LEED 2012 Postponed to 2013, Renamed LEED v4

By Nadav Malin

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has postponed plans to ballot the next version of LEED until June 2013. With this announcement, USGBC promises to keep LEED 2009 available for a full three years from now.

The move came in response to a growing outcry from architects and other building industry professionals, who had three related concerns:

• The proposed changes in the rating system were too much, too fast, especially in a weak real estate market.

• Some of the changes needed more refinement, especially in the Materials & Resources category, where whole new approaches to material selection had been introduced with each public comment draft.

• Tools and resources needed to achieve the credits would not be widely available by the time the new system was slated to launch in November 2012.

No longer tied to a particular year, USGBC is also reverting to a version naming system for the rating system, so the new version will be called “LEED v4” instead of “LEED 2012.”

The new plan gives time for a beta test to proceed while allowing for its results to inform a fifth public comment period, which is scheduled to run from October 2 to December 10, 2012. USGBC asserts that language in LEED supporting the highest standards of forest certification and pushing for transparency and avoidance of chemicals of concern will not be watered down during this extended process.

For more information:

U.S. Green Building Council
www.usgbc.org