We need LEED^® like we need Weight Watchers^©. Insert a serious or sarcastic inflection to meet your own point of view, but its true! Weight Watchers^© isn’t about losing weight, it’s about stopping one nutritional life style and starting another. To participate requires setting goals, tracking points, attending support meetings (and paying for that support), and becoming a community of individuals interested in changing their lives. Sound familiar?

LEED^® and Weight Watchers^© share a common tangible goal, a healthy style of life, and stopping a style of life afflicted by disease. They offer concrete results that are inarguable; so why is there so much contentious talk, and second guessing, regarding the efficacy of their programs at promoting health?

Empirically, an unhealthy style of life has gained its own momentum as reflected in all dimensions of our society. Consider Newton’s First Law of Motion ⁱ, “a body remains at rest or in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force.” LEED^® and Weight Watchers^© can be the external force to stop the momentum of this unhealthy style of life starting with the initial force of counting points, and other forces directed at investing time and resources.

The fundamental resistance to LEED^® and Weight Watchers^© is that once you have invested in stopping the style of life you have become accustomed to, what will you replace it with, and what additional investment will be required? From a business perspective, there is no return on investment associated with uncertainty. Stopping one style of life, and starting another, demands a vision.

Consider the vision of health given to our nation by President John F. Kennedy in his address to the Conference on Physical Fitness of Youth, in 1961:

“We want a nation of participants in the vigorous life. This is not a matter which can be settled, of course, from Washington. It is really a matter which starts with each individual family. It is my hope … that the communities will be concerned, to make it possible for young boys and girls to participate actively in the physical life; and that men and women who have reached the age of maturity will concern themselves with maintaining their own participation in this phase of national vigor – national life.” ⁱⁱ

President Kennedy offered this vision to a nation that had been exposed to decades of nutritional health, dating back to 1902 ⁱⁱⁱ, and fitness guidelines dating back to the 1940’s ^iv. His vision of health was defined by the following:

1. Nurtured, familial, value centric.

2. Communal, not solely an individual or governmental enterprise.

3. Regenerative, from youth to adulthood, generation to generation.

What is necessary for all that embark on the path of LEED^® and Weight Watchers^© is to repurpose their goals, points and support based on their established values, community setting and a process that is regenerative.

References:

ⁱwww.thefreedictionary.com/Newton’s+first+law+of+motion
ⁱⁱwww.fitness.gov/50thanniversary/toolkit-firstfiftyyears.htm
ⁱⁱⁱwww.healthy-eating-politics.com/usda-food-pyramid.html
^ivwww.fitness.gov/50thanniversary/toolkit-firstfiftyyears.htm

LEED certification is becoming more appealing to facility owners across numerous industries. One credit to help obtain this certification is On Site Renewable Energy. This credit is obtained by installing equipment that harvests regionally prevalent renewable energy sources to produce electricity and shed municipal power consumption within the boundary of a facility. This system is integrated into the power grid from a facility’s power distribution system and requires net metering. The size of the system dictates the amount of energy produced and the load consumption shed from the municipal source. LEED recognizes up to seven points for generating as much 13% of the total energy needed by the facility under its rules for New Construction and Major Renovations.

Net metering is nothing more than metering bi-directionally. A meter monitors the amount of energy produced by a system. It counts when there is consumption, and counts slower when a renewable energy system is added to the electrical distribution system. If the renewable energy system is large enough, it is possible for a meter not to count at all. In fact, a meter could even count backwards if the energy production is greater than the amount consumed, which could mean revenue. Net metering is a topic that needs to be discussed with your utility and coordinated for compliance to their requirements. Rates are typically discussed at this time with contingent stipulations.

To determine the best renewable energy system for your facility, you must first answer a few questions. Where is the facility? When would it operate?  What possible amount of energy could it produce? What is the initial cost? What grants exist within the State or Federally? What is the ROI versus life of the system?

There are many more questions and concerns to fully grasp this credit and incorporate into a project. A professional engineer and LEED Accredited Professional should be consulted when considering this topic for a project. SSOE has professional engineers and LEED APs that can be of service for this very task.