What does LEED stand for?
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy Environmental Design.
Created by the US Green Building council, LEED is a green building program that certifies new and existing projects that meet the requirements set forth in its rating systems. It is the most popular green building rating system in the United States and is actively being used in 135 countries across the globe.
How Does LEED Work?
Each LEED rating system is designed to work with a specific type of building project. Rating systems include:
- Building Design + Construction: New Construction, Schools, Retail, Core & Shell, Healthcare
- Interior Design + Construction: Commercial Interiors, Retail for Interiors
- Existing Buildings: Operations + Maintenance
- Homes
- Neighborhood Development
LEED Credit Categories
Each rating system has its own points system and specific levels of achievement that buildings must meet in order to earn LEED certification. Points are either mandatory (prerequisites) or optional (credits). Prerequisites and credits fall into specific sustainability categories.
The main credit categories are: Sustainable Sites, Energy and Atmosphere, Water Efficiency, Materials and Resources and Indoor Environmental Quality. There are also two "Bonus" credit categories, Innovation in Design (or Innovation in Operations) and Regional Priority, that may be awarded to projects that exceed the basic requirements of LEED.
As LEED for Homes is the only residential or single family home rating system, it includes a "Location and Linkages" credit category to encourage walkability and/or construction on previously developed land. There is also an "Awareness & Education" credit category in LEED for Homes to encourage builders to provide educational tools to homeowners to make the most of a home's green building features.
Neighborhood Development also has categories that are particular to its new urbanism approach. The "Smart Location & Linkages" credit category encourages walkable developments, "Neighborhood Pattern & Design" credit encourage connectivity with nearby communities and "Green Infrastructure & Buildings" credits encourage any reduction in environmental impact to the operation of buildings and/or their necessary infrastructure.
LEED Certification Levels
To earn certification, a project must earn a minimum number of points. The number of points a project earns will determine its level of certification. For commercial projects, the minimum for a building to achieve "Certified" level is 40 points (the LEED for Homes system is slightly different). As projects earn more points, they can achieve higher levels of certification, including: Gold, Silver, and Platinum. Projects can earn up to 100 base points (plus extra points for Innovation in Design and Regional Priority, as mentioned above). The points levels are:
- Certified: 40-49 Points
- Silver: 50-59 Points
- Gold: 60-79 Points
- Platinum: 80 Points and higher
How Much Space is LEED Certified?
As of July 2012, the U.S. Green Building Council reported that it has achieved over 2 billion square feet of space that is certified under the LEED system. Certified means that the entire 2 billion square feet has been awarded a level of LEED certification (eg. Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum). Often touted is the "Registered" number, which is much higher, at 7 billion square feet as of this same time. Assuming these registered properties achieve certification, LEED would be approaching 10 billion square feet of certified space. USGBC achieves approximately 2 million square feet of new Certified space per day, at different levels. Approximately 90,000 residential properties currently are being certified for LEED for Homes.
LEED v4
The current LEED rating systems are referred to as "2009", which is when they were released. However,the LEED system is undergoing a revamp, as it is updated with improvements every few years. The next version of LEED will be released in mid-2013, and is called "v4". It will expand the current rating systems to include more building and project types, and will have some new or revised credits to reflect market feedback or to improve the quality of sustainable buildings.