Watson describes a few assumptions he’s made to keep his projections on the conservative side. But there are some others that he doesn’t mention, such as the number of buildings that are built to LEED standards that never sign up with GBCI. The report does include a factor for “built-to-LEED” projects, but Watson only includes in this category buildings that are registered but don’t reach certification – about 30% of the total. (My guess is that many of those registered-but-not-certified projects never get built at all.) There is a much larger group of projects that use LEED as a design and construction guide, either at the request of the owner or to meet government regulations. How well these projects actually follow LEED and ultimately perform is anyone’s guess, but there are a lot of them and they must have some benefits. Even more significant, but harder to quantify, is LEED’s market transformation impact. LEED is not affecting just individual buildings. It is educating and inspiring project teams, leading to more aggressive energy and environmental codes, and generally having an impact on the way all buildings are built (at least in some locales). Watson’s report doesn’t try to factor in these secondary benefits of LEED. I don’t know how one might do that, but I suspect that they’re huge.
Source: www.BuildingGreen.com
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