Does LEED BD+C for New Construction Provide a Realistic and Practical Sustainability Evaluation System?
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) provides valuable criteria for evaluating the sustainability of construction projects. However, it is not clear if in this point-based system, the evaluation credits are realistically and practically developed and weighted. To understand this, all the LEED-NC (v4) certified projects in the US were investigated (n = 797). The data was collected from the US Green Building Council (USGBC) website. A model was developed based on the predefined relationships between credit categories and the overall LEED scores. After validating the model through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the actual contribution of each credit category to the overall sustainability level was evaluated through structural equation modeling (SEM). The expected and actual contributions were then compared. The results showed that the expected contributions of the credit categories are not consistent with the actual influences thus demonstrating the need for redefining some of the credits and their corresponding weights.
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Construction Research Congress 2024
Pages: 505 - 514
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Published online: Mar 18, 2024
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