Some Green Building Pros Shrinking From LEED
It’s always interesting to see a new survey about green building. Even if you don’t pay attention to who was in the survey, or what the survey was measuring about green building, just the idea that someone bothered to poll some people and find out what they thought about things is pretty cool.
Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP, the Constructive Technology Group, Inc., and Green Building Insider completed a green building survey in December 2008 and just released the results after doing telephone followups with respondents during January.
Topping the list of findings was that huge numbers of design pros, contractors, subcontractors, construction and planning managers, consultants and owners agree that it is worth the time and effort to build green. A little more than 93 percent agreed with that statement, although that number is about 3 percent lower than the responses from a survey in 2007.
The surprising thing that came out of the survey was that fewer people thought LEED certification was worth obtaining. In 2007 there were 77.4 percent of respondents saying LEED was worthwhile, while in 2008 that number dropped to 66.4 percent.
The survey authors suggested a few reasons why LEED may have drawn a lower percentage;
- Difficult financial times may have been making people more sensitive to costs
- Other certification schemes could be pulling people away from LEED
- Carbon footprints and greenhouse gases were not included in LEED at the time of the survey
