focused rating system. But the truth is that both of our mental and physical health conditions are highly related to the indoor environments that we spend 90% of our time in, residents are eager to live in a healthier space. Therefore, it is of vital importance to study whether developers adopted green building design factors into their projects, whether developers are interested in incorporating health-related strategies in addition to the energy-only system, and the feasibility of applying health-related design factors in different scales of building projects.

|Side-by-Side Comparison|

Criteria: LEED focuses on Energy; WELL focuses on Humen and Wellbeing.

In the rating process of LEED, there are 7 criteria, including energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. For WELL, the evaluation based on air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. For both of the green building rating systems, the more points awarded the higher the level of certification achieved from Certified, Silver, Gold, to Platinum. From the spyder graphs, we could see that a large proportion of the credits are given to Energy & Atmosphere in LEED. For WELL, the criterias were create most from the activity of human, and large amount of credits come from Community and Mind.

Regions: Most of LEED projects in USA; WELL's projects are worldwide.

Green buildings are no longer rare, they already exist around us. Although LEED and WELL are created in the United States, they were used worldwide. For LEED, more than 80% of the projects came from America. Compared to the LEED, only 35% of the projects are in the US and 25% of the project came from China, and 6% of them from Australia. The globalization of WELL thanks to its innovation on the human-orientied crateria which is the first to do so.

To learn more about the certified model around you, explore by yourself and go vist the project near you!! Explore it Now!

|All-Together Comparison|

This is a final project of an information course in University of California, Berkeley, named Information Visualization and Presentation.

Data come from the project inventories of LEED and WELL.

May 2020, Berkeley,CA