Rating systems (i.e. collections of universal best practices) have their place but they should not be dictating your design if it doesn't make sense.

LEED as a Value-Adding Process

In your previous experience with LEED, has it added value to the project beyond attaining the owner's goal of achieving certification and receiving a plaque? Or in your previous experience, has LEED felt like more of a paper shuffling exercise with a convoluted set of rules and requirements? We hold the strong conviction that LEED has the potential to add considerable value to the project's design if engaged with the right mindset and process. The vast majority of the market has adopted LEED and uses it in a way that simply layers green "things" on top of standard processes. This does not actually align with the original intent of LEED and simply perpetuates the current mindset that doing what's right has to cost more. LEED is a reasonable assessment tool but a terrible design tool. In our mind, LEED is not a thing but a part of the process of your project engaging with the whole living systems which surround it. We put LEED in its proper place.

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‍Telling your aspirations from a hole in the ground‍

What is the potential of your project to affect the living systems (neighborhood, community, ecosystems) within which it is embedded? For us, a green building is a project that sees itself as a nodal intervention that seeks to affect change within larger systems. Viewing your project as an instrument for affecting positive change begins with an articulation of its aspirations relative to those larger systems. Rating systems are simply a proxy for articulating the impacts of your particular project against a set of best practices. Our approach is to unpack the project's deepest aspirations and then match them with the appropriate rating system that reflects the values embedded in your highest ambitions.

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‍The complexity of the world cannot be defined by a checklist

How can rating systems be used as developmental tools relative to the design process? What are the synergies between credits? Revealing the interconnections between your values and aspirations, and specific design considerations often demonstrates the limitations of using a design check list to drive design decisions. Aspirations are your polestar, rating systems are third-party assessment tools. Compounding benefits can often be discovered through analysis focused on the interactions between the project and its surrounding and between the various systems that comprise the building as a whole. It is the process of applying a particular rating system that provides the true value, not the rating system itself.

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Doing (thinking) as you have always done (thought) will get you what you have always gotten

How has your design process evolved? What questions are you asking your project teams that you haven't asked before? No codification can account for the reality of interdependence in complex systems; so we need a process that can. An integrative process entails a deliberate attempt on the part of the design team to examine the interrelationship between the building's various systems in an attempt to optimize the performance of the whole in alignment with the project's values and aspirations. This requires true collaboration, not just coordination, along with a the technical acumen to capitalize on the synergistic benefits of systems thinking. This examination can often yield reductions in first costs as well as operating costs but examines value beyond these surface costs by evaluating impacts on comfort, indoor air quality, and other parameters which add value to health and productivity of those working within the building. It also adds greater value to the community and ecosystem within which the project is embedded and inextricably connected. (Check out How to Integrative Process.)

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A shifting mindset creates the conditions for change

How would you create a green building if rating systems didn't exist? Rating systems, by their very nature, automatically limit your thinking and guide you to a series of best practices that may, or may not, make sense for your project's values and aspirations. Using an integrative process with a regenerative aim connects us directly to those larger systems we seek to affect. It is a regenerative point of view that opens the door to true transformation. (See Regenerative Technology.)

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7group's experience with a variety of rating systems

7group has been a member of USGBC since 2000 and has been intimately involved with developing LEED since its entry into the marketplace as a pilot program in 1997. The projects that generated the formation of 7group were two of the first 12 LEED certified projects worldwide, under version 1.0. Since then, 7group has led project teams on over 200 LEED certified projects. We have been LEED Certification Reviewers under contract with USGBC since 2003. Four of 7group's partners have been recognized as early LEED Fellows having been intricately involved in bringing LEED to market as LEED Faculty and volunteers. No one knows LEED BD+C better.

7group has served as a Living Building Challenge Ambassador since 2012. We have been apart of seven projects that have achieved or are pursuing full or Petal certification. Two of our projects, the Phipps Conservatory and Botanic Garden's Center for Sustainable Landscapes and the Willow School Health, Wellness and Nutrition project were among some of the first projects to achieve full LBC certification.