New LEED Standards Delayed to 2013

WASHINGTON – LEED 2012 won’t make it this year.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced yet another delay earlier this week on the vote for the new sustainable-building standard until sometime in 2013, and also agreed to another public-comment session for late this fall.

The new version of the standard, tenatively titled LEED 2012, will now be known as LEED v4 with the move to next year’s ballot.

A USGBC news release noted the delay came “in response to concerns raised by members, core LEED users and stakeholders, and in an effort to provide the marketplace a view of the full LEED program experience prior to ballot.”

USGBC originally scheduled the vote on the new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system for this month, but the group added a fourth comment period in May. The revised target date for the vote by USGBC members was Aug. 15 before the move to 2013.

The vote is tentatively scheduled for June 1 next year, although balloting may be earlier “if USGBC members and the market indicate readiness for ballot,” according to the group’s news release.

A fifth comment session on the standard will be open from Oct. 2-Dec. 10, partly to coincide with the Greenbuild conference/expo on Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco. USGBC will hold public forums and educational sessions on site, with the conference also serving as a platform to debut new forms, submittal documents and LEED Online enhancements.

“This is 100% in response to our members’ desire that we give them a bit more time to absorb the changes in this next version of the rating system,” said USGBC President/CEO Rick Fedrizzi,. “We want to do everything we can to ensure that the market can fully embrace LEED v4 because it represents significant progress on carbon reduction and human health.

“Greenbuild will provide us the perfect venue to experience the look and feel of the new system as an integrated package. Then we can take the first part of 2013 to make sure the consensus body has everything it needs for a successful ballot.”

For more information, visit usgbc.org/LEEDv4.

Get all the latest in the industry with The EDGE, the e-newsletter from Stone Update. Free subscriptions are available here.