Congressman Denham Supports VI Position on Green Building Certification System
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 28, 2011 – Congressman Jeff Denham (R-CA 19) joined the Vinyl Institute and other industry-allied groups and companies to discourage the use of the Living Building Challenge (LBC) by the General Services Administration’s Green Building Advisory Committee (GBAC) as a rating system for possible use in certifying federal buildings.
His Dec. 21 letter to U.S. GSA Administrator Martha Johnson stated, “The LBC is deeply flawed and unsuitable as part of any credible federal green building program,” placing “unnecessary restrictions on building and construction at the worst possible time, putting jobs at risk, and further burdening the struggling construction sector. I urge you to remove it from further consideration immediately.”
In November, GSA stated three green building certification systems - LEED®, Green Globes™ US, and the Living Building Challenge, met the criteria as “most likely to encourage a comprehensive and environmentally sound approach to ratification of green buildings.”
The LBC, developed with input from the Healthy Building Network, includes PVC in a Red List of prohibited materials.
Denham, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, stated, “The Red List’s prohibition on certain compounds means that if an insulation of choice cannot be used, for example, because it is protected with a halogenated flame retardant, an alternate insulation would need to be selected” which may be less effective and cause the building to incur “a significant increase in operational expenses” and “higher insurance costs.” He pointed out some materials on the Red List, which include PVC, deliver key benefits to energy efficiency and other performance metrics that are central to the mission of GSA’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings.
Denham also noted LBC was not developed in an open consensus process, lacks a technical or scientific basis, and “showcases a material deselection approach in which pre-determined outcomes are injected into the system,” regardless of whether technical or performance data supports it.
Vinyl Institute President Richard Doyle stated, “I am gratified to see that the comments from Congressman Denham complement what we addressed with GSA. Of the three systems, only Green Globes has ANSI recognition and a legitimate claim to being consensus-based, with hundreds of buildings Green Globes certified to date. The Living Building Challenge system can only claim a handful of buildings meeting its restrictive and difficult criteria which over time, are likely to be more costly.”
For more information, contact:
Jeffrey B. Palmer
Director of Marketing & Communications
The Vinyl Institute
571-970-3327
jpalmer@vinylinfo.org
The Vinyl Institute represents the leading manufacturers involved in the production of PVC vinyl in the United States, and promotes the value of PVC and vinyl products to society.