LEED ® Certification

The LEED ® certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized standard used for planning and construction of eco-friendly and sustainable buildings. It is a highly respected mark of quality which helps building developers, owners, and operators find and implement ways to construct, maintain and operate green buildings. LEED certifikace

The LEED certification method and its modifications, such as LEED EB:OM, have been developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It serves as an objective confirmation that a building satisfies the strict requirements of the LEED standard in terms of its impact on the environment. The criteria of evaluation include for instance sustainability, water saving, effectiveness in the use of energy, appropriate choice of materials or quality of the interior microclimate.

The LEED categories

The LEED certification consists of a number of categories, each of them with a certain maximum number of points achievable. The proportion of points assigned to individual categories depends on the type of the building or its purpose. The following table shows the individual categories and the number of points assigned to them as they are used in new constructions and administration buildings.

Category	Number of Points
Sustainable Sites	28
Water Efficiency	10
Energy and atmosphere	37
Materials and resources	13
Indoor Environmental Quality	12
Innovation	6
Local Priorities	4
SUMMARY	110

We can offer you to participate also in each part of the certification process separately especially in energy modeling for LEED in EQuest software.

Assessment

According to a number of points achieved in the individual categories, a certain type of certificate is issued according to the following table:

Points	Certificate
< 40 points	-
≥40	Certified
≥50	Silver
≥60	Gold
≥80	Platinum

Specifies of LEED

The LEED certification is designed to make adjustments to planning, construction, and operation of buildings. It may be used for individual buildings as well as for compounds or districts. It is a complex, highly flexible method that may be used in any stage of building development and operation.

There are several subtypes of the LEED certification designed for specific types of construction. In the Czech Republic, it is the LEED Core & Shell certificate which is the most widely used. It is designed for so-called speculative constructions with more than 50 percent of the area to lease. Another subtype of LEED, LEED for New Construction, is designed for buildings with less than half of the floor area leasable. The certificates are issued by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI).

Certification process

There are three basic phases of the LEED certification process:

The first step, which comes after the registration, is preparation and arrangement of documents and materials, including all prerequisites and requirements necessary for the registration.
The second phase is putting these materials in a proper form required by GBCI and subsequent submission of the application.
In the third phase, GBCI processes the application and inspects all the submitted documents. The building is assessed in terms of the LEED criteria, the application is given a certain number of points, and the certificate is finally issued.

LEED history

The LEED standard was introduced by USGBC in 1998. It is a flexible system administered by LEED committees. It is being constantly updated and developed; the latest update of the system resulted in the LEED 2012 modification. The LEED standard is always up to date and it closely follows the most recent trends in the field of green buildings.
Almost 7000 projects in 30 countries are registered under LEED; altogether, it is 140 million square meters of floor area. 150 thousand square meters are certified every day by more than 20,000 members of various certifying organizations. It is the single most rapidly growing method of certification of sustainable buildings in the world.