[OKC] [ok-sus] LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health

[Nancy Cain]

this goes along with my mantra: every solution causes another problem.   think about consequences, think about consequences!  

along those lines, i was thinking recently about how we calculate the life cycle of a product.  we calculate the energy in and energy out but what about the lives of the people who have to produce or mine the basic elements of what we're considering?

i think in both these instances and most everything else we manipulate, we can't win for losing.  what looks good on one end can be devastating on the other end.  things to consider in your spare time.

nancy cain
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Shauna Lawyer Struby 
  To: okc at sustainableokc.org ; ok-sus at lists.oksustainability.org 
  Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:13 PM
  Subject: [ok-sus] LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health


  From Yale's Environment 360:
  LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health
  LEED certification has emerged as the green standard of approval for new buildings in the United States. But the criteria used for determining the ratings largely ignore factors relating to human health, particularly the use of potentially toxic building materials.
  by John Wargo

  The LEED program - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - is playing an increasingly important role in the drive to make buildings in the United States greener and more energy efficient. LEED is now the most prominent and widely adopted green building certification program in the country, with architects and developers striving to earn LEED's coveted platinum or gold rating, and an increasing number of local, state, and federal regulations beginning to incorporate LEED standards into official building codes.

  But LEED - sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, an industry group - has a glaring and little-known drawback: It places scant emphasis on factors relating to human health, even as the largely unregulated use of potentially toxic building materials continues to expand. One of LEED's major accomplishments - saving energy by making buildings more airtight - has had the paradoxical effect of more effectively trapping the gases emitted by the unprecedented number of chemicals used in today's building materials and furnishings. Yet, as the threat from indoor air pollution grows, LEED puts almost no weight on human health factors in deciding whether a building meets its environmental and social goals.

   

  More here ::: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2306 

   

   

   

  Shauna, OKC

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