Hi Paul,

It's a great strategy to map out the overall timeline for your LEED project. The key thing to keep in mind as you begin this process is that the performance period requirements apply to every credit you attempt in your application. For some credits, the performance period will involve tracking of specific performance data, such as purchasing data or recycling amounts. For other credits, the performance period may just indicate the time period during which specific plans, programs and/or policies are being observed. But every credit must be documented during a performance period. This period must have a duration of at least 3 months and no more than 24 months, and, as you've pointed out, all performance periods must end within a shared 30-day window. So, as you're mapping out your strategy, think about the optimal 3-month period that will give you the most bang for your buck when documenting your performance. Keep in mind that you will have to have a minimum 12-month performance period for EAp2/EAc1 because the energy benchmarking covered in those credits must include the 12 most recent months of energy consumption data. So if you're implementing a number of energy-efficiency initiatives at your project building, keep that in mind when deciding the starting point for your energy benchmarking. Essentially, there's no one-size-fits-all timeline for these performance periods because every project has a different perspective and may have different considerations when figuring out how to document performance. Generally, it's a good idea to make sure that you can meet all of the prerequisites before starting the performance period for the rest of the credits. So, in case there's a delay in meeting the prerequisites, you can minimize the other tracking efforts until absolutely necessary.