LEED v4 Registration Delay a Mistake

Hear, hear!

If you took the same poll ahead of the launch if every prior version of LEED, I am sure there would have been similar results. Basing a decision like this on a poll is frankly ridiculous. If this is the basis for decision-making then, I agree Gary, it will never happen.

It certainly appear that the mission is not the USGBC's top priority. If everyone is ready then what are we transforming?

Gary, is this the end of version 4 as we know it? Theoretically any new version, say version 5, would need to be created and run with only version 4 running...that means that a version 5 wouldn't see the light of day till January 2017!
In reality this capitulation to an unknown sector of 'users' (although the artical above says that the market needs more time...so how can they be 'users'' if they're not using it?) is really a dumming down of LEED new construction
Now tie that to the Dynamic Plaque dumming down LEED EB and we have a series of missteps that the membership never agreed to or where consulted on.
The USGBC have allowed the 'nattering nabobs of negativity' to sideline a Great Leap Forward with version 4 and eviserate an existing program in LEED EB.....for what reason? If we "wait for the market" it will NEVER happen.

Marcus. So if the mission of the USGBC is being kicked into touch, what then will replace it? Based on current lack of transparency it will be replaced with nothing that the membership have any involvement with. As to a poll, well as any pollster will tell you, the results entirely depend on what question you ask, how you ask those questions and to whom you actually interview.

What USGBC said about the poll results does not even pass the laugh test. So 61% were not ready or unsure. Well what percentage were unsure. If there were three choices - ready, not ready, unsure - why were the unsure lumped with the not ready. For an organization that prides itself on creating LEED based on science this appears to be a decision based on other issues justified by a very unscientific poll. While I have significant issues with the use of any poll to make this decision, at least make it sound at least remotely scientific. Hopefully the press release writer made it sound worse than it actually was.

I had the same head scratching moment about the poll results. Was the poll conducted to justify the move that was all but predetermined, or in the couple days following Greenbuild did the USGBC board sit down with credible results (I would hope they had more to go on that the cherry picked 61% figure) and reach this conclusion?

I would also be curious how poll respondents were selected (to not be complete junk it would have to be representative of the broader USGBC membership). I was at Greenbuild this year and was not offered any such opportunity to chime in on this.

Didn't ask me either.

Two other observations:

Of the 3 possible responses to the survey, it seems like "we are ready" was selected more than 1/3 of the time, and was perhaps the most common response. It is odd that this wasn't the primary take-away. If the responses were split evenly between "no" and "I don't know", it could have been reframed: "Only 30% of the market not ready for LEED v4!"

And now, with my tinfoil hat firmly in place, the press release was initially authored by Jay Mehta, and is now attributed to USGBC's Director of Public Relations.

Nor me.....but then again that doesn't really surprise me. Why ask questions of people who you know are going to answer that 'they're ready' when you 'need' the answer to be a negative.

With my tin foil hat on...many thanks Glen...and as a business man running a for profit business, this whole thing, plus the LDP sure smacks of 'panic mode' to me

I don't have any great perspective on motivations for this, but I have it on good authority that this decision is having a significant demoralizing effect on USGBC and GBCI staff, particularly on those who worked diligently for three years to produce v4. The vast majority of the folks who work at USGBC, who were equally shocked by the decision, are incredible individuals motivated by the core organizational mission, but unfortunately this seems to be a calculated business decision made behind closed doors. I'm reminded, perhaps ironically, of the statement that was scrawled on the whiteboard in Brendan Owens' office: "We are not a company."

Christopher, I'm heart broken that the staff should have been put under this sort of pressure. Many of us on these forums have been working with 'the greatest team on earth' since the beginning and are now fighting as best we can to get these stupid decisions that have recently be enacted by, what seems to be , a small cadre of senior USGBC and GBCI individuals, reversed.
At any opportunity that you get, as a personal message or linked through from this forum, please remind all the great staff that we fully support them and that we will not rest until full transparency has been restored to the USGBC.

Thank you for your insightful contribution on this Christopher, it is heartening to learn that the good people behind LEED v4 are as frustrated at this development as we are.

I wonder if we will hear from USGBC staff on this, or if all related correspondence will be filtered through their PR team. I can only guess that staff has been asked to remain silent on this issue, as I have heard nothing other than dry factual announcements. LEED was literally founded on the diversity of opinions, and to silence internal critics (if true) would be truly counter to the broader mission.