There’s an interesting post over on The Greenwash Brigade about the impact of the LEED rating system on creating green buildings. The author argues that it’s possible to be LEED-certified without really having environmentally-sound construction. The way the LEED system is set up, builders get points for each green element they include, but a low VOC carpet is given the same worth in the point system as a green roof. Are the two features equivalent?

The Greenwash Brigade makes the very good point that LEED can’t be measured just by outliers that learn how to “game” the system, but by the overall impact of the program on encouraging green building. The bottom line is that LEED ultimately continues to raise construction standards. However, in creating new environmental standards, there are still lessons to be learned from the way LEED was implemented.

In contrast, EcoLogo is designed so that across multiple criteria, products that meet the EcoLogo standard are in roughly the top 20% of environmentally-friendly products in any given category. This amounts to a weighted system, where no weak attribute can lead to a green label if certification is not warranted.

The weighted system is important. The topic of creating environmental standards around multiple attributes rather than a single element comes up often. However, the issue of how different attributes are weighted is much more subtle and often overlooked. It’s something we need to introduce into the broader environmental debate.

The EcoLogo program was set up according to the International Organization for Standardization – ISO 14024.

Posted by Mari in Environmental standards