The pursuit of sustainability goals has generated increased efforts by both owners and the construction industry to develop new ways to reduce the environmental footprint on a variety of facilities. Many strategies have included the early adoption of available technologies to reach some level of LEED certification. While these technologies continue to evolve, numerous challenges remain.

 A typical laboratory currently uses five times as much energy and water per square foot as a typical office building. Research facilities are so energy demanding for a variety of reasons:

• They contain large numbers of containment and exhaust devices;
• They house a great deal of heat-generating equipment;
• Scientists require 24-hour access; and
• Irreplaceable experiments require fail-safe redundant backup systems and uninterrupted power supply (UPS) or emergency power.

In addition, research facilities have intensive ventilation requirements—including “once through” air—and must meet other health and safety codes, which add to energy use. Examining energy and water requirements from a holistic perspective, however, can identify significant opportunities for improving efficiencies while meeting or exceeding health and safety standards. Sustainable design of lab environments should also improve comfort and worker productivity.

Many innovative design strategies are emerging from the broad and diverse sustainable design agenda that are appropriate to laboratory buildings. Of these, improvements to building systems that provide ventilation, conditioning, and lighting represent the largest area of opportunity because of their energy use and operating costs. They consume the lion’s share of first cost investment while also having a profound impact on comfort, well-being, and productivity. Conventional practice would relegate these issues to engineers to solve after key architectural and planning decisions have already been made, but smart sustainable design solutions can emerge when architecture, space planning, and engineering systems are tackled up front. This is the “whole-building approach” to the design process. In the whole building approach, all design and construction team members work together in front end planning to understand and integrate a wide range of building performance factors. Performance factors include first costs, life-cycle costs, quality-of-life issues, flexibility, productivity, energy efficiency, aesthetics and environmental impacts.

Laboratories for the 21st Century (Labs21) Program developed the Environmental Performance Criteria (EPC) in response to lab designers desire to have a rating system similar to LEED, but tailored more to the unique characteristics of laboratory facilities. The USGBC was encouraged to develop a LEED Application Guide for Laboratories (LEED-AGL), building on the EPC in order to provide a certification guideline approach for lab facilities. The committee was sanctioned in 2003, however progress has been slow and the LEED-AGL is still in draft form to this date.  Although the LEED-AGL is still only in draft format, it can be leveraged for an innovative credit under the LEED-NC.

• (SS credit): Reducing hazards from laboratory effluents – use physical or computational modeling to assess and reduce the impact of air effluents.
• (WE Credit): Addressing process water use – no domestic water used for “once-through” laboratory equipment (prereq.); document and reduce process water use/generation by 20% (1 pt) or 30% (2 pts.)
• (EA Credit): Focus on laboratory systems – Optimize ventilation rates considering user needs, health/safety and energy consumption (EPA has determined 8 ACH operating/4 ACH for non-operating hours to be adequate for health and safety and has set this as their new standard); increase efficiency of HVAC and Lighting systems (using ASHRAE 90.1 energy cost budget method as benchmark); right-size mechanical equipment
• (MR Credit): Manage hazardous material flows – use environmentally preferable finishes, fixed furniture and laboratory furniture (LEED-AGL will include a larger range of materials because currently very few renewable materials are suitable for laboratory use).
• (EQ Credit): Design for health and safety – meet requirements of ANSI/AIAH Z 9.5 (prereq); commission all fume hoods per ASHRAE 100 and comply with SEFA (Scientific Equipment and Furniture) 1.2 “as Installed” practices; smoke test exhaust devices that do not have standardized test procedures; biosafety cabinets meet or exceed requirements of the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) Standard 49; optimize indoor airflow based on results of modeling; improve indoor chemical and pollution source control (cabinets vented outside, raised lips around cup sinks, etc.); design alarm systems to be inherently self-identifying and failsafe.  
   *The USGBC has approved fumehood commissioning under ASHRAE 100 as an innovation credit.  

 Some additional efficiency strategies to explore for laboratories include:

• VAV operations in labs (or VAV fumehoods)
• High performance low-flow fumehoods
• Energy recovery (latent/sensible)
• Low-pressure drop design
• Multi-stack exhaust plenum with staged exhaust fans
• Multiple cooling loops at different temperatures
• Occupancy controls for lighting and ventilation
• Minimize areas requiring high ventilation rates

LEED certification for laboratories may be a challenge, but it is not impossible. The EPA now requires that the design team shoot for LEED Gold and at the very least obtain LEED Silver certification. There are a number of Lab facilities that have achieved LEED Silver certification (DuBiotech’s Nucleotide Lab Complex; Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Biologics Manufacturing Facility in Devens, MA;UC Santa Barbara’s Life Sciences Building to name a few).

From Wikipedia:  Greenwashing (green whitewash) is the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.

Another source of this term that occurs to me is brain-washing – attempting to make others accept a statement as truth by repeating the message.

With an increasing public focus on environmental issues, it is understandable that companies want to market themselves as “green”, and they may find it easier to apply funds to marketing rather than genuine initiatives.

Greenwashing can be applied to many products including food, electronics, toys, and building/construction products.  Reasons to avoid greenwashing include the Risk Management issues raised in the blog entry on 5/19/10, and a general desire to do the right thing.  We all need to look past the marketing labels and look for real reasons that a product can be considered green, whether the product is for a project or for personal use.  While most of us are accustomed to laws regarding truth-in-advertising, the regulations for greenwashing are still evolving, leaving us with a greater need to be skeptical.

For building projects, you will need to be sure that the product manufacturer has the ability to prove its claims.  Evaluate that proof with the needs of the building user in mind, or for the criteria of the LEED point you are pursuing.

There are several resources on the internet to learn more about greenwashing.  A website that I found to be both concise and entertaining is The Seven Sins of Greenwashing (http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/).

There is no doubt that a lot of work goes into certifying a project for LEED. Beyond all the fantastic ideas for saving energy, conserving resources, and providing efficient buildings, there is a lot of digital paperwork that is generated and submitted to the USGBC. The LEED rating system sets forth a standard that must be met for achieving credits to obtain a particular rating. Often times, a project is started with a specific rating in mind or a certain budget to put towards reaching a certain level.  But what is the difference between a building with a gold rating verses one that is just certified?   After all, many think the standards set in the LEED guide are somewhat subjective anyway. For example, why is it that a LEED point is only given if 90% of the occupants can control their own lighting?  Doesn’t the other 10% matter?  And why 90% and not 75%, or 50%?  Why is a LEED point not given at all if we get 89.5%?

If buildings are designed to be “green” simply because there is potential marketing, when touting a LEED certification, we are missing the whole reason for sustainable design. I would contend that LEED is a starting point, a basic set of standards, or even a portfolio of good ideas, but a specific rating is not the real goal despite popular opinion. However, when the focus is shifted to really designing with a holistic approach to the systems and an intense effort on innovation, the whole question of ‘how precise does my LEED template have to be?’ becomes less significant. I am not suggesting that templates be haphazardly put together and thrown to the LEED reviewer. Rather that LEED is designed to reward innovative thinking, new ideas, and cutting edge technologies to achieve the green standards that they have set importance on and also for the sustainable opportunities unique to the project. After one or two brainstorming sessions about ideas for saving energy or creating better environments for the people using a building, it becomes very apparent that not every idea is going to match the requirements of a specific LEED credit.  That is the very reason the USGBC has incorporated alternate compliance methods into nearly every credit.  If you have a good idea, and it matches or betters the concept of an existing credit, they want to see it.  After all, truly good ideas of today are tomorrow’s standard practices.

Alternative energy is a term that is usually synonymous with producing green energy. In actuality, it is simply an alternative to current conventional energy sources. To define alternative energy we first need to define the conventional energy sources. Conventional energy sources are fossil fuels, i.e. coal, crude oil and natural gas. What is the problem with the conventional sources? Emissions and accidental releases. CO2 is the most notorious, and to a lesser extent nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. Crude oil spills, as we are all too familiar with now, and methane releases can also have huge environmental impacts. What can replace fossil fuels? Alternative energy.

Some common alternative energy sources include:

Solar – heat and photovoltaics
Wind
Hydropower
Bio-mass
Hydrogen
Fuel cells
Geothermal

Even nuclear power can be loosely considered alternative energy. While it is not necessarily a “green” alternative to fossil fuels, it is plentiful and when used responsibly can offset the use of fossil fuels.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (www.eia.doe.gov), the United States consumed 99.3 quadrillion btu’s, or Quads, of energy in 2008 (1 Quad is equal to 293 terawatt hour. 1 terawatt hour could power the typical household for over 10 years). Of that, 83% was from fossil fuels, 8% was from alternative energy and 9% was from nuclear.

The generation and production of the energy consumed in 2008 resulted in the release of 6021 million metric tons of CO2, 1.3 million metric tons of SOx and 28 million metric tons of methane. The current oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a testament to the impact crude oil can have on the environment. The mining and drilling for the energy rich fossil fuels has an undeniable affect on the earth.
There is a specific need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. We as a society are destroying landscapes in our quest for energy and dumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Whether this is having an impact on the global temperatures is debatable. But, shouldn’t we error on the side of caution and assume we are having an effect? The alternative energy technology, as it currently exists, has the potential to offset a great deal of the fossil fuels used…

My question to you is, why shouldn’t we act now? Do you think legislation and government mandates are the only solution to make this happen?