There’s been a flurry of discussions this summer with City Council regarding LEED certification for the new Police Building. The more I listened, the more I had a sense that a little clarification might be helpful.
In honor of Kent’s longstanding commitment to sustainable practices, City Council adopted a policy a couple of years ago stating that new City buildings will be LEED certified. The LEED certification was viewed as the “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval for energy efficiency and the City policy was a way to publicly demonstrate the City’s commitment to sustainable building design and performance.
Fast forward a couple of years to this spring when we began doing interviews to hire an architectural firm to design the new Police Building and three different architectural firms mentioned that over time LEEDs has become yesterday’s news and most building codes and architectural design practices have incorporated LEEDs standards — to the point where the official LEEDs certificate had become little more than an expensive piece of paper.