We are currently carrying out the feasibility study for the certification of an existing project in Operation and Maintenance v4.1: Existing Buildings. It is a multitenant building and the property of the building is divided into several companies and individuals, it is a co-ownership. We are a bit confused because of having multiple owners and tenants. According to the v4 O+M guidelines on section Tenant Space Exclusion Allowance it describes that: “Buildings with leased spaces may face particular challenges in earning LEED for Building Operations and Maintenance credits. Whereas the prerequisites address the base building systems or are limited to areas under management control, many credits require commitment and cooperation from tenants. Project teams should review the lease terms and management situation and either obtain commitments from tenants or pursue credits that do not require tenants’ participation. Projects that have a few large tenants may be able to satisfy the requirements more easily than buildings with many small tenant spaces.”
Does this ruling also applies to v4.1?
If we correctly understand, the prerequisites are mandatory for the base building and the common areas under the management control, and the credits may or may not be pursuit by the tenants. But for example, on the energy and water performance, the energy and water data use should be only for the base building or also for the tenant spaces and therefore consider the whole building?
Best regards,
Sofia Barahona
Trista Brown
Project DirectorWSP USA
456 thumbs up
November 11, 2021 - 8:35 pm
Hi Sophia - check out page 19 of the v4.1 O+M Guide here: https://www.usgbc.org/resources/leed-v41-om-beta-guide. The 10% exemption for tenant spaces that was available in v4 is still available under v4.1. If you have major tenants/owners that do not want to participate, you might want to consider pursuing a v4.1 O+M Interiors instead (see page 17).
Sofia Barahona
B-green Chile8 thumbs up
November 12, 2021 - 7:09 am
Thank you very much Trista, I also just got the response from the GBCI and they also mentiones the 10% exemption available for v4.1:
"There are special exclusions allowed in v4.1, as described on p. 19 of the v4.1 O+M Guide (https://www.usgbc.org/resources/leed-v41-om-beta-guide):
"Projects may exclude up to 10% of the total gross building floor area from the LEED project boundary, which will apply consistently throughout the submission except in EQ prerequisite Environmental Tobacco Smoke, where the entire building must be considered.
10% Tenant Spaces Exclusion
10% of the LEED project (by gross floor area) may be excluded from an individual prerequisite or credit if it is not possible to gather the necessary tenant data for, or if the applicant does not have control over the required element. The specific spaces excluded as part of the 10% can vary by credit. In your prerequisite or credit documentation, clearly note which spaces have been excluded.
This exclusion is different than the 10% exclusion allowed for the LEED project boundary (see LEED project boundary above). Note that projects are encouraged to obtain commitment and cooperation from tenants and to include the entire building or project spaces to ensure a full picture of performance."
If using this exception for EA prerequisite Minimum Energy Performance, or for WE prerequisite Water Performance, the energy or water use must be sub-metered and excluded from the consumption data for the prerequisite. If using this exception for MR prerequisite Waste Performance, the waste must be tracked and measured separately and excluded from the generated and diverted waste totals for the prerequisite."