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Kathryn West
LEED AP BD+C, O+M, Green Globes Professional
JLL
LEEDuser Basic Member
112 thumbs up

This should result in a better LEED experience. I also wonder who is answering these emails though and what the communication is between the person answering and the LEED reviewers. It'd be great for everyone to be on the same page. You'll notice that the emails have a disclaimer: "The text above represents a staff opinion of a particular issue, and does NOT set any precedent to be upheld during a LEED Certification Review" Ideally, the less ambiguous language the better.Owners don't like to be told to invest in sustainable strategies to only "wait and see" if they get credit for it. The cost (to GBCI) of this extra customer service is worth absorbing so people have a positive LEED experience. A LEED review system with too much ambiguity/inconsistency is a bad thing for the brand/business. The ability to get an email response regarding a LEED credit strategy, rather than having to hope for the best during the LEED review, is much welcomed. Thanks for making this change. My next suggestion would be to integrate the information all into one place. With digital editions it would be feasible to put ALL the information in the reference guide. That would be more user friendly than the current mosaic of materials: reference guides, LEED interpretations, addenda, guidance documents, LEEDuser etc.

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Megan Ritchie Saffitz
Director of LEED Support
U.S. Green Building Council
LEEDuser Premium Member
25 thumbs up

Thu, 03/28/2013 - 13:25

Thank you for your comment! To provide some better insight: Our standard ‘Customer Service Group’ is comprised of those individuals that you might speak to on the phone if you call our 1-800 number. They answer thousands of emails and calls each month across the breadth of USGBC products and services. They do respond to some basic LEED and certification emails, but pass along anything technical, project review-related, or escalated to the LEED Support team for higher-level assistance. Our LEED Support team consist of architects, engineers, and green building professionals who coordinate directly with individual LEED Reviewers, the Certification Team, and other staff Subject Matter Experts as necessary to fully answer project teams’ questions. We are careful to provide thoughtful advice in pre-review situations to help ensure the best possible outcome based on the information provided in the questions we receive. We are currently updating our email-response disclaimer to better reflect this, as well as working on a fresh, new standard format that will offer more information about who is responding to your question, where the information came from, and better follow-up and feedback options – please stay tuned! Lastly thanks for your thoughts on aggregating all LEED information in one place – we’ve shared it with the LEED Department.
Profile picture for user GreenKat
Kathryn West
LEED AP BD+C, O+M, Green Globes Professional
JLL
LEEDuser Basic Member
112 thumbs up

Wed, 05/29/2013 - 20:03

Any update on this disclaimer? Our clients aren't really comforted by answers that come with this disclaimer cited above :)

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 02:59

Hi Kathryn - Sorry for the delay. The disclaimer language will be updated: "The information above is not equivalent to a formal LEED Certification Review. Applications for LEED Certification will be thoroughly reviewed based on USGBC Member balloted and approved LEED Rating Systems."

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