On August 30 The New York Times featured an article by Mireya Navarro that looked at building performance post LEED certification and found that many LEED certified buildings are not living up to expectation. Why? Most often to blame were low efficiency mechanical systems and design that did not focus on energy-saving measures. Audits of post occupancy energy use showed poorly for energy efficiency. In fact, the USGBC found that possibly "a quarter of the new buildings that have been certified do not save as much energy as their designs predicted and that most do not track energy consumption once in use."
The USGBC is considering measures to combat this issue. The article states that, "starting this year, the program also is requiring all newly constructed buildings to provide energy and water bills for the first five years of operation as a condition for certification." There has also been discussion of overturning certification or withholding it until energy efficiency in the occupied building can be proven.
All of this points to the importance of designing for energy efficiency in the pursuit of truly sustainable buildings and neighborhoods. It was this realization that drove GGLO to begin tracking building performance a while back and develop our Building Performance Evaluation program and services. Read about GGLO's building performance evaluation services (BPE) here.
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