It’s no secret that sustainability has become one of the biggest buzz words in media today. With climate change documentaries dominating our televisions and energy prices soaring, few issues are drawing as much attention as the current state of the environment. While many issues remain controversial, one issue has not: We have a limited supply of resources, and the cost of doing business is skyrocketing as world demand for those resources increases.

During the past two decades, the focus on green building by environmentalists, architects and engineers has gained considerable acceptance in the business community. Beyond the perceived moral implications that green building addresses, recent studies performed by the U.S. Green Building Council suggest that sustainable design can reduce a business’ operating costs by 8-9 percent, and increase building values by nearly 8 percent.

But what is sustainable design? Since its inception in 1993, the U.S. Green Building Council has taken a leadership role in defining the process. Comprised of more than 15,700 member companies and organizations, the USGBC developed the Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design certification system that provides universal benchmarks and standards for planners, architects and engineers to use when designing or renovating a green building.

Developed by the USGBC through the late ’90s and established in 2000, LEED is more than just a certification process for green building. It includes a comprehensive set of objectives aimed to define and integrate the green building process, promote competition among green builders and raise public awareness about the benefits of building green. Moreover, its goal is to encourage planning teams and developers to design projects that can sustain themselves indefinitely.

Through the use of a point system, building projects can obtain one of four certification levels – LEED Certified, LEED Silver, LEED Gold and LEED Platinum. While LEED Certified requires the fewest number of points, none of the certification levels are easy to obtain. Ideally, the developer, architect and engineering team need to be committed from the beginning to obtain the certification. Typically, the project should be registered as a LEED project with the USGBC prior to commencement.

Once registered, the team must track the progress of the project and document each effort to maximize water efficiency, promote sustainable site-selection and energy efficiency, interior environmental quality and overall innovation and design of the project. There are several ways that the planning team could accomplish these objectives. One common practice is diverting water used for cooling into sewage conveyance systems – which provides two separate water uses from the same source. Another innovative way

that architects and engineers maximize water efficiency is by using decomposed granite instead of pavement in walkways and areas surrounding the building. This provides a two-fold benefit. First, the granite reduces water run-off, thereby percolating and irrigating the surrounding landscape. The granite also minimizes reflective or absorbed heat (called hardscaping), which causes a cooling effect to the surrounding environment. The reduction in heat leads to decreased energy usage for the facility.

To illustrate the competitive nature of the LEED Certification process, only 14 new construction projects in Texas received the Gold level or higher during the past decade. And to date, there has only been one Platinum level certification in the state.

Today, the LEED certification process is driving the entire building industry toward the use of renewable materials and energy-efficient building products from the earliest stages of development. According to USGBC estimates, the annual U.S. market in green building products and supplies has risen from $7 billion in 2005, to $12 billion today. The growth of this industry has also spurred the USGBC to encourage LEED development in areas beyond new construction.

In its earliest stages, LEED has already made a significant impact in the way that city planners, architects and engineers develop our communities. By changing the focus from short-term profit and tax revenue generation, to long-range sustainability, communities will benefit from the reduced strain on local infrastructure and natural resource consumption. Businesses will benefit financially from reduced operating costs and better employee health and wellness. And, individually, we will all benefit from a better quality of life.

Eric Claycamp is an associate principal with Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford. He was the LEED coordinator for the J. Lindsay Embrey Engineering Building at Southern Methodist University.