What is LEED Certification?

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and falls under the the eye of the United States Green Building Council, http://www.usgbc.org . In very simple terms, your building can get a LEED points for having things that help and or reduce the impact your building has on the environment. For example if you build your new home with a Rain Water Harvesting system, you can get up to 4 points for just that component, according to the USGBC's 114 page LEED for Home pdf. This type of system falls under the larger Water Efficiency category and that WE category needs an over all score of at least 3 to count for anything. So, put in a great rain water harvesting system and you're on your way to the minimum 45 points need to just be certified. Build your home in a a LEED ND, Neighborhood Development, and pick up to 10 easy points just for keeping up with the Jones.

It's quite a complete and complicated system and is different for all types of buildings, both new and old. New Construction, Existing Buildings, Commercial Interiors, Core & Shell, Schools, Retail, Health care, Homes, and Neighborhood Development all have different criteria and scoring systems.

Once you get your building scored, it will then fall into a category of Certified, Silver, Gold, Platinum or other. Usually you will see buildings listed as something like LEED EB Gold. Which just means that it was certified under the Existing Building criteria as LEED Gold. Not to bad if you ask me. One great story here in Oakland is through StopWaste.org. You can read their story here, http://www.stopwaste.org/docs/1532webster.pdf.

Who set the standards? As part of the USGBC committees were formed to create the standards and criteria, for a complete list of committees see, http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1750