I used to live in a 19th century building that was simultaneously LEED certified and a registered historic landmark. These two statuses were very much in confli

I used to live in a 19th century building that was simultaneously LEED certified and a registered historic landmark. These two statuses were very much in conflict with each other, because the latter status often prohibits necessary changes to the building in pursuit of the former. In the case of the building where I lived, they were required to retain the original windows for historicity: rickety, drafty, single-pane affairs that leaked prodigious quantities of heat. These windows were very large and the ceilings high, so in winter you essentially needed to run the heater non-stop. To offset that, they unnecessarily and often quite uselessly over-engineered other parts of the building construction for green-ness, which I presume helped with whatever scoring system made the building "green". None of which changed the fact that the building fundamentally leaked energy like a sieve. It was always a mystery to me how they managed to LEED certify one of the most poorly insulated buildings in which I've ever lived. Nothing else you do to a building should be able to offset that fact.