Extension of LEED 2009 Registration Period

Ross - I agree with you. The delay is a good thing. Many many people in the A/E/C and ownership roles are still struggling with understanding the nuances of v3!

I wonder if v3 and v4 could live side by side for a while longer. For example, a project listed under v3 after the cut of date could be limited to only achieving Certified or Silver status, while v4 projects could start at Silver and be allowed to pursue Platinum. It puts a hierarchy in the rating systems themselves, but still allows laggards to continue with the processes and systems they have spent years (and many dollars) refining to suit v3. I have spoken to many CRE leaders and LEED v4 is simply not on their radar. Not even a little bit.

It will only ever show up on their radar when it is required. The delay won't change that.

Marcus.....exactly right!

What would it take to change the name, LEED 2009, to what it really is LEEDv3 (LEED 2009 PLUS addenda)? If officially the name changed to LEEDv3, it would reflect that the standard is comprehensive of updates and had return to be a leadership document rather than appearing to be a 2008-developed document in use in 2016!

While we are at it perhaps we could change the names of the levels of certification. Never liked the precious metals thing. This might help differentiate v3/2009 from v4 as well.

The Extension: Great news, a very good thing! The market simply isn't ready or in many cases, able to hit the rigor of LEED v4. For example, A Sarasota, FL Sustainability-Architecture firm brought me in to help push along the LEED EBOM v4 process with their client, The University of South Florida. Almost immediately the team and I discovered that USF couldn't achieve v4 prereques, so we backed into v3.
Rating System Titles-Branding: I've always understood LEED 2009 as the evolution of 1. Rating Systems 2. LEED Accreditations 3. LEED Online. I always refer to the rating systems as v3 first and then as Marcus does v3/2009, but try to drive home the v3 indicator. There's no question there's confusion. I personally refer to rating systems commonly by number. i.e., LEED NC v3, LEED CI v3, LEED NC v2.2, LEED NC v4, LEED for Schools v2.0/v3 etc.
On another topic..
To me, one of the biggest issues we face with LEED adoption is the terrible design of LEED Online.

I'm not sure what we would call the top 3 cert levels for projects using v3 after the cut-off, perhaps naming them after conflict resources (oil, fur, etc.), or after notorious building materials (asbestos, vinyl, etc.) but for the 40-point threshold:
- Certified becomes Pacified

Obviously this is in jest, as while sufficiently capable project teams have no excuse for using v2009 after June 15th 2015, I don't want to make light of the efforts of project teams who aren't able to use it for legitimate reasons (whatever those might be).

On a serious note, I would hesitate to throw too much energy behind a broad update to v2009 (although I like the idea of republishing it with addenda under the banner v3, and maybe also removing the Platinum tier), as if program development resources are put behind this, I'm afraid that our now-extended closing date would be more likely to slip indefinitely.

one globe, two globe, - one star, two star - oopps already taken

Elements - Fire, Earth, Water, Wind

Trees - Pine, Maple, Oak, Redwood

Water - pond, creek, river, ocean

Soil - minerals, bacteria, fungi, humus

Should be something to do with life. Which is what we are really trying to sustain.

Try to simplify...
One amoeba, two amoeba..

EBOM projects using the Pilot ACP: EAp2 Energy Jumpstart (buildings with low ENERGY STAR scores improving by 20%) are limited to the Certified level. Perhaps a compromise would be limiting any LEED 2009 registered after June 2015 to the Certified level?

Granted, if the sunset date stays the same, this isn't really allowing buildings to use LEED 2009 longer; it just changes when the huge registration spike happens, which happens the day before every rating system closes.

Might drive some folks to v4, I like it Christopher!

I'm very disappointed with the extension. On most of our projects, if the project goal is Platinum, the only way to get there reasonably at this point is under V3. However, we've been able to advocate for pursuing V4 anyways because of the sunset date and the leadership position that some of our clients are in. This is a great thing! Not all projects should be able to reach Platinum and I was excited for a new challenge after so many years of the same old strategies and conversations. Now there's no motivation for most of our clients to do V4 at all. Extending the sunset date will keep most projects and firms in V3 until they absolutely have to change. This will keep the market from getting up to speed and make V4 irrelevant even before it gets launched.

Agreed with Janika and other posters above - I'm also disappointed with the extension, and with the lack of transparency and consensus involved in the decision. At this point, v2009 is fairly standard in many of our markets, but there is no motivation for our clients to pursue v4 unless there is an immediate sunset date for v2009. I'm faced with answering questions across our firm regarding the discrepancy between v4 accreditation requirements and open registration for v2009. Educating clients (and even designers) on v4 becomes much more difficult when they realize that they are not required to pursue v4 for some time. The point of LEED has been to push the market forward, and I'm afraid the delay is only causing fragmentation at this time.