Green Building Wars Rage

green building

by | May 29, 2014

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green buildingThe Green Globes rating system is “greenwash,” according to an open letter to the Green Building Initiative’s (GBI) board of directors.

The letter, spearheaded by Greenwash Action, a joint initiative of Sierra Club and Greenpeace, and signed by several environmental and green building groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and International Living Future Institute, urges GBI to stop attacking LEED and calls GBI’s Green Globes into question.

“Either strengthen Green Globes so that it embodies the same level of performance (or better) as LEED in the areas in which Green Globes is relatively weak, or reposition it and be forthright about the fact that it is not equivalent to more rigorous rating systems like LEED and the Living Building Challenge,” it says.

It follows closely on the heels of a GBI-funded study from Drexel University that found the Green Globes certification process is significantly less expensive to conduct and faster to complete than LEED certification.

Since 2006, when the Canadian-based Green Globes standard first launched in the US, it’s been gunning for its US-based rival. The GSA’s October decision to recommend the Green Globes building standard as an alternative to LEED, for federal buildings outside the GSA portfolio, proved a significant win for the upstart certification. Two months later, in another victory for the Green Globes, the US Department of Defense decided to allow its facilities to use the green building certification program.

 

 

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