LEED Green Building Rating System Works Toward Third-Party Certification

U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) V3, the certification bodies for the LEED Green Building Rating System were recently announced. Well-known and respected for their role in certifying organizations, processes, and products to ISO and other standards, the members include:

• ABS Quality Evaluations, Inc., Houston
• BSI Management Systems America, Inc., Reston, Va.
• Bureau Veritas North America, Inc., San Diego, Calif.
• DNV Certification, Houston
• Intertek, Houston
• KEMA-Registered Quality, Inc., Chalfont, Pa.
• Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Inc., Houston
• NSF-International Strategic Registrations, Ann Arbor, Mich.
• SRI Quality System Registrar, Inc., Pittsburgh
• Underwriters Laboratories-DQS Inc., Northbrook, Ill.

In the spirit of the most successful LEED projects, this evolution in the certification process is being undertaken as an integrated part of a major update to the technical rating system which will debut in January as LEED 2009. The update will also include a comprehensive technology upgrade to LEED Online aimed at improving the user experience and expanding its portfolio management capabilities.

Currently, all LEED project submissions are reviewed by USGBC with the support of independently contracted reviewers. In alignment with its vision of market transformation, beginning in January 2009, USGBC will move administration of the LEED certification process to the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), a non-profit organization established in 2007 with the support of USGBC. Working together with the selected certification bodies, GBCI will deliver a substantially improved, ISO-compliant certification process that will be able to grow with the green building movement.

“Third-party certification is the hallmark of the LEED program,” says Alice Soulek, VP of LEED development. “Moving the administration of LEED certification under GBCI will continue to support market transformation by delivering auditable third-party certification. Importantly, it also allows UGSBC to stick to the knitting of advancing the technical and scientific basis of LEED.”

GBCI currently administers the LEED Accredited Professional program, in alignment with ANSI requirements for professional certifications.