Earlier this year, New York City took an important step towards becoming the country’s leader in public green leasing practices when Mayor Bloomberg’s Green Lease Task Force released model green lease language aimed at addressing the split incentive in most commercial office leases. The language was incorporated with much fanfare by Silverstein Properties into its lease with the law firm WilmerHale at the LEED Gold 7 World Trade Center, as well as adopted by the City for all of its future leases.

Now, recently after it was named North America’s greenest city in a study published by Siemens, San Francisco has fired back by launching a Green Tenant Toolkit of its own, created at the recommendation of the San Francisco Mayor’s Task Force on Existing Commercial Buildings. Although designed primarily for San Francisco buildings, the free, on-line resource is being promoted as adaptable for any geographic location. It was developed by a 26-member group of real estate and environmental professionals representing brokers, property management, large tenant groups, attorneys, electrical utilities, and design and construction experts, assembled by San Francisco’s Business Council on Climate Change.

The Toolkit is divided into three sections: a general green leasing guide, tips on stakeholder engagement, and a checklist of items summarizing key sustainability metrics for any property. The toolkit isn’t written for lawyers. But it appears to be a good jumping off point for tenants and landlords that are unfamiliar with green leasing generally and want to get up to speed quickly, regardless of where they may find themselves in the leasing process. And it’s also worth noting that the New York City model language (along with our article discussing the WilmerHale lease at 7 WTC) is included in the Green Tenant Toolkit’s database of additional resources.

As you may recall, San Francisco led two major urban green building indices this year: the study from Siemens and, for a second consecutive year, the city topped Cushman & Wakefield’s Green Building Opportunity Index. We reviewed the Index’s analysis of New York City’s Midtown submarket – which placed second overall in the Index – over the summer here at GRELJ in significant detail.

As you may know, among other provisions, the San Francisco green building ordinance requires commercial and residential projects greater than 25,000 square feet, or taller than 75 feet, to earn a LEED Certified rating from USGBC. The requirement for commercial projects increased this year to Silver and, in 2012, to Gold. Residential projects must earn a Silver rating beginning in 2010. Notwithstanding these phased requirements, in the Chronicle piece, the San Francisco Department of the Environment’s private sector green building coordinator Richard Chien states that “[w]e need to reconvene the task force that recommended the legislation and makes some revisions way before 2012. With the changes coming along [to LEED] we could be out of date and we need to address that.”

Interestingly, the San Francisco ordinance (No. 180-08 of September 4, 2008, codified at Chapter 13C of the local building code) states that “[w]herever specific LEED prerequisites or credits are cited, such references are to LEED-NC Version 2.2. More recent LEED . . . versions may be used, provided the credits and points achieved are as or more stringent than LEED-NC Version 2.2.” In other words, because the LEED 2009 MPRs are not referenced specifically, it’s not entirely clear whether they are included within the purview of the ordinance, particularly with respect to mid-sized commercial buildings which are only required to comply with certain LEED credits.

The introduction to the article is therefore inaccurate; San Francisco is not reconsidering whether to restructure its green building ordinance around something besides LEED based on perceived LEED building performance failures. Rather, it is evaluating if, as presently drafted, and based on the recent amendments to LEED in the form of LEED 2009, its ordinance will still (1) obligate covered projects to comply with the new MPRs and share performance data; and (2) whether the ordinance should be revised to expedite that requirement. This is precisely the type of scenario that has been suggested both here at GRELJ and elsewhere with respect to the potential consequences for state and local governments that incorporate LEED into legislation by reference. Notwithstanding its performance-related issues, LEED itself continues to be a moving target and policymakers must guide themselves accordingly when considering the merits of this type of legislative activity.

I also think the Chronicle article is noteworthy because it suggests- once again- an overarching perception that simply collecting an increased volume of building performance metrics will solve the LEED performance gap. For example, consider the following quote from architect Jennifer Devlin of San Francisco-based firm EHDD: “LEED has done an exceptional job of raising awareness. And the U.S Green Building Council recognizes that tracking energy use is vital to the sustainable building movement.” LEED has unquestionably raised public awareness about the environmental impact of the built environment and put building performance on the front page of major media outlets such as the New York Times and the Chronicle. But, as USGBC’s Building Performance Initiative and other efforts ramp up this fall, I think it is critical to keep in mind Larry Spielvogel’s thoughts from our last article here at GRELJ that the question of improving building performance is highly complex and clearly one that cannot be solved by simply compiling a longer spreadsheet.

• Green Building Standard Seen as Flawed (SFC)

• Redevelopers Beware – SF Ordinance is LEED on Acid (gbNYC)