Today, five percent of new commercial construction meets standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program (LEED), a voluntary, consensus-based standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. Ten percent of new homes satisfy the federal government's Energy Star guidelines, meaning they're nearly one-third more energy-efficient than regulations require.
This article points to some positives and negatives from recent trends in the construction industry in the US. Although 5% of new constructions meet the requirements set out by LEED, which I find surprising, the author brought up a good point that to reduce American's portion of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere, the "green revolution" is not going fast enough. The article is accurate in portraying buildings as the real "energy hogs" rather than the much maligned SUVs. Not that SUVs don't have anything to do with the problem. On the contrary, SUVs need to become more efficient. However, buildings are a larger culprit and are often not addressed by the media.
I have worked on a LEED building project quite recently and had the privilege to learn a lot more about it. It is not a perfect model for building standards. It tends not to account for "locked-in" factors that cannot be changed. For example, for buildings located on swamp land, there are automatic deductions on their points system. If you are trying to convince a building or land owner to get on board with LEED, not accounting for such locked in factors can be a disincentive. LEED should not become too diluted, but some flexibility in the program will most likely encourage more green buildings to emerge in the coming years.
However, the bottomline is that it's good to see 5% of all new constructions in the US following the strict guidelines.
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