The US Green Building Council is an industry wide consortium made up of architects, engineers, manufacturers, contractors, developers, and other members of the design and construction community. One important program recently developed by the USGBC is the "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED™) Green Building Rating System". LEED™ is a benchmarking tool, which allows building owners to demonstrate the "greenness" of their building, in comparison to other buildings. At present LEED™ is in the pilot stage, with full rollout scheduled for March 2000.
LEED™ certification demonstrates that the building is a green building. It also will help to keep the building "green" into the future, by providing an incentive for the continued use of green technologies in the building (operators will be less likely to turn off green technologies if doing so will result in loss of certification).
Contents of this site are ©1999 Christopher R. Schaffner