LEED 2012 time-line

Just baseing this off of past history with other versions. I'm not "in the know" but love to speculate like the next person.

Expect the 3rd public comment to come out early January and the public voting next summer so that LEED 2012 can be released at GreenBuild next year.

It seems my initial guess was wrong about this coming out in early January. Now I'm hearing a rumor that it may not be issued until March. But I've been wrong before.

I could also be wrong, but I don't see the third public comment happening in January. If you're wondering whether you missed something... not yet.

The RFP for drafting the reference guides gave a timeline which may be of some use. USGBC intend to award contracts in February and indicate that the work should be complete within 10 months. That suggests they will have final reference guides will be finalized in December 2012.

Which is alarming since there are several credits that simply cannot go forward without serious revision. Jumping away from the hard fought battles to get structural building material suppliers to document their attributes and even re-locate production facilities means LEED will have very tough credibility battles - the little boy crying "WolF!" is just one example. And there are several more that we hope another public comment period will impact. In short - how can they hire folks and get them started next month unless they intend to go with what's on paper now and the next review comments are for show?

Perhaps I simplified the timeline, although I think I answered the original question. In reality they will try out contracted suppliers and then give more work to those who do the best. As most of the credits are actually not controversial they should be able to leave those until later in the process.

The 3rd public comment is opening today, March 1, with LEEDuser covering it here.