The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) original Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System has been in place for seven years now and has spawned several offshoot green building certification programs, such as the newly introduced LEED for Homes program and the LEED for Neighborhood Development program (currently in pilot phase).
LEED’s creators now see the need to align and unify the credits across the various rating programs to make the system more user-friendly, adaptive, and flexible, in addition to implementing several other initiatives that will drive its next evolution. According to USGBC, further development and refining of LEED’s technical framework will integrate the core elements of all the rating systems, reducing duplication and “credit drift” between systems, and giving users greater accessibility to certification information.
According to architect Scot Horst, LEED Steering Committee chair, these efforts will create one unified LEED “bookshelf” that will still accommodate specific building types. USGBC’s goal is to respond to needs of the green building marketplace without compromising LEED’s rigorous standards. A more streamlined and adaptable LEED rating system should be available by the end of 2008.
