Under this prerequisite, school projects must prohibit all smoking inside buildings. Designated interior smoking areas are not allowed. You may designate exterior smoking areas as long as they are 25 feet or more from entrances, operable windows, and ventilation system intakes.

You aren’t required to prohibit smoking during construction, but is good practice and will contribute to compliance with other indoor environmental quality credits, including IEQc3.1 and IEQc3.2, Construction IAQ Management Plan.

This prerequisite establishes a baseline for providing a minimum amount of outdoor air to buildings in order to maintain good indoor air quality and keep occupants comfortable and healthy. The prerequisite references ASHRAE 62.1-2007 (with errata but without addenda) and is often more stringent than local building codes, although it is not likely to entail any added costs.

This prerequisite establishes a baseline for providing a minimum amount of outdoor air to buildings in order to maintain good indoor air quality and keep occupants comfortable and healthy. The prerequisite references ASHRAE 62.1-2007 (with errata but without addenda) and is often more stringent than local building codes, although it is not likely to entail any added costs.

This prerequisite establishes a baseline for providing a minimum amount of outdoor air to buildings in order to maintain good indoor air quality and keep occupants comfortable and healthy. This prerequisite references ASHRAE 62.1-2007 (with errata but without addenda) and is often more stringent than local building codes, although it is not likely to entail any added costs.

You may find, on a renovation of an existing building, that many interior elements, such as walls, ceilings and doors, are in perfectly good condition and do not need to be replaced. This credit awards you 1–2 points for refinishing and reusing 40%–60% of these elements. The calculation for this credit is a function of the total interior elements present upon construction completion, including both the existing and the new non-structural building components used in the project.

You may find on a renovation of an existing building that some interior elements, such as walls, ceilings and doors, are in perfectly good condition and do not need to be replaced. This credit awards you one point for refinishing and reusing 50% of these elements. Projects are only eligible for this credit if the gross built area of the final building is less than two times the existing built area.

You can earn this credit simply by eliminating turf grass, planting native and adaptive species, and not installing an irrigation system. If those measures go too far for your project, you can still achieve the credit as long as you have some flexibility with plant species selection, and irrigation system design and controls.

You may assume that good acoustical performance is standard practice and will be delivered by the architect and mechanical engineer, but baseline designs often don’t meet the minimum acoustic requirements of LEED. To achieve this prerequisite you may need the help of an acoustics consultant, especially when project team members don’t have specific experience with acoustical performance. However, the architect or mechanical engineer can perform many of the needed calculations.

You will not earn this prerequisite using standard fixtures that only comply with the federal EPAct 1992. This prerequisite, first introduced in LEED 2009, raises the bar significantly. All projects must now reduce water use by at least 20% as a prerequisite, whereas earlier versions of LEED awarded a point for a 20% reduction. The baseline against which water savings are measured has also become more demanding. The LEED 2009 baseline for commercial lavatory faucets is 0.5 gallons per minute (gpm), whereas the previous baseline was 2.5 gpm.