| Summary: | The United States Green Building Council's (USGBC's) Leadership in Energy
and Design Green Building Rating System (LEED) is a product of its time
and place. It is a fundamental assumption of this thesis that the most conscious,
effective change is made through an understanding of causes and origins.
That context is one of underlying North American values, as represented
by North American consumer culture, environmentalism, and worldview.
Having its origins in consumer culture, green consumerism is a paradox
which addresses superficial change but not the underlying values and worldviews
that drive large-scale change. North American environmentalism is
uniquely wilderness-focussed and biophilic. And North American worldviews
are undergoing a shift, or integration, which has consequences for the development
of LEED.
If the values of a consumer culture are embedded in LEED, and, if those
values are opposed to that of a sustainable culture, then what will be the
ultimate effect of LEED on the drive to increased building sustainability? By
elaborating on the socio-cultural and conceptual origins from which LEED
has arisen, which includes the creative tension between the environmental
and industry groups that created it, the LEED system becomes contextualized
and internal motivations illuminated.
The implicit value-context is examined via qualitative, theoretical examination
of the literature concerning consumer culture, environmentalism and
worldviews, while the explicit social context for LEED is addressed through
a case study conducted at the Vancouver Island Technology Park (LEED Gold award, 2002). Occupants were surveyed about their attitude toward the
LEED label, green building, and environmental labelling in general.
It was found that North American consumer culture was evident in how
LEED is marketed and delivered. North American environmentalism was
evident in the content of LEED performance areas. North American worldviews,
both mechanistic and holistic, were evident in how the LEED system
could be used, as a checklist for green building features, and/or as a holistic,
integrative design tool. Recommendations were given to both environmentalists
and industrialists in four areas, concerning LEED system specificity, green
consumerism, the potentially problematic effect of technology transfer in
other cultural contexts, and the differences between implementing green vs.
sustainable building. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of === Graduate
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