This credit encourages quality acoustical design, which provides many benefits to occupants, including increased comfort and productivity.

However, the credit requirements can be difficult and expensive to achieve, and can require careful balancing against other project concerns, such as materials selection or open floor planning. Consider enlisting the expertise of an acoustical consultant to ensure your project meets the applicable requirements for all occupied spaces.

For non-U.S. projects, this credit does allow for an alternative compliance path based on local standards. Project teams will have to show that the local standard is equivalent to the ANSI S12.60–2002 standard.

What’s New in LEED v4.1

• Sound reinforcement and masking systems have been removed as a major compliance pathway; instead, these measures can help supplement other requirements.
• All reference to residential projects has been removed.
• 4.1 now allows meeting two of the three major compliance pathways—HVAC background noise, sound transmission, and reverberation—to earn 2 points. Meeting all three earns a third exemplary performance point.
• The Sound Transmission requirements table has changed. Salient items are:
• Sound transmission requirements can be met using either sound transmission class (STC) or noise isolation class (NIC).
• The table now allows projects to define spaces that require ‘Private’ or ‘Confidential’ levels of speech privacy and select the corresponding performance allowing more flexibility.
• The much debated STC-50 requirement between Offices and Hallways, Stairs has been reduced to STC-35
• Referenced standards have generally been updated to more recent versions.
• Schools and Healthcare have been broken out into separate sections with more detailed explanations.

Should I upgrade?

It definitely depends on your project type and circumstances. V4.1 is less stringent in that only two of the three requirements need to be met, so you will likely find this easier to hit, but will your occupants be happy?