能源效率顾问亨利•吉福德对美国绿色建筑委员会(USGBC)及其LEED评级系统的诉讼上周被纽约地区法院法官驳回，他可能不会对裁决提出上诉或对USGBC采取进一步的法律行动。考虑到USGBC对解雇的回应——“我们很感激法院的裁决对我们有利，这样我们就可以把我们的全部注意力放在我们面前的重要工作上，”该组织在一份声明中说——公平地说，USGBC希望如此。

但事实是，USGBC和所有对节能建筑感兴趣的人都知道，法官的命令只是正在进行的讨论的一部分。吉福德于去年10月提起的诉讼，不管它有什么缺陷，它推动了建筑商、建筑科学家、建筑师和能效顾问之间关于LEED评级系统优点的长期辩论，尤其是建筑的能源性能评级标准，以及能源性能在项目的LEED评分中所占的权重。

作为去年2月修订，Gifford的投诉据称，USGBC从事虚假广告，欺骗性做法和非法垄断。The suit, which sought an injunction against USGBC and monetary damages for plaintiffs’ lost sales and profit, said that USGBC misrepresented the performance of LEED certified buildings and, to support its performance claims, altered the results of a 2008 study by USGBC and New Buildings Institute that compared predicted energy use in certified buildings with actual energy use, and with a national average for existing buildings.

利益重叠，服务却截然不同

However, Judge Leonard Sand, of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, focused on whether Gifford and the suit’s other plaintiffs demonstrated they were competitors of USGBC’s certification program and therefore had standing to claim they were harmed by USGBC’s allegedly false advertising and deceptive practices. In essence, the judge ruled that Gifford and USGBC are in different businesses – the former as a consultant to clients who want to maximize or improve the energy-efficiency performance of their buildings, the latter as a nonprofit that rates buildings based on a variety of criteria, including energy efficiency.

法官补充说，无论原告是在致力于一个旨在获得LEED认证的项目，还是一个仅仅追求更好业绩的项目，双方的商业利益仍然是独立的。

两个都环境建设新闻和环境法专家Shari Shapiro.突出桑德法官命令的细节（点击这里阅读法庭文件。)

吉福德说EBN他已经“厌倦了”在诉讼上花费时间和金钱，尽管他没有排除上诉的可能性。无论如何，他对USGBC的不满似乎主要在于他认为USGBC对USGBC/新建筑研究所研究结果的修改和利用，以及USGBC未能验证leed认证的建筑的能效性能。在这些问题和其他一些相关问题上，我们不太可能从吉福德那里听到最后的消息。