The Living Building Challenge will now fulfill the energy and water requirements for LEED. As the U.S. Green Building Council announced, this marks an important step in the USGBC's mission to make LEED an accessible platform that complements other construction rating systems.
The USGBC's decision essentially equates the two systems in the fields of water and energy efficiency, recognizing projects that meet the Living Building Challenge's standards within these areas as equivalent to LEED standards. By doing so, it encourages a spirit of collaboration toward sustainable goals across competing rating systems.
Commenting on the news, the USCGB's chief product officer Scot Horst said: "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. The Challenge plays an important role on the green building performance curve and is a complement to LEED."
As part of the USGBC's wider mission to streamline the LEED certification process, the decision opens up an array of possibilities for broadening its accessibility and efficiency through recognizing sustainable efforts occurring as a result of other programs worldwide.
Horst added: "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."
Story via USGBC
