Scorecards and Historic Buildings

By Donovan D. Rypkema

We seem to need scorecards, and not just in schools or in sports. We compulsively turn to rating systems for everything from movies to cars to restaurants to internet matchmaking services. Consumers Digest exists for the sole purpose of rating products and David Letterman has made his career creating top ten lists.

So I suppose it is inevitable that rating systems have been developed for buildings, to help us make the "build it/save it/alter it/get rid of it" decisions. But the development of these systems has evolved much differently in the U.S. than in Great Britain. In Great Britain, rating systems have been developed to evaluate buildings for their contribution to sustainable development; in the U.S. the rating systems focus exclusively on green buildings. In the U.S., many so-called "green architects," environmentalists and manufacturers of green gizmos would have you believe that sustainable development and green buildings are one in the same. They are not!

Environmental responsibility is certainly an important piece of the sustainable development equation, but it is far from the sole component. That is widely recognized in much of the rest of the world. In the Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative, for example, a base principle is established for "shaping future development which should be, not only environmentally, but also economically and socially sustainable." There is little such understanding in the U.S. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency issued their five-year strategic plan, complete with goals, objectives and standards of measurement – 188 fact-filled pages. But the phrase "sustainable development" doesn't even merit mentioning.

This myopic view of sustainability subsequently manifests itself in the scoring systems. In the U.S. we have the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), whose major accomplishment has been the creation of checklists to determine if a building should get a gold, silver or platinum star over the door. This is LEED – an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. There are actually several different LEED checklists – one for new construction, one for operation and maintenance of existing buildings, one for schools, etc. And there is one for homes. But as it is designed exclusively for new construction, you can get points for dual flush toilets, not having HVAC in the garage and harvesting rainwater, but not a single point for being an historic house – the ultimate in recycling.

USGBC says it is trying to move beyond narrowly defined environmental criteria, as evidenced by its most recent checklist – LEED for Neighborhood Development. In this version, reusing an historic building garners you one whole point – out of 106.

Contrast this narrow perspective with a scoring system developed in Great Britain and found in the excellent publication Building Sustainability in the Balance. This approach uses the "triple bottom line" understanding of sustainable development, which certainly recognizes environmental responsibility, but also economic responsibility and social responsibility. Thus the building-level analysis is much more balanced and comprehensive than any of the LEED approaches. And it applies equally well to existing buildings as to proposed new buildings.

The "green building" attributes certainly get credit, with points awarded for meeting environmental standards, for energy consumption, for environmental quality and for technological adaptability.

Within the environmental element of the sustainable-development analysis, points are also awarded for embodied energy. Embodied energy is defined as "the total expenditure of energy involved in the creation of the building and its constituent materials." The developers of this system point out that embodied energy represents the energy that would be wasted in discarding a building or creating a replacement. They further caution that "Ignoring this aspect in rating systems…can lead to the promotion of systems which actually increase the total energy dedicated to the building." That is exactly what is happening in the U.S. today, as embodied energy is not part of the calculations in any of the LEED scoring systems.

But in the British approach, balanced with the environmental characteristics section are additional scoring components that consider economic and social factors. Among the economic measurements are building efficiency, maintenance of the fabric and economic return. There is also, appropriately, consideration given to the functional adaptability of the structure. In the social responsibility category are such considerations as "cultural importance," "cultural adaptability" and "lovability." None of the LEED checklists include any of these attributes.

Further, this comprehensive approach measures both the interests of internal stakeholders and the external perspective. Internal stakeholders include the developers, owners and occupants of the building itself. External stakeholders include adjacent property owners, transportation planners, local government and the broader community. This approach overcomes the lot-line myopia that the only ones affected by real-estate decisions are those within the property boundaries. The British system tries to balance the interests of the building owner and the interests of the community. LEED tries to balance the interests of the manufacturers of waterless toilets with the interests of solar cell salesmen.

While the British approach doesn't ensure that every historic building is preserved (nor should it), at least the contributions of heritage structures to comprehensive sustainable development are accounted for. But the acknowledgement of that contribution isn't limited to the historic buildings themselves. The Scottish initiative makes a commitment to "creating an enduring legacy of high quality, distinctive new development which meets people's needs and aspirations today (and) protects and enhances the unique natural and built heritage." The number of times that heritage resources are mentioned in the EPA Strategic Plan? That would be zero.

Now cities all over the country are adopting their own "green" policy initiatives. But modeled on the EPA and LEED, they are almost exclusively focused on green building technologies. Santa Fe, NM, certainly one of the most historic cities in America, recently adopted its own "Sustainable Santa Fe" document with plenty of discussion of solar panels and nothing whatsoever about historic preservation.

It would be one thing if the whole LEED approach were at least neutral toward historic buildings. But in recent months in both Indianapolis, IN, and Lexington, KY, prospective LEED certification has been used as the justification for demolishing historic buildings. The most common definition of sustainable development is "The ability to meet our own needs without prejudicing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." But the needs that are met – environmentally, economically, and socially – by historic buildings can never be available for future generations if they are demolished by this generation.

I outgrew the need for a gold star when I finished taking spelling tests in the fourth grade. But for those who still need them, I'll give you a giant one – in any color or precious mineral you choose. Get the EPA, the USGBC and the "green architects" to understand that there is far more to sustainable development than green buildings. The rest of the world seems to understand that. Why don't we?  

Donovan D. Rypkema is the principal of PlaceEconomics, a real estate and economic development consulting firm based in Washington, DC.

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