LEED Documents Translation

Hi Ahmed, definitely translate your documentation into English, but don't worry about getting the translation officially authenticated.

Hi all, 

I was advised in the past that information should be translated for the templates, but if the backup documentation wasn't English, that was ok. The project I'm thinking of was in Spanish, and would have been very costly and time-consuming to get everything translated. This was several years ago, though, and I haven't been able to pinpoint the official feedback in my files. That said, I just emailed LEEDCoach for an answer. This will be coming up on several of my projects anyway, so it'll be good to know for sure. I'll post the response once received.

Quick followup, I found an older post with a similar question from v3. This is more in line with what I remember from my older project. Look at the conversations here: https://leeduser.buildinggreen.com/comment/11278 

and here: https://leeduser.buildinggreen.com/forum/final-design-review-language-is...

I'm sure there are other related posts, but that's what I could locate the quickest.

So I believe the official GBCI language on this is "relevant portions translated to English." I'm a former LEED reviewer, here's what I was generally looking for with translations:

- PI form and general docs: Floor, site, etc plans should all be labeled in English.

- For credits where creating a document is the credit requirement (e.g. tenant design/construction guidelines credit for LEED-CS, construction waste management plan): translate at least introductions and section headers as well as text that directly addresses the credit requirements. So for example, in a construction waste management plan, you'd want to be sure the reposnible party, recycling goals, and target materials are translated since the credit requires those be included.

- For credits where the document is backup (product data sheets, construction pollution prevention field reports, brownfield remediation report, etc): Translate key words and sentences, you can just mark up the original document with the English text. Including the translation in the "special circumstances" box is fine too, just be clear which document it refers to.

Official/authenticated translations are not required. Google Translate or similar is fine.

For future reference for others, I got the response back from LEEDCoach. Here is what they said:

"Thank you for your inquiry regarding project submittals for international projects.
In order to facilitate certification review by U.S.-based reviewers, pertinent aspects of review related documentation must be submitted in English. It is not necessary to translate a document in its entirety if other sections are not relevant to LEED review. However, the project team should be prepared to provide additional translation if requested by the reviewer."
 

Here's another tip -- a GBCI reviewer is happy and willing to cut and paste from your document into Google translate if they want to read something that you haven't translated for them.

Make this easy for them by submitting PDFs that are formatted so that the text can be copied. Avoid providing PDFs that display the text as images, so text can't be selected with your cursor.