Mandatory Re-Certification - Really?

Hi Rus--I too heard that statement in Monday's webinar. I have yet to get the details. As you may remember from the early steering committee days, I felt that there should be a 5-year 'use-by' date before a LEED certification becomes 'stale'. I understand that there are also reasons not to do so for a design-oriented standards, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Perhaps a separate forum for that... Anyway WRT your point about this being a ballotable issue, it seems to me that this would fall under a program administration issue, rather than a substantive technical issue, which is where the line is typically drawn for what gets balloted or not. You are 100% correct that this is a huge issue affecting the market. I think that USGBC would be well advised to undertake a parallel discussion--not tied up with the V4 ballot--of the implications of this step.

I couldn't agree more. There's been talk of recertification since forever (as Rob points out) so it's no surprise - but this raises the issue that the MPRs can have a far more reaching impact than many of the technical issues. "Program administrative issue" or not, determination of these in a black box can be problematic. I wouldn't mind the recertification issue so much if they were open about it from the beginning. It feels a bit backhanded.

I seriously doubt that this would be done retroactively. That WOULD be 'backhanded,' but the idea that makes the most sense substantively and politically is that it would apply to V4 and beyond.

I didn't mean that recertification would back-apply to prior versions of LEED - more that they did not seem to be open about this (or I missed it?) during the 2+ years we've spent developing "V4".

Thanks, Mara. Generally, the 'product development' process for LEED could use some improvement so that the TAGs are at least aware of important administrative issues.

This just landed in my in-box (5/25): "Dear LEED 2012 Consensus Body Members: Recently, several of you participated in the first of our LEED 2012 Consensus Body webinar updates. During the webinar, the comment we made about recertification caused confusion and was not accurate. Recertification is a component of LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance. Developing a performance-based recertification program for all LEED project types is a concept at this time and is not connected to LEED 2012. LEED 2012 contains new prerequisites for energy and water metering. Metering is fundamental to building performance, and we believe these metering requirements will help LEED projects maintain excellence in operations over the long term. As USGBC begins its work on a performance-based recertification program we will keep you informed of our developments. Thanks to those of you who participated in our recent webinar; we look forward to continuing our dialog with you in the coming weeks. Sincerely, The LEED 2012 Team @ USGBC"