LEED
Use of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is generally voluntary and up to a project development team to determine priorities for enhanced performance. To become LEED certified requires a project to register with the Green Building Certification Institute GBCI, meet Minimum Program Requirements and submit credit documentation as proof of building design and performance.
The documentation submitted is reviewed by the GBCI as a third party to verify that performance goals and claims have been achieved. The USGBC continues to develop tools for the various segments of the commercial building market, currently offering the following tools:
- LEED NC – for new construction or major remodels of commercial buildings or multi-family projects over four floors
- LEED CI – for tenant improvement (commercial interiors) projects not involving an entire building
- LEED CS – for the core and shell portions of speculative commercial buildings where tenancy is not known or not a part of the initial construction.
- LEED EBOM - for existing buildings that retroactively wish to improve and benchmark their sustainable building performance
- LEED Retail - is comprised of two unique rating systems, LEED 2009 for Retail: New Construction & Major Renovations and the LEED 2009 for Retail: Commercial Interiors Rating Systems. It is designed for high-performance retail projects, including banks, restaurants, apparel, electronics, big box and everything in between.
- LEED for Healthcare - guides the design and construction of both new buildings and major renovations of existing buildings, and can be applied to inpatient, outpatient and licensed long-term care facilities, medical offices, assisted living facilities and medical education and research centers.
- LEED ND - This Neighborhood Development Rating System integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national system for neighborhood design.
The majority of these tools contains seven categories of performance:
- Sustainable Sites
- Water Efficiency
- Energy and Atmosphere
- Materials and Resources
- Indoor Environmental Quality
- Innovation in Design
- Regional Priority
To provide motivation for higher performance, each LEED tool is structured in four levels of ascending performance and certification:
- Certified (basic threshold)
- Silver
- Gold
- Platinum
Learn More about LEED
- To learn more about LEED, visit the USGBC's LEED website.
- To learn more about the City of Seattle's incentive programs related to LEED, visit our Incentives & Assistance page.
- To learn more about how the City of Seattle uses the LEED program, see our main LEED page.
Benchmarking
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