Assessing and Developing the Application of LEED Green Building Rating System as a Sustainable Project Management and Market Tool in the Italian Context

The paper discusses the recent introduction of the LEED system to the Italian context in order to assess its role to promote sustainable building process in the Italian context, pointing out its potentials on one hand as well as their gaps and limitations on the other hand, and suggests means for its future development. The study discusses the application of LEED as a ‘Sustainable Project management tool’ to guide sustainable building performance. This requires investigating the following: its structure, tools, assessment criteria along with its benchmarks and references. It also discusses the application of LEED as a ‘Sustainable building Certification and market tool’. This investigates the role and value of the LEED certification in the Italian Green market. The research method is comprised of three parts. The first part is a comparative analysis of LEED categories against Italian national initiatives for sustainability. The comparison showed that most LEED categories are already mandated by national norms and directives but they may differ in their stringency creating some areas of precedence of LEED system or drawbacks. This streamlines the adaptation process of LEED system to the Italian context. The second part investigates LEED projects’ market analysis. The result showed that the shift towards a sustainable building process is occurring slowly and on a vertical scale focusing on some building sectors rather than others. Its market diffusion in the Italian context faces challenges regarding the insufficient availability of green materials and products satisfying its requirements, as well as high soft cost of sustainability tests and expertise required. The Third part presents a practical review-citing the methodology and results of a survey conducted by the researchers in mid-2012. It is composed of a web-based questionnaire and interviews among a sample of LEED professionals in Italy. The result shows that LEED systems needs to develop its role as a guideline and decision support tool as well as its mechanism for measuring and evaluating sustainable building performance, so that better and reliable results can improve LEED position in the global marketplace. The paper concludes that the application of LEED system in the Italian context still has much room for development both as a sustainable project management tool and as a sustainable certification and market tool. Yet, its future development lies in achieving a progressive development balance between three key factors: 1) preserving international standardization, 2) regional/local integration with sustainable building practices and green market, and 3) maintaining wider diffusion in the global marketplace. Hence, the research presents a set of recommendations for practitioners and researchers in the field in order to be able to improve the efficiency and efficacy of applying such a tool on the built environment.