The US Green Building Council has recently announced that it has begun work on LEED 2009. I have to hand it to the LEED Steering Committee who even with all the success of LEED is not sitting still, but continues to look for ways to improve.

Their new effort is specifically trying to align the prerequisites and credits among the various LEED Rating Systems and making all the credits in each System total 100, improve the weighting of the various credits based on environmental and health impacts as some have suggested that that current weighting is arbitrary, and finally to introduce elements that allow the Rating Systems to better address regional differences as a building in Florida has different issues to deal with compared to a similar structure in Minnesota.

The Council has posted its recommended revisions on their website which can be found by following the links on their homepage (www.usgbc.org). Finding it is a little confusing, but look for the blue box on the homepage highlighting “LEED 2009 Open for Public Comments”.

One specific issue that we in the cleaning industry must pay attention to is that the total number of points in LEED-EBOM (LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance) has been increased from 92 possible points to 100, which is a relatively minor adjustment.

However, in the Council’s effort to address global environmental impacts they have increased alternative transportation by 11 points (from 4 to 15), increased water efficiency by 4 points (from 10 to 14), and increased energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy by 5 points (from 30 to 35). And regrettably the cleaning industry lost points.

In the current version of LEED:EBOM if we look at all the things that cleaning services can contributes including cleaning, site maintenance and landscaping, waste management, and pest management and compare it to the draft revisions for LEED 2009 --- our credits would fall by 3 points (from 14 to 11).

Had this happened a number of years ago, this would have been a serious problem. And what few may realize, in the very first draft of LEED:EB (circa 2002/3), cleaning only received 1 total point --- just one!!!. But the Council did recognize the important health contribution and environmental impacts from our industry and increased the number. Had the original document been launched with only 1 point for our industry, there would have been little incentive for building owners to invest in Green Cleaning.

Today, Green Cleaning has enormous momentum from our industry, and perhaps more importantly, from our customers. Thus, while I would like for us to campaign for more points to better represent the contribution we make to Green Buildings and ultimately a sustainable future --- even the draft revision of LEED 2009 would NOT be fatal to the Green Cleaning Movement. Our customers demand for Green products and services will only continue to accelerate.

One of the specific changes to the current version of LEED:EBOM is in EQ Credit 3.4 which covered the purchase of cleaning chemicals, janitorial paper and plastic trash can liners. In LEED 2009, they are recommending that this credit be reduced from 3 to 1 point. One of the improvements that I would like to recommend is that we add another credit back into LEED:EBOM 2009 specifically for cleaning chemicals.

Currently I estimate that we use 4.5 billion pounds of janitorial paper products in commercial and institutional buildings each year which require the cutting of approximately 25 to 30 million trees. Encouraging the use of recycled products, minimizing consumption my improving product quality and dispensing systems, and other strategies found currently in LEED:EBOM have enormous benefits to forest ecosystems and the environment resulting from manufacturing and disposal. And in addition to this, we currently use approximately 35 billion plastic trash bags each year most of which are derived from petroleum, a limited and nonrenewable natural resource. Thus taken together, these products deserve a point.

In addition, we currently use 8 billion pounds of cleaning chemicals in these same commercial and institutional buildings covered by LEED:EBOM. While architects, designers and specifiers fret over paints, adhesives and other materials used indoors and award credits for these things, NONE have the impact that cleaning chemicals do. This is simply because painting for example is done very infrequently, perhaps once a year or less. But a large building can have hundreds of pounds of cleaning chemicals brought into the building every single day and their off-gassing, along with other impacts to both health and the environment are significant.

While I appreciate the concerns about global environmental issues, I just don’t feel that enough weight is given to acute exposures to occupant health created by cleaning --- both the use of products, as well as the importance to keep the building clean, healthy and productive. Most risk and environmental models fail to adequately address these issues, and I’m afraid that we have again fallen to this deficiency.

Thus, I will be writing the Council recommending that we increase the points for cleaning chemicals due to their importance from both a health and environmental perspective, and will be pointing out the limitations of the models, as they do not adequately address acute exposures and the reality of what happens during routine building maintenance.

I will also be asking them to clarify their proposed changes to EQ Credit 3.5, which originally was on Entry Way Systems (it’s now titled “Indoor Chemical & Pollutant Source Control”). In the LEED 2009, the credit is being expanded beyond entry systems to “provide containment drains plumbed for appropriate disposal of hazardous liquid wastes in places where water and chemical concentrate mixing occurs for laboratory purposes.” This statement simply is unclear. If it is addressing laboratory operations, then I don’t believe it belongs in the section on Green Cleaning. If it is addressing the mixing of cleaning chemicals, then it needs to be written as such. But one way or the other, it needs to be clarified.

There is one final issue I would like to see the Council address in LEED 2009. To me, the mission of the Council is to promote sustainability and to use LEED as a tool for market transformation. Currently, most of LEED addresses only environmental impacts and neglects social equity, which is the third component of the Triple-Bottom Line and an essential part of creating a sustainable future.

Thus, one of my recommendations is to include a new credit to reward organizations that are paying all of their people (including contractors in the building) a “living wage” and benefits. After all, if an organization really wants to promote itself as “sustainable” then shouldn’t all of its people be taken care of? This to me is an incredible opportunity for the Council to recognize such issues and to use the voluntary and flexible nature of LEED to draw attention to this important issue.

This is especially important because in the future we will hear more and more about how the environmental movement will create good paying "green collar jobs." So let's insure that cleaning and other service personnel are not forgotten.

Comments are only taken online and are due by June 22nd. And you must be a member of the Council to comment.

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