Efficacy of LEED-certification in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission for large New York City office buildings

In this paper 2011 energy consumption, green house gas (GHG) emission, and ENERGY STAR Energy Performance Rating (EPR) data for 953 office buildings in New York City are examined. The data were made public as a result of New York City's local law 84. Twenty-one of these office buildings were identified as LEED-certified, providing the opportunity for direct comparison of energy performance data for LEED and non-LEED buildings of the same type, time frame, and geographical and climate region. With regard to energy consumption and GHG emission the LEED-certified buildings, collectively, showed no savings as compared with non-LEED buildings. The subset of the LEED buildings certified at the Gold level outperformed other NYC office buildings by 20%. In contrast LEED Silver and Certified office buildings underperformed other NYC office buildings. The average EPR for the LEED buildings was 78, 10 pts higher than that for all NYC office buildings, raising questions about the validity and interpretation of these EPR's. This work suggests that LEED building certification is not moving NYC toward its goal of climate neutrality. The results also suggest the need to re-examine some aspects of ENERGY STAR's benchmarking tool.