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By Nancy B. Solomon, AIA

The rating system is divided into six categories. Five address specific environmental concerns—sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality—and one is set aside for innovations that do not fit neatly in the others. The categories are broken down into specific design goals that have the potential to improve a building’s environmental performance within that area of focus. Some of these goals are considered prerequisites to any LEED certification. Others are optional. Whether required or optional, each goal is worth one point. Certification is based on the evaluation of the design team’s intent in improving the building’s performance. For a project to be certified, 26 points must be achieved; 33 points for silver; 39 points for gold; and 52 points for platinum. A total of 69 points is theoretically possible.

 

The Montgomery Park Business Center in Baltimore (below) features a 20,000-square-foot green roof. Solar hot-water roof panels (above) are installed on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Philip Merrill Environmental Center. Photography: © Katrin Scholz-Barth (bottom); Robb Williamson (top)

Projects register early in the design process and receive tools to assist with documenting project performance. The current fees range from $750 for small projects (less than 75,000 square feet) that are submitted by members to $3,750 for large projects (greater than 300,000 square feet) that are submitted by nonmembers. A separate fee, ranging from $1,500 to $7,500, is charged at the time project documentation is presented for certification review. Thus, the total certification fees run from $2,250 for a member’s small project to $11,250 for a nonmember’s large project.

From the onset, USGBC recognized that LEED would have to evolve over time. LEED 2.1 came out in November 2002 to streamline the documentation process. In addition, starting in 1999, USGBC began to address the needs of different building markets by developing more than one LEED product. Spinning off the basic template for new construction, USGBC began to develop other rating systems for existing buildings (EB), commercial interiors (CI), core and shell projects (CS), homes (H), and neighborhood development (ND).