It is comforting to see this discussion continues the great HN tradition of having a lively and wide-ranging debate about a complex scientific article or paper without ever bothering to read the article and paper.
This is a rather complex paper, so I perused it for about five minutes. As such I consider my self a one eyed man among a hoard of shouting extremely opinionated blind people, so you should all listen to me carefully and follow me as your leader.
And now that I have your attention I shall carefully summarize the paper so none of you have to undergo the indignity of perusing it for five minutes.
1. Leeds is not solely for energy efficiency but also for solving other environmental problems such as water use.
2. In buildings where the energy efficiency was the main problem to be solved, the leeds overhaul was actually effective at improving energy efficiency.
3. In buildings where water use was the main problem to be solved, the leeds process was also successful in reducing water use, but actually increased energy use. This is because the water reduction process invariably included complex electrical systems with a lot of sensors and control circuitry that ate up extra power.
4. Considering points 2. and 3. above when you add all the buildings up as a whole, on average energy use did not decrease after a leeds overhaul and certification.
My thinking here is that this does not mean LEEDS is a failure. The study shows that there was improvement in every building that underwent the certification, it is just that for some buildings energy wasn't the highest priority. In many parts of the US water use is much more important than energy efficiency.
So I am sure for many parts in the US it is a very good trade off to increase energy use for lower water use. (This would certainly be true for the entire southwest, at least).
But there is still a lot of room for improvement. The water preservation systems can themselves be made more energy efficient. At first glance, these systems do not do something that requires a lot of energy -- all they do is communication, sensing and opening or closing small water valves.
Generally speaking there is a lot to be desired of analog circuit design. Now that we are surrounded by always on always connected electrical devices, this is something we as a nation should start paying attention to. There are a lot of always on circuits that use 10 or 100 times the power they should, just because someone wanted so save 50c on parts or they simply did not how to properly design the thing.