Group Certification Fees

Dear Omer

They had indicated previously that there would be a group fee.

Can you post a link to the new Part II information? I just tried to do a search on the USGBC site and came up with nothing. I checked the fees page and unless they still require each building to be separately registered & paid for, there is no indication of any update there. I've been waiting for Part II for over 2 years for one of my projects--10 very similar factory buildings, so its nonsense to certify each individually. Thanks so much!

Omer, sorry for the confusion, I meant can you provide a link to the advice that Part II is now available? I may be wrong, but the fees still show that you have to register each building separately, so if Part II really has been released, then the fees page is not updated.

BW

Melissa

As I understand it, Group Certification is available right now, however LOv3 as it stands cannot cater for Group Certification, it is being reprogrammed but the upgrade has not been released. In the mean time, we have to submit all buildings within a Group as separate LEED registration but set up all as one block for ease of submittals and acknowledgement that these registrations are associated with one Group. Later when LOv3 had the upgrade, the USGBC will refund the difference in registration and review fees. Aye, will USGBC /GBCI please confirm the above.

I don't understand the logic of the Group Certification fees. Shouldn't they be discounted like campus projects?

Hi everyone, Although it is correct that the Fees page has been updated to reflect the pricing for Group Certification, unfortunately, the new functionality to support the AGMBC (both the Campus credit and Group certification approaches) has not yet been released. I must apologize for the continued delays, but we do actually expect functionality to be released very soon.

As has been noted above, Group Certification does not include any discounts on the LEED registration or certification fees as compared with submitting each building or space as a separate LEED project. However, it is expected that the new functionality and process will result in costs savings for project teams in terms of consolidating the documentation and administrative processes. I do also expect more details to be released soon regarding the process of moving from individual to group certification, but due to the Group Certification fee structure this would not likely result in any refunds.

Group certification does save the GBCI money. It is unfortunate the USGBC is not sharing the cost savings.

The Group certification process is being used "unofficially" with one of my clients. They have two LEED v2 and one v3 project.

There is a cost savings not only for the campus credits, but also because the GBCI assigns the same review team to review all of the campus projects.

Hi Omer, Again, my apologies for the delays in the release of this Group project certification functionality. Please be assured that our staff is working hard to complete the process. While I don't personally know exactly when the new functionality will be released, from conversations with the development team, my sense is that it will be within months (possibly much sooner), not a whole year from now. We thank you most sincerely for your patience.

Thank you Eric for the clarification. It has not gone far enough, there must be accountability by GBCI to commit to a dropdead activation date for Group Certification. There are financial implications for my Clients, 2 projects are being held up pending resolution of this, many projects are on the same boat of uncertainties.

So confirm us this, are you saying that if we want to register a Group Project, each building must be registered separately (athough in same block/master site) and hence pay for multiple registration and review charges according to number of buildings as per MPR?

We understand there are cost savings for all stakeholders in the implementation (same review team, streamlined submittal documentation etc.) but the right thing to do is to facilitate savings also in the GBCI fees, which was the intent of AGMBC.

So the group certification fees are the same as individual certification fees. Now if I have 10 identical buildings on the same mastersite I have to pay 10 x the individual certification fee??!!! This is INSANE!!! Why would I do that, when I can only certify one of the buildings and announce that my building is LEED certified and all the others are built to the same spec.

GBCI must come up with a feasible group certification fee structure that works for everyone ASAP. Otherwise group certification will not mean anything to anyone...