Over the years, two main complaints have emerged. The first is the cost. LEED evaluation can be expensive, especially when a project includes more than 250,000 square feet of usable area. Plus, many of the costs to implement LEED tactics and strategies are pricey, and they drive up the overall project budget – sometimes by millions of dollars. Second is the overall effect on the environment. LEED is based solely on project design and not on its implementation. Several studies over the past decade have noted that LEED-certified buildings do not provide significant energy reduction over non-certified buildings.