LEED Certification Under Question

Much has been made of the legal battle over the gold certification of Northland Pines High School in Eagle River, Wisconsin.  The appeal identifies the school’s failure to meet “Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) Prerequisite 1 and Entergy and Atmosphere (EA) Prerequisite 2 of LEED®.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) took 16 months to gather expert reports of the building’s qualification.  They concluded that the “USGBC will not act to revoke certification or disallow any prerequisites or credits.”  The Appellants Executive Summary Response can be found here.

The credibility of the LEED® seal has been under attack for a few years now.  Separate speculations are now being made to suggest that although LEED® has high standards for energy efficiency, not all certified buildings meet the set requirements, nor do they ban the use of all toxic indoor building materials.

The gold and platinum LEED® requirements are important goals for new construction.  However USGBC need to make sure that they have the means to accurately estimate the effectiveness of a building’s LEED® design and calculate the emissions of any existing LEED® buildings.  USGBC needs to increase measures to make sure the LEED® projects satisfy the requirements and maintain LEED® status overtime.