Sustainable Construction, 5th Edition

Chapter 5The US Green Building Council LEED Building Rating System

Building rating systems or building assessment systems are frequently used to grade the performance of a building project based on a specific set of green or sustainable criteria. Chapter 4 addresses the topic of building rating in detail and covers the most common international systems used for this purpose. Three major rating systems are commonly used in the United States. The most widely known and applied system is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating system, which is described in detail in this chapter. The LEED system is actually a terminology that covers a number of rating systems that have been tailored for specific building types. In addition to its widespread use in the United States, LEED has been applied to projects in 167 countries. Green Globes, a rating system whose application is growing quickly, is described in Chapter 6. The third major system, the Living Building Challenge (see Chapter 4), is not currently being applied to a large number of projects but is having a significant impact on stimulating improvements to other rating systems.

The LEED rating system offers a wide number of rating tools that can be used to evaluate different types of projects, such as office buildings, schools, data centers, and hospitals. Other LEED variants are designed to score the performance of building interior fit-outs, homes, neighborhood developments, and the operation and ...