Amari Roskelly: How to become LEED certified

 

Amari Roskelly works as a sustainability coordinator for Jacobs Engineering Inc., a construction company with a great emphasis on sustainable practices. Jacobs Engineering specializes in consulting commercial, governmental and industrial companies. Their goal is to improve projects by applying the principles of sustainability. At the same time, Jacobs provides a wide range of other services, including construction, engineering, and environmental safety services.  Jacobs has a Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accreditation and builds sustainable practices at its own offices. The company attempts to achieve economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Therefore, employees are viewed as a core value of the company and a driving force for the company’s success.

 Amari Roskelly is very passionate about her work at Jacobs and hopes that sustainability will be integrated to the structure of every business entity. However, her fear is that sustainability as a trend may be only temporary and, in 10 years from now, it will be less practiced within the organizations.

For Amari Roskelly, buildings are self-sufficient human organisms. With the right passive design in buildings construction and implementation of sustainable practices, the environment as a whole will benefit. In terms of an economic advantage, Amari Roskelly says, it may take years before returns on the investments from $1,000,000 of solar panels will start to pay off.

To understand better what it takes to become LEED certified, Amari Roskelly discusses the major requirements for companies to satisfy in order to receive the accreditation. There are 4 levels of certification, and these are: certified, silver, gold, and platinum. Each level of certification requires a certain number of points. The company that pursues a goal to become LEED certified can obtain these points from implementing sustainable practices from the following rating system categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental qualities. Extra points will be given to the companies that bring about innovations toward reduction in energy use.

From Amari Roskelly’s perspective, there is one limitation of the LEED certification.  It has no check and balance system. It is very common for companies to stop working on new projects toward energy-efficiency use after they receive their certifications. Amari Roskelly believes that LEED should be a continuous process toward the improvements in energy use.