Supporting the Importance of Green Policy

LEED encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood, and accepted, tools and performance criteria. The LEED program is well organized, international in scope, comprised of thousands of members and located across the country.

The primary LEED platform is a certification program that ranks buildings and products from Basic to Platinum based on a detailed rating scale. The scale includes criteria such as Water Efficiency (including Discharge Water Compliance and Innovative Wastewater Technologies), Materials and Resources (including Air Introduction and Exhaust Systems, Increased Ventilation, and Smoke Control), and Indoor Environmental Quality (including Smoke Control). It is worth noting that the USGBC has established Social Equity Guidelines requiring organizations to incorporate the needs of diverse communities, including the underserved and communities of color, and to be proactive in advancing social equity objectives. The USGBC collaborates with social justice and quality-of-life advocates in order to integrate the practices of social and economic justice with those of sustainable building.

Learn more about LEED at the USGBC website.