The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system has been widely used in the US. However, until now, there has been no clear understanding of the strategies that should be used to make the transition from Silver to Gold certified projects. The aim of this study was to determine the trends in certified projects for both Silver and Gold LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations (LEED-NCv3) in 2016. Three performances, including (i) certification, (ii) category/subcategory/sub-subcategory certification, and (iii) cross-certification, were evaluated for both Silver and Gold LEED-NCv3 certified projects. For an ordinal measurement scale, a two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test was used. For a ratio measurement scale, an unpaired two-tailed t-test was used. If eight or more Silver and Gold certified projects occurred in the same state, then the state was selected for statistical analysis. As a result, ten states were selected. The following was revealed: (i) low certification performances for both Silver and Gold; (ii) high category performance for Sustainable Sites and Innovation in Design and low category performance for Energy and Atmosphere for both Silver and Gold projects; and (iii) three different strategies of certified projects in transition from Silver to Gold that include (a) energy-emphasized (e.g., CA), (b) non-energy-emphasized (e.g., NY), and (c) integrated (e.g., GA) strategies. We speculate that the possible reasons for such deviations in the decision strategies were due to differences between the adopted ASHRAE 90.1 standards (ASHRAE Standard 90.1 2007 or ASHRAE Standard 90.1 2010) in each of the states.

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The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is currently intensively applied in several European countries. The aims of the present study were to compare the difference between (i) two countries from the same region (i.e., Finland vs. Sweden or Turkey vs. Spain) and (ii) two European regions (northern Europe [Finland and Sweden] vs. [Turkey and Spain]) when the LEED- New Construction (NC) 2009 Certified rating level certified projects were analyzed. We found that, in the northern and southern parts of Europe, LEED- NC 2009 credit achievements in terms of Sustainable Sites (SS), Water Efficiency (WE), Materials and Resources (MR), and Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) were similar, whereas credit achievements in Energy and Atmosphere (EA) were different. High achievements were revealed in WE and SS, with values of 80–100% and 70–75%, respectively; intermediate achievements were revealed in EQ, with values of 40–60%; and low achievements were revealed in MR (20–40%). EA achievements were intermediate (60–65%) in northern Europe, while they were low in southern Europe (40%). This evidence can help recognize the categories that are performed with a high number of points and those that are performed with a low number of points.

Abstract:The study aims to suggest sampling structures to avoid sacrificial pseudoreplication in the evaluation of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified projects. The sampling includes two structures that exclude sacrificial pseudoreplication and one structure that leads to sacrificial pseudoreplication: (i) The state is the sampling frame in which LEED projects are treated as primary sampling units; (ii) The US is the sampling frame, the state is the primary sampling unit in which LEED projects are treated as evaluation units; and (iii) The US is the sampling frame in which LEED projects are pooled from different states and treated as primary sampling units. The three sampling structures are applied to the evaluation of the Silver-to-Gold cross-certification performances of LEEDv3 for new construction and LEEDv3 for existing buildings. The same cross-certification strategy was revealed if either structure (i) or structure (ii) was applied, while it was poorly estimated and misinterpreted if structure (iii) was applied, i.e., sacrificial pseudoreplication had occurred.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has five basic categories: Sustainable sites (SS), Water Efficiency (WE), Energy and Atmosphere (EA), Materials and Resources (MR), and Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ). Additionally, in LEED 2009, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) introduced regional priority (RP) points to adapt LEED to the local conditions of foreign countries. However, the appropriateness of the RP points stated for the Mediterranean basin has not yet been evaluated. Thus, we studied the similarities and differences in performances of LEED 2009 Commercial Interiors (CI) and LEED 2009 Core and Shell Development (C&S) Gold certified projects in Turkey, Spain, and Italy. We revealed that the categories without RP points, SS, MR, and EQ, performed similarly in all three countries, thereby signaling the correctness of CI and C&S applications in the Mediterranean basin. However, the categories with RP points, WE and EA, performed differently. It can be suggested that the following RP points would be beneficial for all three countries: (i) in the MR category, RP points that initiate decreases in virgin construction material; (ii) in the WE category, RP points that encourage water saving; and (iii) in the EA category, RP points that encourage using renewable energies.

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This study aims to assess the difference between projects from versions 3 (v3) and 4 (v4) of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI) rating system in China and the US at the Silver and Gold certificate levels. Non-parametric statistics are used to estimate these differences. We analyze the Sustainable Sites (SS), Location and Transportation (LT), Water Efficiency (WE), Energy and Atmosphere (EA), Materials and Resources (MR), and Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) categories for the LEED-CI Silver and Gold projects. The results show that the WE and EA categories in v3 and the WE, EA, LT, and MR categories in v4 are implemented differently in China and the US. For the LEED-CI Silver and Gold projects, the MR and EQ categories in v3 and the EQ category in v4 show similar implementation in China and the US. The LEED-CIv3 SS category shows a different result at the Gold level but the same at the Silver level when comparing China and the US. Thus, at the Silver and Gold levels of the LEED-CI projects, v4, rather than v3, provides more opportunities to highlight the environmental priorities of China and the US.

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