LEED for Homes Credential No Longer Available

UPDATE: This is apparently not the case. USGBC is not retiring the LEED for Homes credential. The news that the LEED for Homes credential was being retired began on a USGBC post about the changes to the upcoming LEED v4 exams.

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(Original post) A call to GBCI today confirmed that the LEED AP for Homes credential, which focused on the LEED for Homes rating system, is being rolled into LEED BD+C specialty credential after May 31st, 2014.

USGBC has committed to continually updating the LEED Rating Systems every few years to adopt to new technologies, streamline the Certification process and increase the level of standards that projects must meet for each Certification level.

With LEED v4, LEED for Homes will not continue to exist separately as its own separate rating system with its own specialty credential, but has been incorporated as part of the revised v4 LEED BD+C. Anyone pursuing a LEED credential in green residential construction will (as of June 1st, 2014) receive the LEED AP BD+C credential. So, if you're absolutely in love with the idea of being a LEED AP Homes, you'd better get cracking so you can take the exam before June 1st.

As Alex Spilger, Director of Sustainability at Cassidy & Turley and founder of GreenStep Education, who oversees the GreenStep LEED Professional Project Experience Program, mentioned:

"While LEED v4 is officially up and running, LEED v2009 still remains current, relevant and widely popular. Projects will be able to continue to register under LEED v2009 through mid-2015 which means that LEED v2009 will likely remain relevant through 2017 and beyond for projects with longer schedules. Most of the clients we are currently working with have opted to register their projects under LEED v2009, rather than LEED v4, since it is the more established Rating System and since the industry has not yet fully adapted to meet specific LEED v4 criteria for certain Credits. As such, we will continue to use LEED v2009 projects for our LEED Professional Project Experience Program until we see a more widespread adoption of the new LEED v4 system. As part of our program, we will compare and contrast LEED v2009 with LEED v4 so that project participants have a working knowledge of both systems moving forward."

One other interesting thing about LEED v4 is that USGBC seems to have done away with the credit numbers in the LEED BD+C rating system. For instance, the new LEED credit for Demand Response is not called LEED EAc5 Demand Response, but is just called EA Credit Demand Response.