Moving from Zero to Zero

“Why net zero?”

It’s a question I’m often asked. And the truth is that it’s always been about “zero.” Let me explain.

First, I need to talk about what my colleague Sarah Merricks and I witnessed while we were at the U.S. Green Building Council. We thoroughly enjoyed the work we did to strengthen the LEED brand as the leading global green building rating system and move the global built environment from awareness to adoption of green building practices.?

But such growth and expansion also inspired the emergence of a variety of standards and guidelines – primarily driven by people who were, crucially, constantly coming up with brilliant ideas and ways to improve. The issue we faced was that the development cycle of each version or upgrade of LEED took approximately 10 years to go from ideation to implementation. This conflicting situation made it instantly clear to us that we needed a different approach to developing LEED. As a technologist, I could not help thinking of how nowadays we can seamlessly update the apps in our phone or computer to ensure we have the latest features available to us.?

This led us to introduce two important evolutions or experiments to the LEED development process: The introduction of LEED Zero in 2017 and LEED v4.1 in 2018. While the approach to LEED v4.1 was hugely successful, well appreciated by the market, and served as a strong foundation for LEED v5, we did not experience the same success with LEED Zero primarily because it was available only for buildings that had already been certified to LEED and for not all buildings.

The reality is that with just five years to go until the deadline of the Paris Agreement, we need as many buildings as possible to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible to make up as much ground as we can. As I have long said, we need all buildings in.

Thanks to our first-hand experience, Sarah and I did not have to do much thinking about what we would focus on after we left USGBC in 2021. It was obvious to us that we would continue our efforts to transform the built environment but with more flexibility and rigor. The big focus, we decided, would be on zero for not just LEED buildings but all buildings. ?

What Sarah and I have strived to do is to offer the market a new solution – an incremental approach to certification that can help any building endeavoring to reduce their emissions to get started and create a plan and roadmap to get to zero.???

This approach reduces the noise around certification by focusing on a simple metric: Zero. It also allows buildings to move away from overly holistic or prescriptive approaches, and instead empowers them to really hone in on the actual strategies that reduce their emissions — so they can increase their efficiency, optimize their investments into the sustainability strategies they are taking, and hit their targets faster.

We know we are on the right track: The UN says we need to see rapid cuts in building sector emissions to meet climate goals – and that’s beside the point that only 0.023% of buildings worldwide are net zero.?

This is why for the past three years we have been vigorously working on our “zero to zero” strategy. In essence, it means that our certification supports the entire spectrum of zero to zero — from buildings that have taken zero actions to decarbonize to a LEED Gold or Platinum building that must take a set of zero-focused actions to close the gap to become truly net zero.?

In short, we take buildings from where they are to where they need to go. And they need to go to zero on their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.?

It’s about taking one step at a time. Maybe you retrofit your LED lights. Maybe you retrofit your chiller plant. Maybe you actually go out and adopt renewable energy. Maybe you calculate your emissions. In any case, you’re taking small, incremental steps that move you away from zero, all the way to achieving net zero emissions or a fully decarbonized building.

Our inclusive approach recognizes that everybody has a starting point and everyone must act, and our goal is to meet them where they are. We help you take incremental, daily steps toward transformation so that that goal is not only within reach but is affordable. And it’s scalable across portfolios and business setups — not overnight, but over a period of time. Exactly the way businesses like to do things.?

Our “zero to zero” strategy is about moving with more agility – faster and smarter – than ever before. It's about continuing to build on each other’s innovations and make them immediately available to the market, just like the way we update our apps. The focus is on taking the incremental steps we can every day, whether it’s our first or our thousandth, toward decarbonization. We must move from zero to zero.