HER LEED

The Poet/Farmer Wendell Berry wrote, “Nothing will change until we heal the split between what we think and what we do.” Organizations like the U.S. Green Building Council and cities like San Francisco are attempting to heal the split by addressing the fact that commercial and residential buildings generate nearly half the carbon emissions of the entire U.S.
I tracked the formation of the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance, which codified building green based on standards created by the U.S. Green Building Counsel (USGBC). The USGBC determines what leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) looks like. The buildings that have been certified LEED are largely specimens on how to build for our changing world. The problem that needs to be addressed is how to motivate the population of the world to maximize the technology of efficiency that these buildings are designed to create.
The CEO of a large commercial development company in the Bay Area addressed this by simply stating that, “if you build a better building it will operate better.” It’s hard not to agree with this statement, but it doesn’t address the people problem. That is to say, what about the accountability of the tenants or the owners to support the building’s operational efficiency? In another conversation with a senior building inspector in San Francisco, I was told, “Incentives don’t work. You have to tell people what to do.” This got me thinking about how to insert an accountability mechanism into the LEED standards. It’s more then just an energy efficient building, it’s about tenant participation, accountability and healing the split that Wendell Berry talks about..