LEED not the only way for projects to go green

HOUSING SOLUTION: Kite Architects of Providence worked with Crossroads Rhode Island to design Kingstown Crossings in North Kingstown using sustainability features of the LEED for Homes program. / COURTESY KITE ARCHITECTS/CHRISTINE WEST
HOUSING SOLUTION: Kite Architects of Providence worked with Crossroads Rhode Island to design Kingstown Crossings in North Kingstown using sustainability features of the LEED for Homes program. / COURTESY KITE ARCHITECTS/CHRISTINE WEST

Being green is a substantial part of many Rhode Island architects’ businesses, and the standard for getting there – the LEED program – is not the only approach, architects and industry leaders say.
LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green-building certification program that recognizes best practices in building strategies, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. To earn certification, projects must satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve key levels of distinction regarding energy efficiency, insulation, water conservation and other key areas, the website states.
In Rhode Island, 62 projects are certified as LEED out of 113 registered, says Kenneth J. Filarski, chairman of the Rhode Island council chapter. His firm, Filarski/Architecture+Planning+Research in Providence, has been in business since 1976. Some projects that are registered don’t always make it through the whole process, he said.
Filarski speaks both to the value of LEED and to its limitations.
In Rhode Island there are more than 400 LEED-accredited professionals, Filarski notes.
“With the implementation of the LEED rating system [in the late 1990s], the whole notion of sustainability really took off, with the U.S. GBC leading the charge,” he said. “It was the first rating system that was measureable and accountable. It provides a guiding pathway to how to achieve it.”
While LEED certification measures efficiencies like energy and water usage and the cost savings associated with that, to design buildings, many building owners and developers “still see it as too costly, though it shouldn’t be, and see that it takes more collaboration,” Filarski said.
Keith R. Davignon, a principal with Vision 3 Architects in Providence, agreed.
In past years, he said, “we would have certain clients who would specifically ask for a LEED-certified project, so that meant a certain process needed to be followed. LEED is no longer the ‘big word.’ A lot of people still want LEED, but we have more and more clients saying, ‘I’m interested in a green building, but I don’t need the LEED plaque [that comes with certification].’ ”
Sustainability and green building, added Filarski, “[have] become standard; it’s just a question of what degree.” That reluctance has to do in part with the cost of fees and the process of documenting the work, which can be labor intensive, Davignon and Filarski said. Fees can range from a few thousand dollars up to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the category of certification, the dollar cost of the project and the size of the project, Filarski said.
Yet, the guidelines LEED has set up are in demand, and developers will often seek to adhere to the spirit of LEED to get energy efficiencies and other environmental benefits like improved indoor air quality, they said. For Vision 3, anywhere from 50 percent to 75 percent of Vision 3’s business is green, Davignon said.
“Designing green is just part of responsible design,” said Davignon. “LEED set the standard and now we use those guidelines just as a way of doing business. Where it doesn’t add long-term costs we try to incorporate those principles into every project we do.”
Past projects that used LEED as a model without the certification follow-through included buildings established at least two years ago on the Cumberland side of Highland Corporate Park by the nonprofit developer Economic Development Foundation Rhode Island, Davignon said. Standards that were established for tenants included lighting efficiency, heating and ventilation equipment and insulation, he said.
Sustainability “is absolutely a regular way of doing business now,” he said. “The first meeting [with a client], we’ll discuss sustainable and green design, take their temperature in terms of how much they know about it and care about it.”
At Kite Architects in Providence, principal Christine West says the green portion of her business in 75 percent.
“We don’t see a lot of LEED projects in Rhode Island because it doesn’t work for existing buildings you’re renovating,” she said.
One project that did get LEED interior certification was the University of Rhode Island’s Wellness and Fitness Center, she said. And a Crossroads Rhode Island North Kingstown construction project was LEED Gold certified, with “gold” being one of the more stringent levels of certification, she said. In that project, 52 apartments are managed by Crossroads as transitional housing while the other half are open to the public at income-restricted, market rates, she said. “I’m not sure there’s a great substitute on the market right now [for standards for LEED],” West said. “We’re in a situation where a lot of clients have to make it up for themselves and communicate the green features if they don’t go through the LEED process.”
Other ways of going green involve positive net-energy or zero-net-energy design, said Filarski. In the former, the building is designed through the use of renewable energy systems not only to meet energy needs of the building itself but produce a surplus of energy so the excess can be returned to the grid. The latter requires the building to use as much energy as it produces. This can come in the form of wind power; photovoltaic, or solar power, or geothermal, he said.
As renewable energy becomes more affordable, Davignon said, more developers seem to be leaning toward these new approaches.
Filarski has four new projects, none of which are LEED-certified yet because they’re in the early stages and are just being registered, but they will be LEED certified when they’re done. The one project clients would permit him to discuss is the Cranston stadium project, which will use geothermal, solar thermal, which produces hot water, and photovoltaics, which produces electricity.
The benefit to having LEED for this project is partly “bragging rights,” he said, but also, “LEED is a recognized standard. It shows people are looking to design something correctly and that sustainable design is important to them.”
It also demonstrates, rather than focusing on just design, that it involves building performance, sustainability and keeping life-cycle costs low, he said.
The building council is evolving the role of LEED to make it more accessible, not only to the architecture, engineering and construction community, but to “your neighbor next door,” Filarski said.
“People see the power of a rating system,” he said. “People, planet and profit [comprise] the triple bottom line of true sustainability, as part of a good economic system. It goes to promote resiliency.” •

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