The International Living Building Institute (ILBI) raised the bar in green building in December, launching version 2.0 of its Living Building Challenge (LBC) building rating system. The new version takes ILBI’s already high standard, which requires buildings to produce their own energy, capture and process their own water, and release minimal toxins, to new heights with accountability for local food production, social justice, community scale impacts, and unrestricted access to nature.

The Living Building Challenge was first introduced three years ago by ILBI in co-operation with the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (CRGBC) under the mandate of “fundamentally changing the built environment.” CRGBC is one of three original chapters of the US Green Building Council and also a chapter of the Canada Green Building Council. The BC branch of CRGBC administers the Living Building Challenge in Canada.

Unlike LEED’s points rating system, LBC comprises of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals,’ which are subdivided into twenty imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. Petals include: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity, and Beauty.

Another important feature of LBC 2.0 is that while it is applicable to individual commercial, institutional, or residential buildings, it has also been expanded to include certification for small in-home remodels, community initiatives, and infrastructure projects including bridges, roads, and parks.

Sections in the infrastructure component cover street intersections, parking surface area, and total allowable pervious and impervious surface cover, among others, says Eden Brukman, vice-president with International Living Building Institute and research director with Cascadia Region Green Building Council.

As an example, maximum curb-to-curb or shoulder-to-shoulder street and intersection widths are designated and call for visual separation in the form of pedestrian or bike lane thorough fares. Circulation routes must allow for pedestrian traffic and different modes of transportation, and neighbourhood development with intersections is valued over cul-de-sacs. Allowable parking surface area without a visual separation is limited – additional parking needs can be addressed with underground or stacked structures.

Version 2.0 addresses urban agriculture, requiring a minimum amount of site square footage be dedicated to food production except in dense urban environments, and a new “car-free living” imperative improves the potential for a majority of people living in a neighborhood to have a productive and rich lifestyle without needing a car. 

The Living Building Challenge also stands out by drawing attention to social and economic issues like outsourcing of manufacturing, the down side of global trade, urban sprawl, and marginalization. The Equity section promotes ways to create equal access and requires unrestricted access to natural elements like rivers and shorelines, even when constructed on private property.

There are approximately 70 projects throughout North America that are pursuing LBC certification, and one registered project in Frace. The program is primarily performance-based, requiring a minimum of 12 months of operational data to achieve certification.

The program’s materials Red List will be the biggest hurdle for all projects, says Brukman. For instance, the list forbids PVC and other commonly-used plastics. “[Alternatives] are not often used in typical commercial applications because of cost issues, which relate to people not knowing an alternative exists,” says Brukman. “So the question is, ‘Who is going to start closing the loop to show that the demand is there?’”

Jessica Wooliams, co-director of BC’s Cascadia chapter says nine Canadian projects have registered for LBC certification, and as many as ten others are aiming for it.
The system is more of a step beyond LEED, rather than direct competition with it, says Wooliams, adding that both the USGBC and the CaGBC endorse the program.

“When the Platinum level was defined, it was assumed by many to be the highest level of environmental performance possible. That isn’t the case anymore. LEED Platinum remains a significant achievement to attain, but there is a real appetite in the marketplace for a measure of true sustainability.”

Whether developers will find the program as marketable as LEED and other, better-known programs remains to be seen.

“In LEED you want to step back and look at the owner’s priorities and see what they spell out on the card,” says Brukman. “With Living Building Challenge you present an idea and see how far the client is willing to go.”

In an effort to measure increases in initial capital costs, ILBI conducted the Living Building Financial Study completed in 2009. It conceptually transformed nine LEED Gold projects to LBC buildings and rated them according to climate zone and energy use.

“[The team] calculated the incremental cost premiums and forecast them through time, based on energy savings, water savings, operations and maintenance, and other savings,” says Wooliams. “One interesting finding is that when you push a building as far as you do for a Living Building, certain costs actually go down.”

The study suggests that certain building types – among them, university and grade school classrooms – now have payback times as low as two to seven years, with a four to nine percent upfront increase over a LEED Gold project.

The paybacks of hospitals ranges between six and 16 years, depending on the region. “Perhaps most importantly, the study reveals the places where we need policy incentives in order to make these buildings work,” says Wooliams.