Standard 189 Integrated into New Green Construction Code

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After a year-long development process, the International Code Council (ICC) released its International Green Construction Code (IGCC) on March 15, 2010. Developed in partnership with The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and ASTM International, IGCC (see EBN Aug. 2009) had been anticipated to provide competition to Standard 189—the code-ready green building standard modeled on LEED that was launched in January by three other organizations (see EBN July 2009). Instead, all six groups stood together to support IGCC’s launch. Rather than competing with Standard 189, IGCC included it as an alternate compliance path as a first step to a greater integration, connecting it to ICC’s code network that reaches all 50 states and 22,000 local jurisdictions.

“For architects, this is good news, because we had concerns all along about what competing codes mean from a regulatory perspective,” noted Paul Mendelsohn, vice president of government and community relations at AIA. Inconsistency in codes from one community to another complicates the work of designers and contractors, and competing options might have bogged down the entire code adoption process. “We saved ourselves maybe five years of fighting about it,” agrees Brendan Owens, vice president for LEED technical development at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), one of the sponsors of Standard 189. “Now we can be collaborative and go forward together much faster.”

ICC began developing its green code after seeing that “jurisdictions that normally would use our code were pretty much making it up on their own because they had no model code language to work from,” according to Mike Armstrong, ICC’s senior vice president for member services and communications. While the IGCC effort was playing catch-up with Standard 189 and, apparently, aiming to compete with it, many of the same technical experts were involved with both efforts. “We were concerned that it was leading up to an unnecessary choice for jurisdictions: pick the ASHRAE standard or pick IGCC,” said Armstrong.

Standard 189 is included in IGCC as an alternative compliance path. Officially called “ANSI/ASHRAE/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings,” it was developed by the Association of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES), and USGBC.

Version 1.0 of IGCC is now available for adoption by state and local governments, after coming out of a committee process that included open public hearings. At the same time, ICC is just starting a public comment process, with a first round of comments open until May 14, 2010, public hearings in August, and the planned release of version 2 in November 2010. “That version will stand until the 2012 code updates are released,” according to Armstrong, at which point ICC will manage the evolution of the IGCC alongside its other international codes.

While Standard 189 is now an option within IGCC, there are significant differences between the two. The public comment process provides an opportunity to increase their alignment: “ASHRAE will be submitting certain sections of 189 for consideration by IGCC,” according to AIA’s Mendelsohn. Over time, all parties expect the two documents to converge significantly.

A third influential green code, California’s Green Building Standards Code, or “Calgreen,” is not officially part of this marriage, but state officials tout the use of Calgreen as a reference document for IGCC. Dave Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission, participated on the IGCC committee. Informally, conversations are underway about including CalGreen in the alignment effort, according to Owens.

For the green building community, a widely adopted green code opens the door for voluntary standards, such as LEED, to push more aggressively for better performance. “LEED’s evolution is closely tied to the management of the gap between building codes and the LEED certified level,” noted Owens, adding: “The faster the floor goes up, the faster LEED can continue to evolve.” For that reason, USGBC has supported efforts to mandate LEED, and now over 200 localities and 34 state governments have adopted LEED into some form of legislation, ordinance, or policy, according to USGBC. Because LEED is written as a voluntary standard, however, it can be difficult to mandate or enforce. That explains USGBC’s participation in developing Standard 189, and its support for this new merger. “We’ll advise jurisdictions to go with the tool built for that purpose,” said Owens.

State and local jurisdictions now have the option of adopting part or all of Standard 189, or IGCC (which now includes Standard 189), into their codes and regulations. Owens cautions, however, that Standard 189 covers areas that affect most communities’ zoning regulations in addition to their building codes, so adopting it wholesale will take cross-departmental collaboration. Regardless of the complexities, the partnership with IGCC gives Standard 189 a huge boost in the code adoption process, and we can expect green codes to move forward nationwide much more quickly than previously thought.