[ECO]Business Owners Need to Cover These 8 Bases for LEED Certification

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Business Owners Need to Cover These 8 Bases for LEED Certification

Earning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is a feather in your cap that requires you to get into the nitty-gritty details of your company’s impact on Mother Earth. 

You’ll likely have to change things about your business to meet LEED’s criteria and commercial rating systems to get this esteemed stamp of approval. Eventually, you’ll earn enough credits for your accomplishments to qualify for your ideal certification level. Here are some introductory elements to review in each credit category.

1. Water Efficiency

This category

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consumption. Almost every credit in this section demands accurate metering. You can only dream of resource reduction if you lack data about your building’s water use. 

Consider installing sensor-based technologies to get some cursory info. Then, you can work on making changes, like installing low-flow fixtures or rainwater harvesting barrels.

2. Sustainable Sites

Your company needs to rent or own space in a building that enriches the planet instead of detracting from it. Some of the

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category include:

• Redeveloping brownfields
• Community connectivity
• Construction that prevents pollution
• Habitat restoration
• Exterior open space creation

An environmental assessment is a prerequisite for site selection. Start your new construction or corporate rental by getting an evaluation of the lot’s green spaces, urban heat island impact, soil contamination, etc. This information will help you determine the most accessible credits in this category.

You can make the site even more sustainable if the building already contains eco-friendly construction materials. You can also demand the structure have lower-carbon options if building from scratch. For example, forgoing conventional concrete

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, and picking renewable insulation protects the structure’s envelope while reducing air pollution.

3. Energy and Atmosphere

Like the sustainability category, these credits have several prerequisites. While an energy audit can help with several by revealing leaks and inefficiencies, you may

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and verification. This credit requires you to review everything from electrical to plumbing to ensure they follow industry guidelines. 

You must also create maintenance plans and the basis of design reports, which explain the structure’s current state and how it will develop into a more energy-efficient version. A certified qualifier must approve these plans.

Creating these documents with professional help should be your chief concern. These are examples of actions to include in the maintenance plan, which you’ll also have to prepare for:

• Having oversight over outside air quality
• Knowing occupancy schedules
• Controlling lighting levels
• Scheduling preventive maintenance

4. Materials and Resources

If you want to prepare to tackle this section, obtain the

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— recycling bins. LEED requires certified companies to organize, store and transfer recyclables. For this process to be effective in the long term, you must train employees to identify waste materials. Then, they will consistently place waste in the right locations.

However, this goes beyond simple recycling, though there are tons of

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generation. You must also have ethical suppliers and means of acquiring business-critical materials. 

If one company makes semiconductor chips and the other manufactures reusable water bottles, both must prove where they source raw materials, the impact of those ingredients and how they contribute to a positive life cycle assessment. All you need to do is find supply chains that are equally attentive to environmental objectives.

5. Indoor Environmental Quality

IEQ is vital to master because you, your team and your clients will breathe in the building’s air daily. Consider public health issues and don’t include pollutants that could jeopardize the atmosphere. There

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to start checking off tasks in this category.

Banning smoking is the first step. You can also install monitors to detect tobacco smoke as a precaution. It’s one of the more dangerous contaminants for people and the planet, so creating a hard-and-fast rule can be one of the most impactful yet quick decisions you can make. 

You should also schedule an air quality audit. Much like an energy assessment, professional auditors can outline the structure’s toxic pollutants, whether they are volatile organic compounds or carbon monoxide.

These provide a solid foundation for obtaining more IEQ credits, which might include things like:

• Using low-emitting materials
• Maximizing natural lighting indoors
• Having quality views of nature from inside the building
• Perfecting thermal comfort

6. Location and Transportation

You can earn many points in this category, starting with the site selection process. You could invest in new construction or choose prime real estate in your bustling downtown area. Regardless of your circumstances, you must make your business

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and transportation accessibility. Improve livability and health by changing how you and your team members get to work.

Start by researching and promoting public transportation options in the area. Low-carbon travel, like bus systems or rental e-bikes, should be close to the building. If your business requires a company vehicle, consider switching to electric if it’s financially feasible. You may be more interested in encouraging staff to use public transportation after considering another credit — a reduced parking footprint. The more parking lots there are near you, the less biodiversity is around.

7. Regional Priority

This small category has an oversized impact, encouraging you to achieve LEED accreditation in specific areas. LEED incentivizes business owners to pick locations to address societal challenges. One community may have more public health crises or social equity concerns than others. 

Transforming a structure in an underserved location into a LEED-certified building could raise the residents’ morale and reputation. This phenomenon

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, which empowers marginalized communities to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

8. Innovation

Corporations that embrace sustainability are

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leaders. Your organization could hire a credentialed LEED professional or pay for someone on your team to earn certification, though this is optional. 

Pick one or multiple options to earn the five possible credits in this category.

• Innovation: Use a strategy not in the LEED guidelines and prove it has a monumental and measurable positive environmental impact on building performance.
• Pilot: Try getting a pilot credit from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Pilot Credit Library, which is different from the standard LEED library.
• Additional strategies: Exceed performance in a LEED prerequisite, usually by doubling the requirement, from the fourth version of the framework. 

Leading Into LEED

The LEED framework covers every category you could think of under eco-friendly building performance and management. While many criteria require intentional effort and extra resources, numerous prerequisites only require scheduling one appointment or starting a conversation to get the ball rolling. 

These bases will make your organization a champion of sustainability if you continue to persevere and care about your company’s impact.

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