LEED « Ecotecture

With so much talk and importance of all things green, it was becoming increasingly difficult to judge what green really meant. So, a number of years ago, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) was formed and developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System to quantify ‘green’. Now LEED is the “nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.” Today, a number of project specific LEED certifications are available, including New Commercial Construction and Major Renovations, Commercial Interiors, Homes and Neighborhood Development. You can search the USGBC Registered Projects directory here for projects in your area.

111 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL – Gold LEED Core & Shell

Numerous government agencies are requiring LEED ratings for major projects to be allowed to go forward. The United States General Services Administration (GSA) Public Building Service (the government body that oversees federal buildings in design, construction and maintenance) requires LEED certification (at a minimum) for new and major renovation projects and encourages the pursuit of LEED Silver rating. One current LEED Gold rated federal building is the Byron G. Rogers U.S. Courthouse in Denver, Colorado, shown below.

Each version of LEED assigns points in a variety of areas, with minimum thresholds set for each rating level to be achieved (registered, certified, silver, gold, and platinum). Let’s take the New Construction and Major Renovations (LEED_NC) as an example. The project checklist identifies the following areas: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality and Innovation & Design Process. Each of those areas have anywhere from 2 to 25 opportunities to earn credits towards any given rating. For further reading, I suggest exploring the extensive USGBC website.

A number of high profile projects are pursuing LEED ratings.