Analysis of Arizona’s LEED for New Construction Population’s Credits

Abstract

Existing literature has failed to identify credit patterns amongst buildings that have achieved various certification levels within the leadership in energy and environmental design for new construction (LEED NC) rating system. Although credit scorecard information had been available for some LEED NC certified projects on the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) website, no one had published a detailed credit analysis or overall credit trends. Furthermore, the few studies that correlated LEED credits with utility consumption returned null results. This technical paper examines LEED NC credit trends for 91% of Arizona’s 53-building LEED NC building population in an effort to identify credit patterns and to determine if credits correlate with either water or power consumption. Data collection efforts were successful for all desired deliverables except water consumption. Credit patterns emerged, exhibiting the most and least commonly attained credits, differences were identified between consultant populations, and credit strategy patterns were demonstrated inherent in each progresssivly more demanding certification level. Water collection was unsuccessful, rendering water correlations impossible. Collection of energy consumption data were successful yet produced few statistically significant correlations. The study’s results demonstrate to industry practitioners and researchers that the 69-point LEED NC rating system failed to demonstrate substantial correlations between energy use and credits within the Arizona population, thereby discounting energy conservation strategies inherent in LEED NC versions 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2. The results also highlight the need to incentivize those credits which produce the greatest environmental benefit throughout the building’s full life cycle. The authors discuss energy correlations in greater detail in another publication.