Three Cool Things You Didn’t Know About the LEED International Program

Jennivine Kwan
Vice President, International Operations
U.S. Green Building Council

Summer’s winding down but the heat’s still here in Washington, D.C., and what better way to cool off than to immerse yourself in the wave of cool things USGBC is doing internationally? Here are three things you may not have known about LEED International:

1. Hablas español? We do! USGBC now offers customer service in Spanish. It is hosted by the same great team that provides service to our English speaking community, and this is just one of the many steps we are taking to making green building information more accessible for everyone. The toll free number for the U.S. is 1-800-795-1747. If you are calling from outside the U.S., please call 1-202-742-3792 (try using Skype). Option 2 is for Spanish. E-mail inquiries can also be sent to leedinfo@usgbc.org.


2. Bike ride in Paris: June marked the start of what we hope will be increasing engagement with our international LEED Professional community. Thanks to our co-hosts, the Korea Sustainable Building Council (KSBC), CB Richard Ellis Philippines and Deloitte France, we were able to personally reach out to more than 100 LEED Professionals in Seoul, Korea; Manila, Philippines; and Paris, France through three fun, informal LEED Professional meet and greets. For those of you who read my previous blog, “What Does Korean Fried Chicken Have to Do With the LEED International Program?” you’ll know that that meeting was ablaze with activity. The Philippines event kept it cool in the elegant Manila Tower Club, and the event in France attracted attendees from six European nations. It also involved a planned bike ride through Paris. Coming up this week: Meetings in Peru and Brazil. See you there!

   European LEED Professionals along the Seine (Photo: Scot Horst)



3. LEED Resources in Chinese: Do you do business in China or know someone who does? This is the tool for you. Available now on our website is a useful package of Chinese resources in Mandarin: The Business Case for Green, LEED FAQs, Project Profiles and a Membership Package. Include them in your presentations and your proposals to clients. Use the membership package to invite new members in to our community. Help give decision makers and the general public who have not heard about LEED or green buildings the opportunity to decide for themselves. Just by passing these along, you can help inspire monumental change. How cool is that?

"An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people – it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the Burden of Mystery." (John Keats)

Help reduce the heat this summer by passing on the cool things we are doing to help ease the "burden of mystery" internationally.

Q&A at LEED Professionals Meet and Greet, Manila, Philippines, June 21, 2011 (Photo: CB Richard Ellis, Philippines)

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