LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a third-party voluntary certification system that rates buildings based on the extent to which they reduce their indoor and outdoor environmental impacts. The system was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is currently being used in over 100 different countries. It has become the de facto standard for defining “green buildings” in the United States and elsewhere. LEED consists of nine versions for different building types and designates buildings at one of four levels—Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum—based on the number of credits or points earned. As of April 2009, there were 22,000 buildings registered with LEED and over 2,400 completed, certified buildings, with the numbers of both doubling every year.