We build green! Oh..do you now?

You see this alot these days, we build green! Our buildings are enviro-friendly! Oh, but are they now.

The problem is that there are lots of different levels of certification from different certifying bodies. The elements that go into each certification are also a bit difficult to understand. Now, don’t get me wrong and think I’m bagging on Green Certification, it’s just important to understand that their idea of green might be different from yours.

The two most frequent types of certification you will find in this area are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Master Builders Associations Built Green certification. LEED uses the following designations, Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum. While Built Green uses 1-star, 2-star, 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star as their designation levels.

From what I understand Built Green is a builder self-certified checklist (at least for the lowest three of its five star ratings) while all builders who want LEED certification have to submit their projects for third-party review.

Now with LEED, even though these projects are all third-party reviewed, there still are some questions about what this certification really means. I recommend checking out this really good article in FastCompany about LEED green certification levels, it takes a very good critical look at LEED’s pros and cons.

So, I guess at the end of the day it seems like the best thing to do is to not rely too much on the certification levels but instead ask the builder for their checklist of what they’ve done to make their building green, and decide for yourself whether this is good enough for you.

To read through the specifics that go into each Built Green star rating, check out their certification checklists. For more info about LEED, check out this page.

Image: 4-star certified Conover Commons from The Cottage Company.