from the ground up - The Tyee

six core categories: sustainable sites (using urbanbrownfields good, ripping up prime farmland bad),water efficiency (both indoor and landscaping),energy and atmosphere (extra points for reducingcarbon emissions) materials and resources (the 500Mile Diet), indoor environmental quality (no New CarSmell) and innovation in design.LEED rating systems are points-based. A candidateproject must meet a slate of minimum standards inorder to be eligible. Once those prerequisites are met,candidate projects earn points by documenting thatthey have met or exceeded additional green buildingcriteria. Projects that earn 40 per cent or more ofavailable points are deemed LEED Certified. Projectsthat get 50 per cent earn LEED Silver rating, 60 percent earn LEED Gold, and 80 per cent earn LEEDPlatinum.Such a multifaceted rating system is neither simplenor inexpensive to administer. In order to make itwork, the Green Building Certification Institute hascertified more than 157,000 professionals to navigatethe LEED maze. (About 10,000 of whom are in Canada.)The USGBC also offers training at its annualGreenbuild conference. (The next is in Toronto.)LEED’s complex and continually evolving nature isalso the source of much criticism. Large developersgripe about the cost of hiring LEED professionals andthe time it takes to receive certification, while manysmall builders avoid LEED altogether.Built Green CanadaBuilt Green Canada, which has enrolled more than15,000 homes, is everything that LEED is not.Whereas LEED has been applied primarily on largeprojects, Built Green Canada was created for singlefamilyhomes and small multi-unit residences.Whereas LEED often requires the use of paid consultants,Built Green Canada posts its online checklistatop the front page of its web site and encourages allcomers to give it a spin.Whereas LEED was imported from the states, BuiltGreen Canada is a made-in-Alberta program.And whereas the Canadian Green Building Councilis on a mission to gradually upgrade laws and buildingcodes, the Built Green Canada is committed to a“non-regulatory market-driven approach to optimizethe use of innovative industry-based solutions to potentialenvironmental problems.”Built Green began as a discussion among some Albertahomebuilders, and evolved into a project of theCanadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA). Itsfounders examined several Built Green programs inthe United States, as well as the U.S. National Associationof Home Builders green home building guidelines.Built Green Canada was launched in Alberta in2003, nationwide the following year. (Click here forB.C.)The Built Green program is pointedly simple: (1.) Thebuilder must complete a two-day Built Green BuilderTraining course and become a Built Green CertifiedBuilder; (2.) The certified builder submits an enrollmentform, the completed checklist and a standardizedassessment of the home’s energy efficiency; (3.) Athird party energy auditor conducts a blower door testand confirms the energy assessment. Upon completionand inspection, the builder receives an EnerGuide forNew Houses rating label and a Built Green seal forthe home. Both are affixed to the furnace.The EnerGuide for New Houses rating and labelingsystem is the mandatory requirement at the heart ofthe Built Green program. EnerGuide is not unique toBuilt Green, but is a Canadian government program.It is based on a 100-point scale, with zero being theleast energy efficient and 100 being the most. In 2005,the average Canadian home rated 66 on the Ener-Guide scale.A Built Green home must achieve an EnerGuide forNew Houses rating of at least 72 to be certified. AnEnerGuide rating of 75 is required to earn a silver rating,77 earns a gold, and 82 earns a platinum.In addition, the online checklist offers variety of greenfeatures from which the builder selects a minimumnumber to meet a chosen achievement level. Thechecklist is revised annually.Advocates of the accessible and transparent BuiltGreen Canada program note that it has educated29