The hypocrisy of LEED

is about building to the checklist and value engineering, rather than building truly environmentally sound buildings. See "It's Way Too Easy Being Green: The decidedly dupable system for rating a building's greenness," from Slate. From the article:

But closing the loopholes in the checklist will take the USGBC only so far. In Europe, which has had baseline standards for energy efficiency since the mid-1990s, all new buildings are green buildings, at least to some extent. So while American buildings are green by the grace of Goldman Sachs, London offices are green regardless of whether the client cares about the environment, or needs a shot of good PR.

Lately, even the USGBC seems to realize the solution lies not in giving out medals for greenness one building at a time, but in encouraging greener communities. Density is why the average resident of Tokyo uses as much energy in a week as the average resident of Houston uses in a day. The USGBC has launched a pilot program with the Congress for New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council to grade entire neighborhoods. Rather than looking at green building as a personal (or corporate) virtue, the neighborhood program encourages planners and builders to make more integrated, systematic changes in the way we live.