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Contrast not Conflict
June 23, 2011
Coexistent Certifications Serve Sophisticated Market
By Richard Roos and Mark Gorgolewski
LEED Canada for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED Canada EB:O&M) and Building Owners and Managers Association’s Building Environmental Standards (BOMA BESt) share the aim of transforming the built environment. Despite some significant differences in approach and objectives, they are often seen to be complementary programs and are sometimes used in tandem for the same building.
The BOMA BESt approach focuses on engaging building management staff and operators, providing a framework for self study, improvement and promoting choices that best suit the building’s needs. Meanwhile, the Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC) intention of driving market transformation is evident in the LEED program’s exhaustive framework and documentation requirements to ensure that the building performs at its highest potential.
BOMA offers an inclusive program, open to all interested participants, based on the philosophy that the path to environmental improvement should be an accessible process, regardless of initial operational characteristics. In contrast, LEED EB:O&M sets significant entrance requirements to ensure that successful participants will be a distinctive class of building within the top quartile of performers.
Stakeholder values shape preferences for one or the other of theprograms, but they are adopted for a variety of reasons. There is currently insufficient long-term statistical data for a quantitative assessment, but industry perception of the two programs has been gathered from a cross-section of commercial building stakeholders including tenants, owners, managers, consultants and partner organizations.
An initial survey asked respondents to rate key criteria on a scale from 1 to 5. Follow-up interviews were conducted to ascertain the reasons for various responses. For the purposes of confidentiality, no names or companies are identified in this study.
Stakeholders rated both programs according to the following criteria from 1 to 5:
- Certification process simplicity
- Cost
- Accessibility
- Ongoing improvement potential
- Strength as a management tool
- Strength as a marketing tool
- Strength in providing social benefit
- Effectiveness in assessing real environmental benefits
- Ability to reduce measurable resource use
PERFORMANCE PATH PERCEPTIONS
Results across the survey criteria suggest an inversely proportional relationship between user-friendliness and performance. BOMA BESt is rated as having a simpler certification process than LEED, but has a lower level of ingrained performance in measurable resource use and environmental benefit. LEED’s systemic rigour tends to yield higher performance levels, at the expense of simplicity, cost and accessibility.
LEED Canada EB:O&M’s systemically thorough process shows stronger numbers than BOMA BESt for criteria such as embedded ongoing improvement, management, social benefit, environmental benefit and measurable resource use. Nevertheless, the range of opinions across stakeholders groups indicates the two programs’ strengths are highly dependent on participant engagement.
Neither of the programs scored higher than 3.5 (out of 5) in any of the categories, suggesting that the industry sees room for improvements. However, interpretations of averaged data can overlook many stakeholders’ opinions that are not represented in aggregate form.
BOMA BESt and LEED Canada EB:O&M provide frameworks for broad environmental improvement, but cannot account for how well the programs’ features are put to use. Survey respondents indicate that LEED Canada EB:O&M’s rigorous approach yields higher levels of social and environmental benefits, but only marginally.
BOMA BESt can effectively identify areas of improvement but is unable to differentiate between thoroughness of implementation. For example, BOMA BESt provides a checkmark box for automatic lighting controls, but technology can be applied to a single room or an entire building without consequence to the BOMA BESt score, whereas in the category of Controllability of Systems: Lighting, LEED Canada EB:O&M demands that at least 50% of the occupants have controllable lighting suitable for the task at hand.
BRAND AWARENESS
BOMA BESt has the marketing advantage of promoting its program among its membership, but it is less well known outside its membership and has been less successful in creating a brand recognizable to prospective tenants. The LEED brand is widely seen to be an indicator of high performance and environmental responsibility, which attracts interest from various stakeholders. Surveys and interviews uncovered that tenant groups were the least convinced about the benefits of LEED Canada EB:O&M over BOMA BESt from a marketing point of view.
With encouragement and support from senior-level management, available capital resources and knowledgeable operations staff, the BOMA BESt program can lead to significant improvements in the environmental performance of a building. Conversely, there is an industry perception that BOMA BESt at lower levels of engagement can also be used by building owners, managers and operators who are seeking the marketing value of building certification without necessarily a commitment to real environmental improvement. Notably, The BOMA BESt program does not identify acceptable product specifications for some categories, which can result in program participants procuring materials that claim low environmental impacts without any evidence.
The consultant community has been prone to underestimate BOMA BESt, but it is important to distinguish between the initial level of BOMA BESt, which is based on adopting best practices, and higher levels that, in some areas, require verification of improved performance. Some stakeholders with experience in both programs suggest that BOMA BESt level 3 is similar to LEED Canada EB:O&M Gold.
Industry recognition of the relatively new LEED Canada EB:O&M, which was just launched in 2009, could be due to market familiarity with the LEED New Construction program. However, some owners, consultants and managers are wary of the EB:O&M program’s high costs. One such source contended that the ongoing costs associated with maintaining the program’s ISO-like management practices can negate the operational savings.
Thus far, industry proponents have tended to choose LEED Canada EB:O&M primarily for their flagship buildings. CaGBC contends that benefits such as greenhouse gas reduction and other environmental impact mitigation are well worth the strict measures imposed by the program.
COMMITMENT UNDERPINS OUTCOMES
The question of which program delivers a greener building is difficult to answer because the environmental improvements are dependent on initial and ongoing engagement levels of building stakeholders. The LEED EB:O&M program enforces a high level of rigour into the daily routines of the building’s staff, with specific documentation requirements that promote accountability. This compels a higher level of operational behaviour and performance than BOMA BESt certification specifies. Even so, high performance would be required to achieve higher levels of BOMA BESt certification.
The BOMA BESt program focuses more on participation in a process of ongoing improvement starting from a building’s current performance level without prerequisite performance conditions. The program’s low administrative costs helps encourage participation by those who may not be able to invest heavily in capital upgrades and consulting fees, but who are still interested in improving their buildings.
The objectives laid out by BOMA and CaGBC are important, but outcomes remain difficult to measure. Judging whether a building has become a “responsible asset” or “high performing and healthy” is problematic with currently available assessment methods. Both programs are relatively young. More time and broader research will be needed before conclusive determinations can be made about their effectiveness at creating green buildings.
There are concerns that slackened practices in the five-year interval between LEED EB:O&M re-certifications plus the total costs of certification create market hesitancy. Many organizations are unwilling to participate beyond their flagship buildings.
The BOMA BESt program has had some success in creating a peer-driven culture for the improvement of existing buildings, while providing comprehensive national and regional benchmarking data on an annual basis. Stakeholders are able to identify the relative performance of their buildings, informing improvement initiatives and driving a continuous improvement cycle.
The task of improving existing buildings is monumental, requiring commitment, engagement, investment, and monitoring. Both programs can be used as frameworks for achieving environmental improvements, but ultimately depend on the users’ dedication to the cause of sustainability.
Richard Roos is a MASc candidate in building science at Ryerson University. Dr Mark Gorgolewski is a Professor and Director of the graduate program in building science at Ryerson University.
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