Florida, along with so many landmarks and achievements to its credit, now owns another landmark to boast of for so many years to come and for all the good reasons too. South Florida has clenched up a milestone for eco friendly construction. Now 200 buildings of commercial purposes hold the certification of Leadership in Energy and Environment, also commonly known as the LEED program.
The 200th Building- where and what
The 200th Building to hold the LEED certificate is the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. The building spans in an area of about 100,000 square foot. The building consists of a laboratory and an office space. The building is situated in the campus of Florida Atlantic University located in Jupiter. The building received the second highest level certificate- gold, awarding through the authority of U.S – Green Building Council. This has come included in group’s Chapter about South Florida.
The point based LEED system of certification
The LEED certification is quite systematic and based on a point system. The points are allotted for various aspects of eco friendliness such as efficiency in terms of water and energy, scope and use of recycling, eco friendly paint, carpets and option of mass transit accessibility. There are three levels of the LEED certificates awarded to the buildings- silver, gold and platinum.
The lure of LEED certification
In the region of South Florida, people and construction companies are increasingly becoming more aware about LEED certification. This has meant an increase in the certification of the buildings. This year alone, there have been 61 buildings and many more are in the pipeline. The chapter went on to say that that number does not include the residential projects and those building projects that the respective construction companies wanted to keep the progress a confidential matter.
The president of the local chapter released an official statement in which he went on record saying that they applaud the companies, their owners, Municipality Corporation and authorities and everyone who played a part in the efforts to create an environmentally healthy and resource efficient buildings in 2012 and prior years. He added that it was unquestionably the right thing to do for the communities in which we spend all our time in work and play.
The Government Plays a Big Role
The notable part of the whole affair is the initiative taken by the government. Most of the LEED certified buildings are part of government offices and the high end luxury buildings that take the mantle of office space for large companies. However, this fact has not stopped several small and private start ups that applied for the certificate before the recession hit. This fact was brought to the limelight by the engineer Mike Pella of Deerfield Beach based Kamm Consulting.
This has encouraged the governments to popularise greener buildings. This helps in keeping the operational costs down too. Increase of efficiency of water usage and energy usage can cut down electricity bills and eco friendly buildings do require lesser maintenance as proved by the engineers.
The downside of LEED certificates
LEED certifications have also seen the constructors and developers taking a chance to increase the rents and other costs and lure tenants into the buildings. The firm headed by Pella is at present working on more than a dozen projects that aim to seek LEED certification from the government. The buildings range from government buildings to medical facility.
On the downside, seeking LEED certification has been so far a time consuming, lengthy and expensive affair. Sometimes the time goes up to a year and might cost about 3% of the total building costs as estimated.
But as there are more ups than downs in this whole process, the authority is bent on improving the process to make it less complicated and easier for the users.
