The case of the Northland Pines High School (NPHS) in Eagle River, WI, was not the first appeal. There were at least two earlier challenges.

USGBC take the NPHS case seriously for two reasons. First, the review was performed by two (2) nationally recognized experts in the prerequisite standards. One was 24 year veteran and past Chairman of the ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1 Committee, and is ASHRAE’s expert. The opinions of these experts simply couldn’t be dismissed. The second reason was that this case was about blatant and deliberate fraud on a breathtaking scale. The review documented over 2300 documented violations of LEED prerequisites in what was only a partial review of only the HVAC systems. How many more violations could be found in a comprehensive review? NPHS exposed the USGBC LEED review process as a technological sieve which not only permits, but encourages, fraudulent certification applications.

For USGBC, The Northland Pines High School case opened Pandora’s Box. NPHS threatens USGBC’s very existence because it threatens the only thing they bring to the table, their credibility. It raises a very legitimate concern, “How many more NPHS’s are out there?” Based on my personal observations and experience as a practicing design engineer, I can honestly say, “Far more than USGBC will ever be willing to acknowledge!” This is a huge problem for them.

The worst possible thing USGBC could do in this matter would be to try to whitewash the issue. To do so would completely undermine the underlying basis for any claim of value for LEED certification; past, present and future. While we all hope that it doesn’t kill it, such an action would also have a devastating impact on the whole “sustainability” movement. It would suddenly become, as many already suspect, “smoke and mirrors.” This would utterly destroy any value associated with LEED Certification, and make Mr. Yudelson’s opinions regarding “dereliction of duty” moot.

From a sustainability marketing and public relations perspective, this is a very thought-provoking article. I think it points out the need to balance the creation of expectations with professional obligations (as mandated by the architectural and engineering ethics codes) and also the limits of sustainable advocacy where a proponent could take on the obligation (“guarantee”) of perfection. I found that commentary alone to be extremely valuable.

That being said, I think these caveats can be incorporated when developing marketing and public relations efforts for LEED-based services, and I will no doubt return to this article from time to time to review these concepts.

By the way – I have several of Jerry Yudelson’s marketing books. As far as I can determine, he’s about the only one who has written anything comprehensive on sustainable marketing – he’s been in it since the 70’s. So perhaps it’s understandable when he goes a bit over the top.

Architects need to think beyond the traditional practice and embrace other services to help the clients get to a higher level of performance and profit (getting the biggest bang for the buck) and this entails sustainable design strategies. Although I am a big advocate for LEED, one can advocate for sustainable design without having to force a rating system. Insurance companies should seize the opportunity as well and help architects offer these services to their clients. Resistant in doing this will only promote fragmentation of the industry to allow for the risk to be allocated in a simplify way rather than integrated to match the design process.

I do believe that architects and engineers have an obligation to provide our clients with high quality, environmentally responsible designs based upon the clients needs and objectivesthat fit within the larger community’s standards for ethical and responsible design. Thus there should be a some point at which the designer must refuse a client’s goals where they fall below those community standards. However, those decisions must be determined on a case by case analysis and cannot be subject to third party firms with no stake in the outcome.

We need to have much more debate toward reaching a consensus about what constitutes sustainable design. Right now it’s a chaotic mess being driven by ideologues and profiteers.