The Changing Face of Green Buildings: Iconic Treasury Building Earns LEED Gold

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

One of America’s most iconic buildings earned LEED for Existing Buildings yesterday. By improving their operations, the Department of Treasury’s headquarters next to the White house has slashed energy, steam and water consumption to save taxpayers $3.5 million per year. The oldest LEED building ever certified also increased their office density by 164 units, which equals big savings in avoided new office space.

This is a moment to step back and applaud what has been done. Because the project certified under Existing Buildings, the certification was based on actual energy, water and steam consumption (bills) and not a projection.

This $3.5 million dollars is real money that the Treasury is keeping in the treasury.

Source: Clifford's Photography

The announcement is even more monumental in the context of the green building movement and the evolution of these industries. The building world is changing. Treasury follows the path of another icon, the Empire State Building (LEED EB:O&M Gold) and comes only weeks after the announcement that the square footage of LEED for Existing Buildings – certified for actual performance – has surpassed New Construction.

Despite little minds in Congress and worse in some state mansions, this movement is winning. Not only are new buildings becoming greener and more efficient, saving money for nearly centuries, but our architects, engineers, designers, contractors and manufacturers are working on the buildings we already have. Nothing could be greener.

National Defense Authorization Act Makes the Mission Harder For Military But Not Impossible

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Congress recently passed the 2012 authorization bill for the Department of Defense (DoD) and included a provision that bans LEED certification at the Platinum and Gold level for DoD buildings. To be clear, this provision is irrational and misguided at best, and deliberately problematic for the leaders in the defense agencies at worst. But before reacting as if the sky is falling, it’s worth taking a deeper look at the “provision” and noticing that it isn’t really all that iron clad.

Nothing in the bill indicates that the Department can’t keep certifying buildings, since the provision only forbids certifying to the highest levels of LEED. Why certain members of Congress think that our military service men and women do not deserve the best buildings possible is unanswerable.

As background, DoD was one of the earliest users of LEED and has the largest number of LEED-registered and certified buildings owned or occupied by any federal agency. We doubt that the Department would walk away from a more-than-decade-long commitment to sustainability. DoD knows that LEED and building efficiency is delivering real savings to the department. In 2009, in its own Department of Defense Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, DoD noted that energy use per square foot declined by 10 percent and total water consumption decreased by 4.6 percent, in spite of increased military operations.

DoD can still LEED certify to Gold and Platinum levels if there is no additional cost or they document a positive return on investment, which they have done and will continue to do. For example, earlier this year, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that new Navy and Marine Corps buildings would attain a LEED Gold certification level beginning FY 2013 and would do so at no additional cost.

“It shouldn’t cost anymore, particularly in this economic environment, to build buildings that are sustainable than it is to build building that are not. It’s going to require some creative contracting and some creative building and construction practices, but I am absolutely confident that we will be able to do it,” Sec. Mabus said on Tuesday, May, 10, 2011.

We think the Navy and Marine Corps will be able to keep their commitments despite obstructionists in Congress. Hopefully, this will be a learning moment for some of our elected officials on how build sustainably and how to reach these higher levels of performance.

The one somewhat good thing in the bill is the request of a cost effectiveness study on LEED certification and other building efficiency tools, although it has been done before. A study released just this August by the General Services Administration (GSA) found their green buildings have 27 percent lower energy use compared to the national average, while reducing operational costs by 19 percent compared to the national average. LEED Gold buildings were singled out as being particularly high performers. We have no doubt that this new study will come to the same conclusion, and we are happy that this time the LEED Volume program can be specifically explored for DoD. We’d love to work even more closely with leadership agencies to certify more buildings and drive down costs.

Bottom line – our military will be able to continue its leadership on sustainable building and energy security, despite the indefensible actions of some of our elected “leaders.” Something tells me that they’ll be able to rise to the occasion.

Tapping the Zoning Code to Enable Greener Buildings and Communities

Jeremy Sigmon, LEED® AP BD+C
Manager, Building Codes Advocacy
U.S. Green Building Council

Many communities are opening up their zoning codes to identify and remove barriers, and adopting language that will encourage greener building and greener living outcomes. You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Portland, Oregon has been greening its zoning code for several years including a handful of updates this year. You might be surprised that other cities and counties, such as the City of Buffalo, NY and Will County, Illinois, are doing (or have done) the same through a community-focused comprehensive look at how the zoning code could better encourage the development of a greener community. In these last few weeks of 2011, both Philadelphia and New York are at milestones worth celebrating.

The City of New York is the most recent to jump into the ring of rethinking the zoning code with their announcement last week of “Zone Green.” With a backdrop of many other successful initiatives related to Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, this initiative will be one worthy of following in 2012. Zone Green is an outgrowth of the extremely successful efforts of the Green Codes Task Force, coordinated by the Urban Green Council. The Green Codes Task Force, which put forth 111 policy recommendations in a 2010 report, now claims 29 of those recommendations as victories, a few of which were adopted just last week. Last week’s code upgrades will improve building air quality, stop certain streams of wastewater from construction sites, and repurpose spent concrete into most new pavings.

This week Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter will sign the City’s new zoning code that was adopted by the City Council last week. This is the City’s first zoning code update in 50 years. Among the long list of sustainability elements in the Zoning Code Commission’s final report are incentives for increased development density for commercial buildings that earn LEED Gold and Platinum. These LEED incentives are a popular way to encourage green building development, and are an important part of the City’s strategy to leverage the power of the zoning code to facilitate more sustainable development. Other areas of focus include: encouraging water conservation, promoting renewable energy and building energy efficiency, reducing vehicle miles travelled, promoting healthy, active lifestyles, and encouraging urban food production.

There’s a lot to be optimistic about in the green building world in Philadelphia. The City is home to President Obama’s $129 million dollar investment in identifying and deploying energy efficient building technologies, policies and methods (see: Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster). USGBC’s local chapter organization – the Delaware Valley Green Building Council – is one of the strongest in our network. Philadelphia School District was awarded top spot amongst cities greening their school facilities in a Best of 2011 list released last week by the Center for Green Schools at USGBC. And if that weren’t enough, while in a restaurant in Center City two weeks ago before Cities Alive 2011, a waitress told me (effectively un-prompted!) that energy efficient, green, LEED buildings were all over the place, and that green real estate was the only thing renting or selling these days.

If the wait staff in restaurants in your home town aren’t talking about a greener community (and even if they are), you probably have some things to gain from removing barriers and creating opportunity for green buildings, infrastructure and neighborhoods.

LEED for Neighborhood Development looks at this scale of building, planning and development and metrics in the rating system can serve as guidelines to achieving local or regional sustainability goals. Open up USGBC’s resource page for local governments addressing community-scale planning and policy to see how the principles of LEED for Neighborhood Development can help you leverage the power of the zoning code to make sustainability happen in your own backyard.

USGBC Explains Who’s Who at COP17 for Green Building and Climate Change

Roger Platt
Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law
U.S. Green Building Council

When our delegation of green building council representatives arrived in Durban for the COP 17 climate conference, we hoped we had what it took to help change the world. The diverse group seemed to possess that peculiar mixture of naiveté, enthusiasm and focused passion that can distinguish successful from merely aspiring troublemakers. Through participation and attendance at a variety of different events I was, as usual, impressed with the astounding effort on the part of various individuals and organizations to bring to scale energy efficiency and green building solutions. I was proud to be a part of this movement at the COP.

COP17 has officially ended on a generally positive note – the Durban Platform for Advanced Action was agreed to by parties (for pros and cons of the official outcome see Jason Hartke’s blog, “Good COP, Bad COP”). While nearly 200 countries reaching consensus agreement on the messy issue of the Kyoto Protocol is no small feat, I would be remiss to not also take this opportunity to wave the flag for a record number of parallel achievements in our small yet increasingly growing world of green building and energy efficiency within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

These achievements include (but are not limited to) a landmark report issued by the Institute for Building Efficiency that directly connects the dots to building efficiency in the UNFCCC context, six major international cities recognized for their progressive local green building policies, and an entire Durban street of low-income houses retrofitted for the occasion of COP17 among many other important initiatives.

With so much happening it seems fitting to make a note of all the experts and talented people whom I encountered at COP17 with a shared agenda to make progress on green building in the name of climate action.

My hope is that this good work doesn’t simply end along with the two-week negotiating session when everyone goes home and files their business cards away in a special COP17 pile. These lessons are important, relevant, and applicable now. Thus, I bring you, “Who’s Who in Green Building and Climate Change,” a cheat sheet of experts and accompanying resources from COP17 that will hopefully continue to foster global collaborations for the rest of the year.

THE LIST:

Jason Hartke (left with Rajendra Pachauri, Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) and Hope Lobkowicz with USGBC represented the interests of green buildings as an integral component of emission reduction goals at the COP.

Jorge Wolpert Kuri with the Mexico National Housing Commission gave an inspiring presentation on the Sustainable Housing Initiative that satisfies its Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Programme of Activities (POA).

Sandra López Tovar with the Colombian Ministry of the Environment revealed the progressive work that the Colombian government has pursued to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Dr. Lisa Ryan and Philippe Benoit with the International Energy Agency and their 25 Energy Efficiency Policy Recommendations and Energy Performance Certification of Buildings in which LEED is highlighted as one of the most well-known and applied whole building rating schemes.

The Business Council for Sustainable Enegry and USGBC joint side event, “Driving a Transformation to Energy Efficient Buildings.” Pictured from left to right: Jennifer Layke, Jorge Wolpert Kuri, Sandra López Tovar, myself, and Dr. Lisa Ryan

Jennifer Layke and Katrina Managan with the Institute for Building Efficiency at Johnson Controls and their report, “Driving a Transformation to Energy Efficient Buildings: Policies and Actions.”

Lisa Jacobson and Laura Tierney were at the COP on behalf of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. BCSE hosted expert panels and facilitated the important discussion on the role of the private sector in global climate negotiations.

Simon Reddy, Executive Director with C40 Cities, represents the interests of the 40 largest cities in the world which account for 18% of global GDP and 10% of global carbon emissions. C40 in inspiring and enabling cities to make the emissions reductions necessary to mitigate the effects of climate change to which countries are reluctant to commit.

Reid Detchon, Vice President for Energy and Climate, and Mark Hopkins, Director of International Energy Efficiency, with the United Nations Foundation promoted energy efficiency as a low hanging fruit for emissions reduction opportunities.

Kateri Callahan with the Alliance to Save Energy is a long-time ally of our mutual policy goals and mission.

Thierry Berthoud, Managing Director, Energy & Climate at the World Business Council on Sustainable Development is prominently featured in the Guardian UK’s Sustainable Business Blog with his blog series on green investment. The WBCSD Energy Efficiency in Buildings Program facilitate emissions reductions made at least economic burden—through the low hanging fruit of energy efficiency.

Jeff Moe, Director of Global Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, an initiative at Ingersoll Rand is a true UNFCCC expert and a consistent advocate for building efficiency in the global arena.

Mark Watts, Director of Climate Change and Energy Consulting at ARUP, has become a notable player in the international policy arena. Their joint report with the C40, “Climate Action in Megacities,” explains the innovative policy-based prescriptions being pursued by the world’s 40 largest cities. We were excited to discover that nearly 30% of all city-level actions were building related and that buildings accounted for the largest sector of emissions reductions activity!

Dan Hoornweg, Lead Urban Advisor for Sustainable Cities at the World Bank, is shaping the future of city-level efforts under the Clean Development Mechanism. Dan along with a vast team have developed a city-wide, multi-sector Clean Development Mechanism Program of Activities which has the potential of greening all sectors of a developing city, including buildings, energy and water use, waste management, transportation and much more. The first project of which is currently underway in Amman, Jordan.

Safa Jayoussi with the Jordan Green Building Council who supported WGBC events while remaining very active in CAN International efforts to pressure negotiators for a better outcome. Its unquestionable that we have Safa and her colleagues to thank for keeping Kyoto alive coming out of COP17.

Stephane Pouffary, founder, President and General Director of ENERGIES 2050, was a pleasure to meet as an expert on the inclusion of buildings under international climate finance mechanisms, including the Clean Development Mechanism and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions.

Carl Wesselink with South South North who developed one of the first building-related CDM projects which retrofitted over 2,300 low income housing to be more energy and resource efficient in Cape Town, South Africa.

Bruce Kerswill, Executive Chairman, and Brian Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer, (and the rest of their incredible team) at the Green Building Council of South Africa who organized the Cato Manor retrofit and hosted the members of the World Green Building Council in their beautiful home country.

Nicola Brewer, British High Commissioner who was the major sponsor of the Cato Manor Retrofit and who additionally accepted the Urban Retrofit Award on behalf Birmingham, UK in the WorldGBC Government Leadership Awards press conference.

The community of Cato Manor in Durban, South Africa – who welcomed us into their homes to witness the impact that this green retrofit has had on their lives.

Larry Schweiger (at right), President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, joined us at the Cato Manor event. USGBC and NWF work closely to advance green schools through the Department of Education’s Green Ribbon program.

Pooran Desai and Sarah Alsen with BioRegional, which has developed a One Planet Living framework for sustainable communities based off the simple notion that, after all, we only have one planet to support us. If everyone lived like Americans, we would need the resources of five planet earths.

Rodney Milford with the Construction Industry Development Board of South Africa and the UNEP Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative.

Nana Mhlongo (at left) with the Council for the Built Environment who also serves on the Advocacy Committee of the UNEP Sustainable Building and Climate Initiative.

Romilly Madew, the CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, who was instrumental in securing funding from the Australian government for the Cato Manor COP17 legacy project and who spoke to WGBC’s efforts on sustainable cities.

Pictured from left to right: Jane Henley, CEO, World Green Building Council; Martha Delgado, minister of environment, Mexico City; Nicola Brewer, Birmingham, UK; Yoshio Wagai, senior director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Urban and Global Environment Division; Axumite Gebre-Eqziabher, Division Director, UN-Habitat; David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada

Jane Henley, CEO of the World Green Building Council who spearheaded the WorldGBC Government Leadership Awards and who continues to be the global ambassador for green buildings and GBCs wherever she goes. At right is a photograph of some of the award winners and representatives from the partner organizations for the competition.

David Cadman and Yunus Arikan with ICLEI International, a partner of the Government Leadership Awards, attended the conference on behalf of their extensive network of local governments.

Pictured from left to right in one of the COP17 plenary rooms: Axumite Gebre-Eqziabher, Division Director, UN-Habitat; David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada; and Jane Henley, CEO, World Green Building Council

Axumite Gebre-Egziabher and Raf Tufts with UN HABITAT, the third partner of the Government Leadership Awards. Their Sustainable Cities Programme helps cities build capacity and improve their urban infrastructure.

Martha Delgado, Minister of the Environment with the Government of Mexico City accepted the Climate Action Leadership Award for their Climate Action Plan.

Yoshio Wagai, Kenji Suzuki and Yuko Nishida with the Tokyo City Government and the Tokyo Emissions Trading Scheme, which was awarded the Most Groundbreaking Policy Award. We are extremely excited about this innovative policy to address GHGs from buildings and look forward to working with the City of Tokyo on developing a policy template that is replicable worldwide.

For more photos from USGBC's trip to Durban, visit our Facebook album.

Happy Holidays from USGBC

Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO & Founding Chairman
U.S. Green Building Council

Dear Friends of USGBC,

As the year winds to a close, I am honored to reflect on yet another historic year for the green building movement. Thanks to our faithful USGBC members, committed LEED Professionals and project teams, dedicated volunteers and advocates, and the myriad other invaluable contributors to USGBC, we took great strides toward our collective mission in 2011:

• 3,500 commercial and 5,400 residential projects were LEED certified this year, with cumulative totals exceeding 11,000 and 14,600, respectively. And another 31,800 commercial and 61,500 residential projects have been registered. More than 125,000 projects are part of LEED –– an extraordinary accomplishment. And now we look forward to the development of LEED 2012, focusing on the technical rigor of the rating system, expanding the market sectors able to use LEED and striving for simplicity in terms of usability.


• When enrollment closed in October, more than 61,000 LEED APs had opted into LEED AP with specialty credentials. Today, more than 175,000 professionals hold a LEED Professional credential and the industry is even more equipped to handle the different types of building and community projects coming through. In September, we announced the 34-member inaugural class of LEED Fellows, the most distinguished professionals in green building. These folks are inspirations to us all.


• This year our USGBC chapters played a critical role in influencing local and state government policy. The Charlotte Chapter worked closely with local officials to get Oct 24-28 declared Environmental Sustainability Week, coinciding with a series of sustainability programs hosted by the chapter. The Delaware Valley Green Building Council received a USGBC innovation grant that has enabled them to develop a green building legislation "action alert" online system. The California Advocacy Committee, representing all eight California chapters, kicked off its first year of statewide collaboration around green building policy and advocacy with a new, community-developed model for decision-making and engagement and already has a list of wins.


• Our national and chapter members are working hard to fulfill the Administration's Better Buildings Initiative, supporting the aim to make America's commercial buildings and plants more energy- and resource-efficient over the next decade by providing incentives for private-sector investment.


• The Center for Green Schools at USGBC placed the first Green Schools Fellows in Sacramento and Boston, and commissioned the first nationwide survey on green schools with founding sponsor United Technologies, hosted a Healthy Schools Summit and released its inaugural "Best of Green Schools" list.


• Despite the challenges of holding the first Greenbuild outside U.S. borders, Greenbuild secured a record number of partnerships, sold out our expo floor and welcomed 23,000 attendees to Toronto. With the help of our progressive host city and devoted volunteers, we achieved 95% waste diversion, setting a Greenbuild record.
  


• The USGBC App Lab launched in November as part of LEED Automation, which is transforming the way project teams interact with LEED data. Comprised of applications designed by LEED Automation Partners for Web browsers, tablets, smartphones and other devices, the App Lab simplifies the certification process and maximizes building performance.
  


• As of this month, cumulative square footage of LEED-certified existing buildings surpassed LEED-certified new construction for the first time. As the U.S. is home to more than 60 billion square feet of existing commercial buildings, most of which are energy guzzlers and water sieves, this trend serves as a promising indicator of our progress.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the hundreds of accomplishments that we can celebrate this year, as we should. But we also have much to do.

As we enter this season of giving, the USGBC family has always been a generous one, especially as we've worked to bring the benefits of green building to those who need it most –– populations made vulnerable by age or poverty or natural disasters. And this year we continue our work on behalf of the impoverished victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Through the generous USGBC community, we have secured contributions and pledges totaling more than 50% of our fundraising goal for Project Haiti Orphanage and Children's Center, a zero-impact, LEED Platinum facility and Clinton Global Initiative Commitment of 2011 that will not only provide for the immediate health and emotional needs of orphaned children in ravaged Port-au-Prince, but will also serve as a model for sustainable rebuilding and a teaching tool for local architects, contractors and students. As you consider your year-end charitable contributions, we urge you to consider a contribution to Project Haiti at USGBC.org/Haiti so we can bring this important effort to fruition.

Celebrating our achievements of the past year, I gaze ahead with great optimism. The economic and political winds continue to shift, but in spite of that, green building continues to thrive, and the stage is set for a remarkable 2012. Thank you for your significant contributions to this transformational journey toward a more sustainable, healthy and prosperous built environment. From all of the staff at USGBC, we wish you a safe and joyful holiday.

Sincerely,

S. Richard Fedrizzi
CEO, President and Founding Chair
USGBC

Seattle 2030 District: The NEXT Big Thing in Green Building

Brett Phillips Director of Sustainability, Unico Properties Board Chairman, Seattle 2030 District

Brian Geller Executive Director Seattle 2030 District

The green building movement has made great strides in recent years, but it’s not enough. In order to put up a good fight against ever-increasing environmental and economic pressures, we need a united front of the public and private sector, and to approach issues at the city — or district — scale.

District sustainability currently experiences the same limited level of awareness that individual green buildings did a decade ago, when the U.S. Green Building Council announced its first 12 LEED Certified projects, of which there are now over 11,000.

Get ready for a paradigm shift.

The Seattle 2030 District is an innovative, private-sector led project attempting to create a groundbreaking high performance building district in downtown Seattle. The project is already gaining national attention; earlier this year, the 2030 District was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to represent Seattle — along with the cities of Los Angeles and Atlanta — as a “Place-Based Ally” to launch President Obama’s Better Buildings Challenge. By 2020, this program aims to reduce commercial building energy consumption by 20 percent nationwide.



The 2030 District model of private-sector engagement and aggregated goals is unique among the three selected cities, and will serve as a guide for other cities to follow. The District has key support and partnership from the City of Seattle and King County, but is being led largely by the private sector: property owners, managers, developers, engineers and design professionals who believe that setting aggressive energy performance targets at the district level is the key to elevating our region’s economic and environmental potential.

Working together, civic leaders adopted the goals from the 2030 Challenge for Planners, which adds reductions in water consumption and vehicle miles traveled, to the energy and fossil fuel building reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge. These goals, to be met by 2030, include aggregated district-wide reduction targets of 60% reduction in energy from new construction, 50 % reduction in energy from existing buildings, 50% reduction in water, and 50% reduction in carbon emissions from auto and freight.

These voluntary commitments are not empty promises. District members are required to share, under proprietary agreements, building energy, water, and transportation data, join the Seattle Climate Partnership, enlist in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and submit LEED buildings to USGBC’s Building Performance Partnership. In return, the Seattle 2030 District is delivering innovative financing vehicles, sharing critical industry tools and best practices, and creating joint education opportunities to participating property owners and developers.

Improvement districts are not new — but the Seattle 2030 District takes a novel approach to the concept. District-wide reduction goals for energy use, water use, and CO2 emissions translates directly to using less power, water and fuel. While this may be hard to conceptualize, it yields tangible results: less traffic, better indoor and outdoor air quality, a more pleasant and desirable urban environment, a healthier Puget Sound and greater economic activity. These are the changes that Seattle and other growing urban areas must make in order to maintain vibrant and competitive cities in an era of population growth and resource overconsumption.

But don’t environmental priorities run counter to economic ones? Not always.

Take energy use, for example. Buildings use approximately half of all energy consumed in this country. Reducing that use will take human energy: conservation managers, building auditors, manufacturers and installers of more efficient equipment — in other words the green jobs we’ve all been hearing about.

For decades, it’s been cheaper to displace human labor with fossil fuel energy in the U.S., and we’ve followed that trend to its logical economic conclusion: high unemployment and rising energy prices. Yet thanks to those rising energy prices, projects to make buildings resource-efficient can more convincingly provide faster financial paybacks and higher asset values for building owners and investors. These conditions, paired with the right partnerships, technologies and financing solutions increases our ability to scale efficiency projects more broadly. The Seattle 2030 District aims to be the catalyst to make that scale reality.

There is no one-size-fits-all prescription to achieve the performance goals necessary to survive and thrive. Property owners and managers should be free to pursue the most innovative solutions to generate the best financial returns or other desired benefits for their property.

The bottom line is that the private sector must take the lead in transforming our economy away from fossil fuel dependency. More than 60 organizations, and over 23 million square feet of building space (30 percent of downtown Seattle) are participating in the Seattle 2030 District, a model that can lead the country in that transformation. It’s time to join forces; 2030 is right around the corner.

LEED Professionals: Don't Let Your Credential Expire; Remember to Renew Every Two Years

William Nutt
Associate, Marketing and Communications
U.S. Green Building Council

You know the hard work and dedication of time it took to earn your LEED Professional credential. It’s important to remember that there is also a renewal process every two years. Renewing your LEED credential renews your sense of personal accomplishment as well as your commitment to green building and continued contribution to the sustainability movement.

The Credential Maintenance Program (CMP) was crafted with input from those in the green building industry and is designed to broaden and deepen your scope of knowledge within the field of green building on a continual basis. Maintenance requirements allow for credentials to stay relevant and maintain a professional’s credibility and competitive edge.

In a recent survey, 85% of current LEED credential holders say that having the LEED credential gives them a competitive edge and credibility in their field of work; 92% say it indicates a greater commitment to green building; and 97% say it supports their professional development.

LEED Professional credentials require renewal every two years through this simple three-step process:

1. Complete your specified number of continuing education (CE) hours in a variety of flexible ways. As you earn them, report your CE hours under My Credentials at GBCI.org.
2. Upon reporting enough hours to fulfill CMP requirements, click “Renew My Credential,” a blue button in your my Credentials account.
3. If you are eligible to renew your credential, you will be prompted to pay your $50 renewal fee and your credential will be renewed for two years.

Here are a few simple continuing education activities to help you earn your hours, many of which you likely engage in regularly:

1. Contribute to LEED projects
2. Author articles and/or books about green building
3. Earn related credentials, licenses and/or certificates
4. Attend live presentations
5. Conduct a self-study

LEED Professionals who opt out of CMP will forfeit their credentials. If you ask me, the expansive benefits of renewal are too good to let go.

Use #LEEDPros to join the conversation on Twitter.