by Brianna Crandall — April 10, 2015—As part of its continuing efforts to streamline the certification process for users and coordinate with other green building programs, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced on Friday that it will now recognize energy and water requirements from the Living Building Challenge green building system within the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
As an internationally recognized mark of excellence, LEED provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.
“USGBC and the International Living Future Institute, developers of the Living Building Challenge, share a common commitment and goal to transform the way we design, build and operate our buildings,” said Scot Horst, chief product officer, USGBC. “The Challenge plays an important role on the green building performance curve and is a complement to LEED.”
Added Horst, “The LEED steering committee approved this approach; in the world of rating systems there is a sense of competition between systems, and what we’re saying is that what matters is that people are doing good environmental work. We want to focus on them and create harmonization between systems.”
This move means that projects achieving the energy and water requirements in Living Building Challenge will be considered as technically equivalent to LEED.
Over the last several years, USGBC says it has made concerted efforts to streamline LEED requirements and better complement existing rating systems around the world. In 2012, USGBC announced that it will recognize energy credits from Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) International, the U.K.-based green building rating program, in applications for LEED certification.
