Green Guarantee TM

Earning LEED certification can be a fickle process, subject to complex credit interpretations and appeals, heavy documentation, budgetary considerations and ultimately, a ruling from the U.S. Green Building Council’s sister organization, the Green Building Certification Institute. For those reasons, LEED consultants -- even ones that have worked on hundreds of projects -- have made a point not to promise certification to their clients.

That is, until now. Energy Ace Inc., an Atlanta-based energy services and LEED consulting firm headed by Wayne Robertson, is offering what it calls the industry’s first LEED certification guarantee.

At a time when many cities and states have begun mandating LEED-certified buildings, “We can offer clients a certainty that their project is going to be certified and remove that anxiety,” Robertson said.

The guarantee works like this: clients must allow Energy Ace to oversee LEED administration, fundamental commissioning and energy modeling for each project -- services that the company provides in-house. After signing a standard service contract, Energy Ace would conduct LEED charettes -- the project phase where sustainability measures are mapped out -- and at that point, if everything looks good and team members are cooperative, the contract would be amended to guarantee certification.

If a project misses its LEED target level (like Silver or Gold) or fails to earn certification altogether, Energy Ace would refund its LEED administration fee, which is between 30 percent and 45 percent of its total fees, Robertson said.

For instance, there are hundreds of different combinations of sustainability and energy measures that may be used within a building to earn certification, and many different parties -- architects, engineers, contractors and facilities personnel -- must be aligned and working cooperatively.

LEED projects can take years from the time of registration to certification, a period in which “many activities are happening simultaneously,” according to Robertson.

And most of all, the final say on certification is not in the hands of LEED consultants, but granted only after thorough review by individuals at the Green Building Certification Institute.

“You don’t know what a reviewer will have issues with on a particular project,” said Kara S. Strong, a LEED-Accredited architect and senior project manager with Sustainable Design Consulting LLC in Washington, DC, who is currently managing a LEED project for American University.

“Some reviewers understand whether or not you’re meeting the LEED credit intent better than others. Some may challenge you on credits that you’ve submitted successfully on other projects,” she said.

Robertson, an energy expert who holds the Professional Engineer, Certified Commissioning Agent and LEED-AP designations, weighed those pitfalls, and said his first instinct on LEED guarantees was to say no.

But at a breakfast meeting with architects at Atlanta’s Ansley Country Club three months ago, Robertson was already reassessing the idea. The group was discussing the city’s pending sustainable building ordinance, which would recognize LEED certification as one form of compliance.

“One of the senior architects was saying that these mandates are putting us in a position to offer a guarantee, and we can’t do that,” Robertson said. “And I’m thinking, yes we can.”

Energy Ace has 97 LEED projects that are complete or currently underway since its founding in 2002. “We’ve done so many LEED projects and we have such a tremendous success rate,” Robertson added. “We know Energy Ace is able to provide superior work and service, and are ready to back that claim by guaranteeing our work."