(E11) LEED v5's Blueprint for Decarbonized, Efficient Buildings, in New Construction Projects

To stabilize the climate, the new construction building sector must be largely decarbonized by 2050. The tough news is that, starting now, all new buildings should be designed to be low-to-no-carbon “2050 buildings”. The good news is that we know how to create such buildings now and it’s not rocket science. Because the electrical grids are rapidly decarbonizing and there are new, efficient technologies to generate heat via electricity, every new building can be a 2050 building.

The Energy and Atmosphere section of LEED v5 BD+C is structured to make it as easy as possible for all design teams to create the 2050 buildings the world needs. The credits provide an intuitive, step-by-step pathway that reward the good design practices that cumulatively deliver the low-carbon buildings of the future. No costly modeling is required to achieve all the credits, removing a potential hurdle to the development of decarbonized buildings. However, a modeling pathway is still available for complex buildings that want to optimize their approach to energy efficiency.

What is the 2050 building? There are three essential elements. It is electrified and will be carbon neutral when the rapidly decarbonizing electrical grids achieve carbon neutrality; it is a good grid citizen, designed to have low winter and summer peaks, which are the times of greatest stress for the grid; and it is designed to be energy efficient. But that’s not all. In addition, it monitors its energy performance to ensure that its systems don’t not get out of tune. And it provides and stores some of its energy onsite and it minimizes its greenhouse gas emissions from refrigerants.