Industry trade shows offer an opportunity for industry associations, organizations and companies to make special announcements. Those can range from new product announcements to notices of accomplishments.
During last month’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that more than 100 cities and communities have now achieved LEED certification, with host city Atlanta being the 100th certification. Launched in 2016 as a globally consistent framework measuring and tracking sustainability at the city and community scale, LEED for Cities and Communities tracks progress across key performance indicators including energy, waste, water, transportation, resilience, health and equity.
“We have been envisioning a new way forward for the growth of resilient, green, inclusive and smart cities and communities and believe that by focusing on performance we can better understand how our decisions impact the planet and our quality of life,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO, USGBC. “Atlanta’s work is an inspiration and shows how sustainability can be a tool for addressing some of the challenges residents are facing, while also helping to reduce carbon, energy and waste, and conserve water. Atlanta and the more than 100 other LEED-certified cities and communities help open the door for new businesses and stimulates a robust green, economy.”
Looking to the future, USGBC announced LEED Positive, a vision statement and LEED development roadmap that will lay the foundation for a future of LEED that is regenerative.
“We must do all we can to leverage our tools and resources to scale up reductions in carbon emissions associated with buildings, communities and cities,” said Ramanujam. “LEED must evolve qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, it must transition from strategies that reduce the harm done by buildings to strategies that cause no harm and are regenerative by design, ensuring our buildings are actually giving back more than they take. And quantitatively it will need to accelerate and increase its impact ten- to a hundredfold by leveraging our Arc performance platform. The future of LEED is LEED positive.”
As the world continues to face staggering challenges in terms of water scarcity, air quality, resilience and climate change, the LEED Positive vision is set to aid USGBC in transitioning LEED strategies from those that reduce the harm done by buildings to those that cause no harm and begin the process of healing and repair. With LEED Positive, projects will be able to earn category performance certificates in each of the five performance categories tracked in Arc—energy, water, waste, transportation and human experience—and once a project achieves higher performance scores across all categories, it will be able to pursue LEED certification.
In wrapping up the LEED-related announcements, the USGBC launched a new data-driven tool called Insight, which highlights building project design features that can lead to better performance. Developed in partnership with Skanska, Insight is available as a feature of Arc, and provides information on the design attributes of LEED-certified buildings within a specified geographic region, allowing project teams to compare and rank potential sustainability strategies.
All of these announcements show how the USGBC is continuing to grow its LEED program as a way to improve the performance of buildings throughout their life cycle. Are you excited about the new announcements? Let us know by dropping us a note on our blog.
