Green Building Council Announces LEED Positive
The U.S. Green Building Council recently announced that it is taking its LEED development program one step further: to focus on LEED positive.
“The world faces staggering challenges through 2050 in terms of water scarcity, air quality, resiliency and climate change,” the USGBC said in a press release.
“To help address these issues, the LEED Positive vision will guide USGBC in transitioning LEED from strategies that reduce the harm done by buildings to strategies that cause no harm and begin the process of healing and repair.”
Today, during #Greenbuild19, USGBC announced LEED Positive – a vision statement and #LEED development roadmap that will lay the foundation for a future of LEED that is regenerative. pic.twitter.com/9kMNSjNqRy
— USGBC (@USGBC) November 20, 2019
The initiative was announced at the organization’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in late November.
“We must do all we can to leverage our tools and resources to scale up reductions in carbon emissions associated with buildings, communities and cities,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, President and CEO, USGBC.
“LEED must evolve qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, it must transition from strategies that reduce the harm done by buildings to strategies that cause no harm and are regenerative by design, ensuring our buildings are actually giving back more than they take. And quantitatively it will need to accelerate and increase its impact ten- to a hundred-fold by leveraging our Arc performance platform. The future of LEED is LEED positive.”
The USGBC notes that more than 100,000 projects are now engaged in the LEED rating system and adds that LEED Positive will encourage even more development.
The initiative is composed of several parts:
