The task force felt that, by using proven third-party rating systems, the GBO would not excessively burden the city’s limited resources because the building-permit office could rely primarily on a rating-system certification to ensure that the new requirements were being met.

“This isn’t about getting LEED-certified; it is about sustainable building,” says Williams. Projects do not actually have to be certified by LEED or GreenPoint, but they must be verified by a third party as meeting the equivalent of one rating system or the other. Williams, however, knows of no project that has not elected to get certified: “If you are going to all the trouble to meet certification requirements, why not get the certificate?” He, like many others, contends that the value of getting a third-party rating-system label is still worth much more in terms of marketing than merely saying that a building passed code.

For commercial and high-rise residential buildings, the 2008 code also required additional local measures to be met in phases. These measures, explains Barry Hooper, Green Building Program coordi­nator with the San Francisco Department of the Environment (SF Environment), are primarily electives in LEED that the task force wanted to make mandatory for San Francisco because they reinforce important city goals, such as the responsible use of irrigation and potable water, construction-waste management, on-site composting, enhanced commissioning, stormwater management, and renewable energy.

The GBO also includes a few other tweaks to LEED and GPR. For example, when a historic building is altered, the minimum number of LEED or GPR points required to pass code is reduced for a project that retains significant architectural features. In contrast, a new project must earn additional rating-system points to pass code if an existing building must be demolished to accommodate it.

Enter CalGreen

While San Francisco was tailoring a green-building code to suit its unique vision, California was also working on one that would become law across the state. Referred to as CALGreen, the California Green Building Standards Code forms a separate chapter (Part 11) of the California Code of Regulations (Title 24), which is otherwise known as the California Building Standards Code. The 2010 version of CALGreen became mandatory in January 2011; the 2012 version went into effect this past July.

The value of CALGreen is that it raises the environmental floor of new non-residential and low-rise residential projects, plus some nonresidential additions and alterations, uniformly across the state.  In addition, it offers two ready-made packages of higher-level green-building requirements—known as Tier 1 and Tier 2—from which local authorities can pick and choose for those jurisdictions that have the desire, but not the resources, to establish an even higher floor tailored to their own unique conditions.

The challenge CALGreen initially posed for jurisdictions that had already raised the environmental bar on their own, however, was figuring out how to combine the new state law with existing local codes. Some chose to switch from requirements based on third-party rating systems to  one of CALGreen’s tiers. Others, including San Francisco, chose to stick with the rating-system approach but amend it as needed to accommodate any stricter CALGreen requirements.

Industry experts generally agree that a building code can never replace a third-party rating system, because the two serve different purposes. The code represents  the bare minimum; the rating system represents a much higher goal toward which to aspire. Proponents of San Francisco’s approach believe that, for a  city that has already been working hard  for many years to raise both the floor  and the ceiling, the rating systems—which are always evolving themselves—offer greater ongoing market incentives to continue upward.

Furthermore, several in the industry express concern that, at least in the current economic climate, most local building departments do not have the resources to enforce green codes, so relying on a third-party system provides the necessary infrastructure for oversight without burdening already strapped departments.

According to green-building consultant Lynn N. Simon—whose firm, Simon & Associates, helped SF Environment analyze the differences between the initial GBO and CALGreen—the city has made it easy to navigate between municipal and state requirements: “They even give you forms that you check off, sign, and paste onto your construction drawings to show compliance with the Green Building Ordinance.”

The 2010 version of the GBO, which also became effective in January 2011, was amended to include any aspect of CALGreen that was more restrictive than the city’s 2008 version. And, as CALGreen adds more requirements in the future, these will automatically be referenced by the GBO.