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Building CouncilThe LEED Rating System and the U.S. Green
Building CouncilBy Matty
ByloosWhat Is the LEED® Rating System?LEED stands for
the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This distinction is a property
of the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit organization that is devoted
at its foundational level to increasing the use of sustainable and green building
practices across the fifty states. The USGBC has in its ranks 12,000 plus
organizations that span the breadth of the country and all facets of the building
and construction industries. These member organizations work collectively in order
to implement and advance building structures that are at once environmentally
safe and sound, as well as profitable for the business person involved. Further,
their structures are set up to be healthy dwellings in which to live, and healthy
buildings in which to work. Membership is varied in its ranks, and includes developers,
architects, general contractors, agencies of the government and other nonprofit
organizations.
What Does LEED® Mean and Who Gets Rated?
LEED's
"Green Building Rating System™" attempts to certify and push the
advancement of a planet-wide implementation of green building and development
practices. Their goal is to accomplish this through the creation of a universal
set of tools and performance standards. LEED has certification and performance
standards for divisions of building such as "New Construction," which
is designed to foster the growth of and distinguish commercial projects and new
institutions conforming to green building practices at the highest levels; for
"Existing Buildings," LEED has instituted guidelines for maintenance
and ongoing operation, which gives building owners and operators a standard of
environmental excellence to reach for; there is even a set of standards for "Schools,"
which serves to put special guidelines in place for the potentially unique nature
of the concerns facing school spaces. In addition to these three divisions, there
are also standards for "Commercial Interiors," "Core and Shell,"
"Retail," "Healthcare," "Homes" and "Neighborhood
Development." LEED Proposed Core MissionLEED, a voluntary
proposal at this time, is essentially a nationally-recognized rating system, agreed
on by consensus, that seeks to develop sustainable buildings that perform at the
highest levels. LEED is a set of standards that can be applied individually to
all unique building types, as noted above. LEED places great emphasis on "state-of-the-art
strategies" for green and sustainable development of building sites. This
includes but is not limited to the following: efficient energy use, water use,
selection of green materials and careful choosing of resources, and the quality
levels of indoor environments. LEED serves builders, owners and designers
alike -- a rating tool that is practical and user-friendly in nature, a manner
by which green building design and construction might be implemented and held
to the highest of standards. Best of all, the results are immediate and universal
when the LEED ratings standards are used. About the AuthorMatty
Byloos writes and manages the Green Blog known as: Green
Eggs and Planet, LEED,
USGBC Article
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