International. The US Green Building Council (USGBC) launched LEED Positive, an initiative that seeks to recognize regenerative buildings that actively help restore their communities.
The USGBC expects to require all new projects in design and construction to achieve LEED Positive starting in 2025, according to Melissa Baker, senior vice president of USGBC. "Future versions of LEED must require projects to go beyond efficiency and demonstrate that they are leaving a positive impact on people, the environment and the economy. LEED buildings should generate more energy than they use, save more water than they use, and remove more carbon than they produce. In addition, it has a positive impact on the physical, mental and social health of the occupants."
The LEED Positive vision launched at Greenbuild includes four key principles for developing LEED:
- The Proposed Positive Leed Targets aim at reducing energy and carbon. The new targets will push the boundaries of new construction and encourage existing energy-intensive buildings to improve their efficiency efforts.
- Defines positive LEED goals for the other credit categories of the LEED certification system.
- Continue to invest in LEED v4.1 to accelerate the adoption of LEED in new and existing buildings.
- It supports performance certificates by category level through the Arc platform, which will provide existing buildings with a path to certification. Projects will be able to earn category performance certificates in each of the five performance categories tracked in Arc: energy, water, waste, transportation, and human experience.
- Achieving higher performance scores in all five categories will allow projects to earn LEED certification.
The USGBC will also launch an Better Materials platform for project teams, Adds Baker: "The platform simplifies the LEED review process by allowing project teams to search through thousands of products and materials, access all documentation in one place, and identify products that have been previously verified." The platform is not yet publicly available, but it will soon make its debut.
Source: Colombian Council of Sustainable Construction.
