State Rep. Louis Molepske Jr., D-Stevens Point, said his bill still would require all public buildings of at least 10,000 square feet — including state, municipal and public school district projects — be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver standards. But the measure no longer would mandate LEED certification.
"We're making it flexible enough so that the (Wisconsin Department of Administration) would determine whether a building is built to an energy efficient standard that, at the base, meets the LEED silver standard," he said. "That way, the third party review doesn't have to be the (U.S. Green Building Council). It can be Green Globes or any similar type of third party audit."
Molepske Jr.
Green Globes was developed by the Green Building Initiative as an alternative to LEED and is the preferred green building standard in Canada. The Green Globes registration and verification cost is about $5,000 to $7,000 per project, which is less than LEED's general certification costs of $10,000 or more.
Nobody challenged the original bill's intent to encourage development of more green buildings in Wisconsin, Molepske said. Instead, he said, the battle has been over how to achieve that goal. He said LEED silver standards should not be difficult for builders.
"It was said in testimony that if you're not already building to LEED silver, you should find a new job," he said. "It's pretty easy to get there."
It's helpful to open the field up to include Green Globes and other certification processes — Truelove said Renschler developed its own certification process that can be done for $1,000 — but he said allowing a third party of the owner's choosing opens the doors to dishonesty. "People are generally good," he said. "But people will also say they're doing things when no one's watching."
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