LEED v5 is comming

Core Objectives of LEED v5:

Climate Action:

Half of the LEED v5 rating system's weight is dedicated to climate action, focusing on decarbonization and resilience to tackle the urgent climate crisis​.

Quality of Life:

This aspect covers social equity, health, and well-being, including Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), passive survivability, and material health, making up a quarter of the rating system's weight​.

Ecological Conservation & Restoration:

The final quarter of the system's weight, addressing site and landscape ecology, ecotoxicity, and pollution associated with materials​.

Carbon Reduction:

The new version underscores carbon reduction, with a strong emphasis on minimizing peak heating and cooling demand, enhancing energy efficiency, and promoting electrification and refrigerant management​.

Resilience:

Resilience is a key theme, addressing planning for extreme events like wildfires. Proposed credits include Resilient Indoor Spaces, and Resilient Site and Building Exterior Design​2​.

Equity:

Equity is integrated across various credits, focusing on the social impact of projects and inclusive design. An Occupant Needs Assessment prerequisite for the indoor environment is introduced​.

Embodied Carbon:

LEED v5 aims to address embodied carbon, with discussions on setting minimum requirements and standardizing reporting of embodied carbon emissions, moving towards net-zero buildings​.

New Credits and Prerequisites:

LEED v5 introduces new credits like the Resilient Indoor Spaces credit, and prerequisites for carbon and resilience assessment. It also highlights embodied carbon assessment and potentially aims at doubling the points for whole building life cycle assessment from LEED v4.1. Additionally, a new credit for water reuse and a prerequisite for social impact assessment are introduce

Operations and Maintenance (O+M):

The draft for LEED v5 O+M was released at the 2023 Greenbuild Conference focusing on setting existing buildings on a decarbonization path and addressing equity, health, ecosystems, and resilience. This draft is the first among LEED rating systems to be released and is in a beta version for critical feedback and refinement​.

Platform Re-Invention:

USGBC is developing a new IT platform for hosting LEED, aiming at significant improvements over the current LEED Online experience​2​.