of the other MR credits-- some are trying to achieve a lot, but aren't heavily rewarded. ...

manage Pharos and lots of other great green building tools, I don't think the USGBC is appreciating what a chilling effect this increase in complexity and lack of widely available materials will have...

It will be an prerequisite to only use toilets, urinals and private lavatory faucets and shower heads, which are Water Sense labeled. The water sense label basically sets a maximum flush/flow rate and requires independent testing of that and the map test, just to name a few things. I think it's great to finally restrict flows per fixture and have a form of verification as to function of the fixture. So the reduction doesn't scarifies the function. However I'm working on lots of international projects and get lots of questions from international teams in regards to where they can find...

Quite a few multi-tenant commercial buildings have earned LEED EB O&M, and since you are only allowed to exclude up to 10% of a building's area the tenant occupying the 25% would need to participate. It's true that EB O&M gets more complicated the more tenants are involved, but we've seen high rise office buildings with many tenants get certified. In some markets, we've seen a lot of older multi-tenant office buildings pursue EB O&M as a way to remain competitive with newer Class A office buildings. The key is showing the tenant they don't "have to"...

We have a project on a military base that must achieve LEED Silver and we are off to a rocky start with the recent return of our design credit submission. The project is New Construction (replacing an older building elsewhere on the base). there is no new parking provided with the project. All existing campus parking will be utilized by occupants. However, we will be taking (10) spaces from an adjacent lot and designated them for LEFE vehicles for our building. So, our project boundary includes the building and surrounding grounds, but excludes all parking since it is existing and not required per...

(Distance by rail/3) + (Distance by inland waterway/2) + (Distance by sea/15) + (Distance by all other means). The sea distance converts to 7,500 miles. This is 30% of the circumference of the earth. Is this transportation actual miles traveled? It will be difficult to get this data from shippers and suppliers. Or, is this still a straight line calculation. What if the ship travels north and rail travels east, and a "truck" travels south? Would each separate path be calculated and added together? Unfortunately, these changes requires an addendum to the Reference Guide. Preferable...

In nearly all cases grouts used for ceramic tile installation are are cementitious and zero VOCs. This is of course not the case for elastic grouts. It does not make any sense why a product application with zero VOCs is required to be documented. What is the point? ...

"projects where no future development is planned are not eligible for this master planning credit." I work on a lot of school projects. I am wondering what "is planned" actually means. My guess is, the Reference Guide addenda authors will add "commitment of funding" which is somehow binding. But, what happens if the funding is not secured later on? ...

"the vague hazardous chemical containment requirement has been removed." This is a layover from LEED v2.0. Rob Watson actually had a lot, if not everything, to do with this. I know this because I understand what is, or was, required. I documented this for the NRDC's Robert Redford Platinum Blond LEED project. You were supposed to plumb sinks that might use hazardous chemicals in a way to prevent the chemicals from being dumped into the sewer lines without being treated first. We tried implementing into the Platinum Blond project's janitorial sink, just to be sure all the LEED...

and where an occupant could do office work (read, write, etc.). So, obviously regularly occupied areas and no any other areas. Applicable areas will take the clear line drawn and allow the reviewers to use...