Beyond LEED: Regenerative Design

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is widely accepted in the United States as the standard for sustainable building practices. The program’s willingness to evolve and integrate new technologies and strategies since its inception in 1998 created the formation of an increasingly more sustainable building community. In this vein, the Beyond LEED symposium aimed to identify areas that can help LEED advance from sustainable design to regenerative design. The symposium was held in partnership with the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), BNIM Architects, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the U.S. Green Building Council. It was sponsored by American Institute of Architects (AIA), AREA Real Estate, International Interior Design Association [IIDA] Texas-Oklahoma Chapter, L.M. Scofield Company, Lake|Flato Architects, the Texas Society of Architects, The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (UTSOA), The University of Texas at Austin Center for Sustainable Development, and Zachry Construction Company.¹

Frederick Steiner, Dean of UTSOA, opened the symposium asserting that it is time to transition from sustainable design towards regenerative design. David Lake, principal of Lake|Flato Architects followed, positing that LEED should evolve from the ethos of “doing less harm” towards “doing good” and called for design that expands boundaries, is built to endure and evolve, that catalyzes the reconnection of communities, and balances ecology, economy, and humanity.

Steven Moore, co-moderator with Michael Conroy, called for any practice of regenerative design to be transdisciplinary and to enable technological, environmental, and social changes to co-evolve. Conroy stated that this should be accomplished in the context of the marketplace. Arguing that voluntary systems of certification, such as LEED, internalize the ethical qualities of development, Conroy contended that consumers will pay a higher price for regenerative design if they trust in the contingent social and environmental benefits. The Green Building Council, he argued, should embrace regenerative design and foster a strong relationship with non-profits and NGOs that give voluntary programs, like LEED, the credibility needed for greater market penetration.

The symposium was subsequently divided into four panels that addressed extending boundaries, comparing strategies, integrating health, and expanding influence. Each panelist made a short presentation followed by a discussion between the members of the panel before the conversation was opened to the audience.

Fundamental Challenges to LEED focused on expanding the boundary of LEED projects to create more high performance and regenerative places. The premise was that buildings do not function in isolation and, therefore, should not be judged as isolated objects. Further, future projects should be judged in the context of their geographical, ecological, historical, and cultural surroundings. Within this new structure, architects, regulators, developers/owners, and inhabitants can come to a consensus that balances the social, economic, legal, and aesthetic values of the stakeholders. Ultimately LEED could become a form of cultural assessment with the success of a project being judged by its usefulness towards society.

Making LEED Contextual and Complex compared the LEED accreditation process with that of the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) and a community planning approach in Nuremberg, Germany. There was consensus that a robust effort needs to be made to collect and publish data from case studies to measure performance of the varying strategies. As pilot projects have been analyzed there has been a growing concern that LEED accreditation has become overly complicated with some credits being arbitrary rather than based on empirical evidence. By comparison, SITES addresses concerns of scale, boundary, and empirical analysis. Based on ecosystem services, its analytic approach emphasizes empirical analysis of systems on the site. In the case of Nuremberg, the city has benefitted from a strong planning ethos within the municipal government and with the ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality, it demonstrates the long term benefits of more thorough analysis.

Expert + Knowledge = the Future focused on strategies to better involve vulnerable and underrepresented populations in the development process. The Communities Benefit Approach (CBA) was highlighted as an attempt to create a “win-win-win” partnership through a negotiated contract among communities, the...