LEED Certification and Its Effectiveness on Urban Heat Island Effect

LEED Certification and Its Effectiveness on Urban Heat Island Effect

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has provided abundant resources and guidelines for a new project to become a sustainable anchor in the neighborhood. Paired with a range of checklist, LEED has strong influence on the standards for a sustainable building, and it also has played an iconic role in energy-efficient architecture. However, it is still unclear as to whether or not an LEED certified building enhances environmental benefits to its surroundings. If an LEED certification promises a baseline for an eco-friendly building, then a group of these structures should ensure significant environmental benefits to the society. This is the main question of this study, and the authors answer this hypothesis by examining the relationship of LEED certificates and their influence on outdoor temperature, especially in terms of urban heat island effect. The goal of this paper is to analyze the influence of the LEED certification on urban temperature as an indicator of sustainable architecture’s regional interactions. If an LEED certificate is regarded as a strong contributor to a sustainable built environment, then a group of these certificates should result in greater benefits to society. To this extent, the authors question if there is any possible relationship between a large concentration of LEED certified sites and the temperature of their surroundings. To properly assess the research direction, Global Moran’s I analysis, Local Moran’s I analysis, and Hot Spot analysis are implemented to find the clustered areas of LEED certified buildings. For examining relationships between clustered area and its temperature, correlation efficients are calculated.