Ban the credit

Re: the chem lobby all or nothing commenbt above. Arguably, LEED buildings are not operationally performing to the transformative nature of the USGBC mission re: energy, water waste, etc. consumption. Yet, to stay relevant i.e., when comparing to the IgCC, LBC, and other fledgling green building codes on their heels, the USGBC is pushing a public health agenda that has no scientific merit, and subsequently, goes after product manufacturers where they are already heavily regulated. For example, Green Screen was developed by the NGO Clean Production Action, which is not a consensus standards-development organization. Green Screen is a private eco-label developed without transparency or input/approval of most affected stakeholders. There is no appeal process for parties that are affected by the program or disagree with its conclusions. Also, it wasn't specifically REACH that drove opposition (although for a NA company to comply with an EU regulation for a NA green building system could be grounds for opposition), it was the inconsistent revisions of the credit(s) language between the 2nd, 3rd & 4th public comment periods, as well as the limited public response time when REACH was introduced, that caused the opposition. The USGBC LEED development process was basically telling the market that the Steering Committee and the TAGs didn't have a real strategy to implement environmental and health product criteria into the rating system, so let's quickly throw a variety of stuff in the criteria to see what we can push through. That is not how to advance, what has been to date, a good program.

Totally agree with you. Politicians never really fixed anything. Sometimes they can hide away symptomps or move them further away in time, but in general they cause far more damage then good.

The certification review processes is more at fault than the flawed LEED development process, at least that is my observation based on working with LEED since 1998. The USGBC is sending out a form letter for companies to send to GSA to convince them to keep LEED as their green building certification system. https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=19258 The problem is, the USGBC and GBCI have failed to see what longtime practitioners see; there are fewer and fewer private owners using LEED. The GSA and the State of California are the two largest LEED market shares. Lose one or both and LEED starts to collapse. Living and breathing green for more than 30 years, this pains me. So much progress was made when LEED first came out. Now, owners are turning away. The question now how to repair the self-inflicted damage to LEED done by the USGBC/GBCI? I have my opinions on what needs to happen, but I know it never will. People at the top management positions need to step aside and let someone else fix the process; unlikely to ever happen. The people who originally developed LEED (not the Founders) have mostly disappeared from the LEED radar screen. Why? How was a very small group of people able to get away with the ever hardening "it isn't LEED until to prove it us" certification process. Proving something is not a problem, proving something when the rules are unknown and ever changing, that is a gigantic problem.