Construction International News - October 2012
LEED Green Building Certification Changes Coming
Posted by Paul Fiddian - Construction International Reporter on 25/10/2012 - 10:40:00
Changes to rules covering green building construction in the US are expected in 2015.
The Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) programme sets standards for environmental buildings and, typically, these buildings might include solar panels, energy-efficient heating and lighting systems and other low enviro-impact technologies.
Since the Green Building Council was established in 1998 and the LEED certification programme set-up two years later, many thousands of US buildings have achieved LEED-certified status.
LEED Green Building
The current LEED green building rules were adopted in 2009 but, now, some aspects are set to change, making LEED 2015 potentially quite different from its predecessor.
Overall, it'll be tougher for a building's constructors to show that they've implemented everything needed to get the structure LEED-certified. Specifically, among the new requirements, building operators will need to produce a detailed energy-efficiency plan and keep the Green Building Council informed about all the building's energy and water consumption levels, from when it was built to five years further down the line.
The aim there is to assist buildings trying to hit pre-build energy and water use forecasts, especially given that these often underestimate what lies ahead.
2015 LEED Certification
Points will be earned by structures that incorporate sustainable materials and, especially, if details of these materials are pre-submitted. The 2015 LEED certification changes will also see points made available for buildings where background noise has been eliminated as much as possible and that are fitted with water-efficient washing machines and dishwashers.
"The bar is getting raised, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's harder to meet because of the way the whole industry is evolving", BuildingGreen President Nadav Malin told USA Today. "It's going to require a much more nuanced, sophisticated measure in a whole bunch of different ways of the actual environmental performance of the building."
Further information on the content of LEED 2015 is set to emerge in due course and Construction International will revisit this topic in future News coverage.
Image copyright Uniquebuildings - Copyright Wikimedia Commons
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