LEED

LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is an internationally recognized voluntary green building certification system providing third-party verification that a building and/or community has been designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: site sustainability; energy savings; water efficiency; CO2 emissions reduction; improved indoor environmental quality; stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts of their use; innovation in design.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

Since the introduction of LEED’s first pilot version in 1998, six fully-fledged rating systems have been developed under the LEED standard:

  • New Construction;
  • Existing Buildings;
  • Core and Shell;
  • Commercial Interiors;
  • Homes (residential); and
  • Neighbourhood Development.

Separate guidelines for Multiple Buildings/Campuses, Schools, Healthcare (facilities) and Laboratorieshave also been issued. Though originally developed to define, measure and verify green building and to transform the US building market, LEED has a sufficiently flexible framework that has allowed it to be successfully implemented in 41 different countries, including Canada, Mexico, Britain, Germany, Brazil, India and China.

LEED can be effectively applied to all building types — commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle — design and construction, operations and maintenance, core and shell, tenant fit-out and significant retrofit. And LEED for Neighborhood Development extends the benefits of LEED beyond the building footprint into the neighbourhood it serves.

With the release of the standard’s most recent version, LEED v3 (2009) incorporates both more rigorous pre-requisites as well as a weighted system of points distribution based on regionally determined building performance priorities and Life-Cycle-Assessment ratings for overall environmental impacts. Points are awarded on a credit-by-credit basis using a variable point system. Points are then totalled to determine a building’s score which is then translated into one of four rankings: Certified; Silver; Gold; and the highest ranking, Platinum. Unlike BREEAM, LEED has not developed custom rating systems for specific regions or countries. However, given its inherent simplicity, broad approach and adaptability to a wide variety of design strategies, priorities and local codes, LEED enjoys growing worldwide appeal and its single standard means that building projects certified under it can be evaluated and compared no matter their location.

While the participation of a LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) is encouraged and rewarded during the certification process, it is not required. LEED is solely responsible for evaluating submitted projects and awarding certifications.