Washington—The third and final public comment period for the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) latest revision to its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program has opened and will run through March 20.
“As the LEED program evolves to address the dynamic needs of the building industry, the development process is based on principles of transparency, openness and inclusiveness, and includes multiple comment periods where input received is incorporated into LEED,” explained Scot Horst, senior vice president of LEED. “LEED’s strength comes from its continuous evolution. This is the outcome of thousands of technical volunteers working to develop the program and adapting it to technological and market changes.”
He noted the third draft of LEED 2012 has been refined to address technical stringency and rigor, measurement and performance tools and an enhanced user experience. “The technical changes have come about by way of market data, stakeholder-generated ideas, expert engagement and advances in technology.”
“LEED 2012 is the next step toward a global, performance-based application,” Horst added. The new program extends itself as a long-term engagement tool for organizations and projects, enabling a focus on continuous improvement. “With this version, a project’s engagement with LEED will represent an ongoing commitment supported by a suite of performance management tools.”
In an effort to redefine and enhance the user experience, he said LEED credit requirements have been rewritten to better align with documentation already required by the architecture and construction fields. “Improvements to submittals, documentation paths and LEED Online all improve LEED’s usability.”
Documents, including technical refinements, scorecards and responses to comments from the previous public comment periods, will be available on usgbc.org/LEED-2012. Horst said people can comment on any substantive changes made since the second public comment period.
Once this comment period concludes, USGBC will put LEED 2012 to ballot in June with plans to launch in November. To vote on the final version, a person must be a USGBC member and opt-in to the organization’s Consensus Body beginning April 2. The Consensus Body is made up of employees of USGBC national member organizations in good standing and ensures ballot participation from the full diversity of members who are using LEED in the marketplace, Horst noted.
To learn more about LEED 2012, visit usgbc.org or call 800.795.1747.