When you choose to certify your building with LEED®, you're choosing to build a healthier and more sustainable future. LEED projects prioritize more efficient, low impact building design and construction, over traditional construction practices, in an effort to reduce material waste and reuse materials where possible. Beyond taking greater environmental responsibility, owners of LEED-certified buildings also benefit from tremendous energy- and cost-saving opportunities.
What exactly does it mean to be LEED-certified, and how do you achieve it? Keep reading to learn what a LEED-certified building is and how to get a LEED-certified building project underway for new or existing properties.
What is a LEED-certified Building?
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the world's leading green building rating system. LEED’s proven and holistic approach helps virtually all building types lower carbon emissions, conserve resources, and reduce operating costs by prioritizing sustainable practices. Canada is one of the top territories in the world for LEED certification.
LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building project was designed and built to achieve high performance in six areas of human and environmental health: location and transportation, sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality, according to the Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC).
- Certified: 40-49 points
- Silver: 50-59 points<
- Gold: 60-79 points<
- Platinum: 80+ points
Whether you're looking to make a commercial building more energy efficient, improve indoor air quality in a healthcare facility, lower the operating costs of a retail space, or develop a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, LEED has virtually limitless applications across nearly every building goal. Today, millions of people already live, work, and learn in LEED-certified buildings.
Benefits of LEED certification
Being LEED-certified signifies your building is built or maintained to the highest standard of sustainability and comes with numerous benefits to building owners, occupants, and the surrounding environment. Here are just a few of the many economic, environmental, and health benefits generated by LEED buildings, according to data gathered by the CAGBC:
- Save water, conserve energy, and reduce waste
- Lower CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions
- Reduction in waste sent to landfills
- Conserve resources such as water
- Reduced operating costs
- Improved quality of life through better air quality and natural light
- Improved leasing rates
- More equitable community development
"One of the big things that building owners tell me about when it comes to the benefits of LEED certification is the increased leasing rate that LEED-certified buildings command."
-Robert Anderson, Regional Account Manager