Impact of “Optimize Energy Performance” Credit Achievement on the Compensation Strategy of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings Gold-Certified Office Space Projects in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) version 3 (v3) and version 4 (v4) gold-certified office space certification strategies in Spain have not yet been studied. The two purposes of this study were to evaluate (1) the impact of high or low achievements in the energy and atmosphere (EA) “optimize energy performance” credit (EAc1 for v3 and EAc8 for v4) on the compensation strategy for LEED “compensation group” credits and (2) the impact of EAc1-v3 or EAc8-v4 on the monotonic change in LEED “compensation group” credits. Data on a total of 77 LEED-EB v3 and 43 LEED-EB v4 gold-certified office space projects were collected. In the v3 group, 26 LEED-certified projects had the highest EAc1 achievements (v3 group 1), and 26 LEED-certified projects had the lowest EAc1 achievements (v3 group 2). In the v4 group, 15 LEED-certified projects had the highest EAc8 achievements (v4 group 1), and 15 LEED-certified projects had the lowest EAc8 achievements (v4 group 2). The exact Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test and Fisher’s exact 2 × 2 with Lancaster’s correction test were used to estimate the difference between groups 1 and 2. Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used to assess monotonic change in LEED credits. The results show that v3 and v4 group 1 outperformed v3 and v4 group 2 in EAc1 and EAc8 (p < 0.0001, respectively). However, v3 and v4 group 2 outperformed v3 and v4 group 1 in “renewable energy” (EAc4 for v3 and EAc6 for v4, p = 0.0039 and 0.0088, respectively) and “building commissioning” (EAc2.2 for v3, p = 0.0015; EAc3 for v4, p = 0.0560, respectively). EAc1-v3 and LEED v3 “compensation group” credits showed a moderate negative correlation (rs = −0.53 and p < 0.0001). EAc8-v4 and LEED v4 “compensation group” credits showed a strong negative correlation (rs = −0.74 and p < 0.0001). As a result, increasing the share of renewable energy and performing building commissioning in LEED-EB v3- and v4-certified projects occurred only as a compensation strategy in response to the low achievement in the “optimize energy performance” credit.

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