Arlington County a ‘platinum’ community for energy and environmental design

(The Center Square) — Arlington County was one of four among 54 applicants worldwide this year to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum certification, a designation awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED is a set of ever-evolving criteria used to evaluate a community’s buildings, waste management, water, transportation, energy and natural systems according to sustainability standards and practices.

The county was the first community to earn a platinum rating from the USGBC after it expanded the scope of its certifications from buildings to cities and communities. It is one of 153 communities (134 in the U.S. and three in Virginia) currently LEED certified.

Communities can range from retirement communities to neighborhoods, business districts, cities and counties. Criteria in nine categories are used to determine LEED certification status. If a community earns less than 40 points, it’ll remain uncertified. At 40 points and higher, a community can obtain mere or silver, gold or platinum certification.

“Arlington County was evaluated on its open-space planning, solid-waste management, stormwater management, affordable-housing planning and public schools – the key areas measured for social, economic and environmental sustainability,” according to a statement from the county.

The county has 16 LEED-certified buildings, most of which earned the silver or gold status, and one – Discovery Elementary School – that obtained a LEED Zero certification, awarded to buildings that achieve net zero carbon emissions, either through emissions “avoided or offset over a period of 12 months.”

The chair of the Arlington County Board, Christian Dorsey, told The Center Square that it’s challenging to build net zero buildings that, between that and the relative infrequency of constructing new government buildings, it’s something the county can only “consider every few years or so.”

Certification alone is a high bar, partly because LEED is continually revising and improving its standards, making it more and more challenging to attain – which Dorsey thinks is good.

“No matter when you do it, it’s hard – and that’s by design…And that being hard by design is, I think, a very useful thing because otherwise, we wouldn’t necessarily have the incentives to strive to do more,” Dorsey said.

This means buildings awarded LEED certification years ago may lose it over time.

For new buildings or substantial renovations to existing buildings, achieving certification starts in the pre-development phase, according to Dorsey.

“You come up with your concept, and then you take some materials from the Green Building Council to assess what you think you can achieve in terms of a score…and you identify a level of certification that you’d like to get,” Dorsey said.

The county always aims for a minimum of LEED-Silver.

“What that means is, if we don’t think in the pre-development process that we can achieve that, we really have to rethink whether it’s appropriate for us to invest in that kind of building,” Dorsey said.

In terms of cost, the county doesn’t “do any deep analysis as to whether or not green buildings are more expensive than others.” Instead, it relies on existing studies that estimate the construction cost to be 2-10% higher, according to Dorsey. But they’re okay with that.

“One, our point of view is that it doesn’t matter because this is a value, but two – and this is what makes it easier – that may be true in terms of up-front capital costs, but over time, these are more affordable buildings to operate because of the energy savings and the energy efficiency,” Dorsey said.

Lubber Run Community Center is one of the county’s LEED-Gold certified buildings and was completed in 2020. It’s over 50,000 square feet and, including the building and attached park, cost about $48 million to build.