LEED Building Standards Fail to Protect Human Health

[Guest guest]

This is exactly what we, on Sickbuildings, have known for years. If a

building can't breathe, chances are, neither can the people. Throw some water

damage into the equation and it is like living in a petri dish where

things grow not only on the dish, but also you!

Here is the actual study:

_http://www.ehhi.org/reports/leed/_ (http://www.ehhi.org/reports/leed/)

In a message dated 8/20/2010 6:40:57 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,

tigerpaw2c@... writes:

16 Aug 2010: Opinion

LEED Building Standards

Fail to Protect Human Health

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LEED certification has emerged as the green standard of approval for new

buildings in the United States. But the criteria used for determining the

ratings largely ignore factors relating to human health, particularly the use

of potentially toxic building materials.

by john wargo

[Guest guest]

16 Aug 2010: Opinion

LEED Building Standards

Fail to Protect Human Health

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2306 & utm_source=feedburner & utm_mediu\

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LEED certification has emerged as the green standard of approval for new

buildings in the United States. But the criteria used for determining the

ratings largely ignore factors relating to human health, particularly the use of

potentially toxic building materials.

by john wargo

The LEED program — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is playing an

increasingly important role in the drive to make buildings in the United States

greener and more energy efficient. LEED is now the most prominent and widely

adopted green building certification program in the country, with architects and

developers striving to earn LEED's coveted platinum or gold rating, and an

increasing number of local, state, and federal regulations beginning to

incorporate LEED standards into official building codes.

But LEED — sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, an industry group — has

a glaring and little-known drawback: It places scant emphasis on factors

relating to human health, even as the largely unregulated use of potentially

toxic building materials continues to expand. One of LEED's major

accomplishments — saving energy by making buildings more airtight — has had the

paradoxical effect of more effectively trapping the gases emitted by the

unprecedented number of chemicals used in today's building materials and

furnishings. Yet, as the threat from indoor air pollution grows, LEED puts

almost no weight on human health factors in deciding whether a building meets

its environmental and social goals.

I was lead author of a report on this issue that was released in May, and I

recently met with Green Building Council executives, who made it clear that

LEED's management is deeply committed to an energy efficient future. Yet it also

was apparent that the certification system is unlikely to soon focus on health

with respect to hazardous chemicals.

At this point, LEED, a voluntary set of standards created by architects,

engineers and builders, can award its highest level of certification —

The job of setting standards for new construction should not be left to a

private-sector organization. platinum — to a structure that earns no credits for

air quality. In practice, the average LEED-certified building achieves only 6

percent of its total points for " indoor environmental quality, " the category

most closely tied to health, although some of these credits are often given for

lighting and thermal comfort rather than assurance of reduced exposure to

dangerous substances.

This fact points up a serious flaw in the program: The job of setting standards

for new construction — particularly health standards — should not be left to a

private-sector organization dominated by members who profit from the sale of

goods and services to the building sector.

The potential threats to human health — data suggest that increased chemical

exposure in indoor environments may be one reason behind a rapid rise in

childhood asthma, for example — require more aggressive action, primarily from

the federal government. Because the public interest in healthy,

energy-efficient, and environmentally safe buildings is enormous — and well

beyond the capacity, financial interests, and willingness of the building

industry to manage — the nation needs a comprehensive federal law to control the

chemical content of the built environment. LEED is simply not up to the job.

Toxics in Buildings

In 1999, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began testing

human tissue samples to detect the presence of environmental contaminants. CDC

scientists reported that most individuals carry a mixture of metals, plastic

polymers, pesticides, solvents, fire retardants, and waterproofing agents, all

commonly present in modern buildings. Children often carry higher concentrations

than adults.

Many of the chemical ingredients in these building materials are well known to

be hazardous to human health. Some are respiratory stressors, neurotoxins,

hormone mimics, carcinogens, reproductive hazards, or developmental toxins.

Thousands of synthetic and natural chemicals make up modern buildings, and many

materials and products " off-gas " and can be inhaled by occupants. Others may

erode from metal or plastic water pipes and end up in a glass of water.

The widespread use of such chemicals comes at a time when Americans spend, on

average, 90 percent of their time indoors or in vehicles. American children —

who increasingly forsake outdoor recreation to occupy themselves for more than

seven hours a day with electronic media — spend an astonishing 97 percent of

their lives indoors or in cars, according to a recent survey.

In December 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a list

of chemicals that " may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health and the

environment. " The EPA list includes four classes of

Programs such as LEED place relatively little emphasis on indoor air quality.

chemicals widely used in the building industry and approved for use by the LEED

rating system. These chemicals include phthalates (used as softeners in flexible

vinyl products, such as floor and wall coverings); short-chain chlorinated

paraffins (used in plastics); PBDEs (used as flame retardants in textiles,

plastics, and wire insulation); and perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA

(used for non-stick cookware and stain resistant materials). Many LEED-certified

buildings have been constructed using some of these compounds.

Plastics pose a special problem, as they now comprise nearly 70 percent of the

synthetic chemical industry in the United States. More than 100 billion pounds

of resins are produced each year, forming many different building materials,

including window and door casings, furnishings, electrical wiring, piping,

insulation, water and waste conduits, floor coverings, paints, appliances,

countertops, lighting fixtures, and electronics.

Hazardous chemicals have become components of LEED-certified indoor environments

primarily due to the failures of the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

and EPA's neglect of the problem. Congress has given the EPA limited authority

to require testing of likely hazardous chemicals in building products. Among

nearly 80,000 chemicals in commerce, EPA has required toxicity testing of only

200 in nearly 25 years. These test results led EPA to ban or phase out only five

chemicals. The overwhelming majority of chemicals in buildings remain untested,

meaning that new products may incorporate tens of thousands of untested

chemicals with no government oversight. Since TSCA places the burden of proof of

hazard on EPA, nearly all chemicals in building materials have escaped federal

testing and regulation.

Many sectors of the economy, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides, are

highly regulated by the federal government to protect public health. But the

building sector — which now produces $1.25 trillion in annual revenues, roughly

9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2009 — has escaped such federal

control. The lack of government regulation is explained, in part, by the

building industry's enormous financial power, but also by its recent success in

creating green building and development standards that give the impression of

environmental responsibility and protection of human health.

In fact, programs such as LEED place relatively little emphasis on indoor air

quality and the impact of " off-gassing " of chemicals on the health of a

building's occupants.

The impetus for the creation of the LEED program was the acknowledgment that

more than 100 million buildings in the U.S. consume 76 percent of the of the

nation's electricity. The U.S. Green Building Council — a private organization

with nearly 19,000 members, including developers, engineers, architects, and

building materials manufacturers — understandably created LEED to focus

primarily on energy conservation.

The LEED scoring system is weighted heavily toward energy conservation. The

largest category of possible credits for new construction encourages energy

conservation, either directly via use of renewable technologies — solar panels,

geothermal wells, insulation — or indirectly through

Testing of chemicals should be conducted by an independent,

government-supervised institute. demonstrations of reduced water use, proximity

to public transit, or use of locally produced materials.

LEED staff evaluate building performance, assign scores (a total of 100 points

is possible), and issue certificates based upon the total award to determine

whether " platinum, " " gold, " or " silver " standards have been achieved. These

designations often create eligibility for income tax credits, property tax

reductions, and lower interest loans. And these public subsidies often enhance

property value.

LEED has no requirement for post-occupancy air quality monitoring for

particulate matter or volatile organic compounds. These are primary threats to

health, especially among those with background respiratory and cardiovascular

disease.

The effect of many energy-conserving design features and materials is to

encourage better sealed and insulated buildings. Tighter structures lower the

exchange between indoor and outdoor air unless ventilation is carefully

monitored and managed. Since indoor air is often more contaminated by synthetic

chemicals than outdoor air, the effect may intensify occupants' chemical

exposures, increasing health risks.

Recently, I worked closely with colleagues at Environment and Human Health,

Inc., a non-profit organization comprised of medical doctors, as well as public

health and policy experts, to examine these questions. Our report, LEED

Certification: Where Energy Efficiency Collides with Human Health, called for a

federal law to control the chemical content of the built environment. Its

purpose should be to protect human health and environmental quality, to

encourage materials recycling, and to reduce waste.

What would key elements of a national healthy building policy include?

New chemicals should be tested to understand their threat to human health before

they are allowed to be sold. Existing chemicals should also be

EPA should maintain a national registry of the chemical content of building

products and furnishings. tested, rather than be exempted, as they are under the

Toxic Substances Control Act.

The burden of proof of safety should rest with chemical and building product

manufacturers; it's now up to EPA to demonstrate significant danger before the

agency may regulate chemicals in commerce. The testing itself should be

conducted by an independent, government-supervised institute, but paid for by

the manufacturers.

A clear environmental safety standard should also be adopted to prevent further

development and sale of persistent and bio-accumulating compounds. Priority

should be given to test and eliminate those compounds found in human tissues by

the Centers for Disease Control.

The chemical contents of building materials and their country of origin should

be identified. Without this knowledge, architects, engineers, and consumers have

no hope of avoiding products that could lead to environmental damage or ill

health effects.

EPA should maintain a national registry of the chemical content of building

products, furnishings, and cleaning products. The registry should also record

and update the chemical testing status and recyclability of a product. The

agency should create and maintain a single database that identifies chemical

toxicity, level of hazard, common sources of exposure, and an assessment of the

adequacy of data used to support these classifications.

The government should categorize building products to identify those that

contain hazardous compounds; those that have been tested and found to be safe;

and those that have been insufficiently tested making a determination of hazard

or safety impossible. This database should be freely available on the Internet.

Distinctive " high performance " environmental health standards should be adopted

to guide the construction and renovation of schools and surrounding lands.

Although LEED has a separate certification system in place for schools, it

suffers from the same limited attention to environmental health.

MORE FROM YALE e360

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Of the Truly Green Building

The practice of " commissioning, " in which an engineer monitors the efficiency of

a building from its design through its initial operation, just may be the most

effective strategy for reducing long-term energy usage, costs, and greenhouse

gas emissions from buildings, Conniff writes. So why is it so seldom

used?

READ MOREThe federal government should create incentives for companies to

research and create new chemicals that meet the health, safety, and

environmental standards described above. Funding for " green chemistry "

initiatives should be significantly increased and focused on benign substitutes

for the most widely used and well-recognized toxic substances.

The federal government should take responsibility for codifying these

requirements to protect human health in buildings and communities. EPA is the

most logical agency for this assignment given its congressionally mandated

purpose to protect human health. The Green Building Council should encourage

developers to move beyond minimum federal requirements, though this would

require substantial changes in the LEED certification system.

LEED has performed a valuable and significant public service, especially by

encouraging designs and technologies that conserve energy. The Green Building

Council has become a potent force in shaping the future of the building

industry. The program, however, does not offer sufficient protection to human

health, nor should it be expected to do so, given its limited legal authority,

expertise, and financial capacity. It's time to ensure through federal law that

green buildings become healthy buildings.

POSTED ON 16 Aug 2010 IN Biodiversity Climate Forests Policy & Politics

Pollution & Health Science & Technology North America North America