Do you ever wonder if we are are all alone in this big universe? With all those solar systems, galaxies, planets, dwarf planets, black holes, stars, suns, and supernovas, its seems hard to believe that we are the only folk flying around on a big blue marble.

While I can’t tell you for sure if there is extraterrestrial life (although I have a pretty good idea), I can tell you that LEED is not the only rating system for the certification of green buildings. I learned this while taking a gander at the Construction Informer blog by Duane Craig. Duane made note that there is another green rating system called Green Globes. With a similar method to giving buildings a tiered system of rating their green building initiatives.

While allowing LEED to be the only kid on the block probably doesn’t do too much benefit for the cost of green building certification, learning and applying another rating system makes my stomach start to turn and my face being the only thing turner brighter shades of green.

According to a study by the University of Minnesota, “nearly 80 percent of the categories available for points in Green Globes are also addressed in LEED 2.2 and that over 85 percent of the categories specified in LEED 2.2 are addressed in Green Globes.” The same study indicated that there was only moderate dissimilarity between the rating standards, but that LEED has a slightly greater emphasis on material choices and Green Globes has a slightly greater emphasis on saving energy.

Green Globes also has a lower cost at about $500 per assessment. LEED certification can cost several thousand dollars just for the assessment and the USGBC can tend to have their nose up in the air about how quickly they get to your project.

And believe it or not there are more green building standards such as BREEAM, the GBC tool, and the Minnesota Design Guidelines, but I really hope we don’t have to start playing a game where we select what system to use and then have to select all the green initiatives. Honestly, one is enough and two at the most, but let’s just stop there.

However, nobody knows how big the universe actually is.