At its core, LEED is designed to adapt to the needs of people who design, build, operate and enjoy these certified spaces every day. That’s why its important for the staff and volunteers who work to develop the rating system to hear from USGBC members, communities, LEED users, projects and other stakeholders to better understand what’s needed in order to push the rating system—and the market—forward.

In March 2018, USGBC put out a call for ideas on how to improve the technical language of LEED, including the newest rating system, LEED v4.1. More than 250 proposals were submitted, providing valuable feedback that will continue to shape the future of the rating system. Once received, the proposals were sent to the relevant LEED committees and Technical Advisory Groups for consideration and recommendations.

This feedback is critical to LEED’s growth and gives insight into what’s working for the market and where there are challenges. Proposal responses were written by volunteer technical experts, along with staff leaders from USGBC and GBCI, and have been reviewed by the LEED Steering Committee. The 2018 Call for Proposals Report outlines the feedback received and any changes made as a result.

Responses have been grouped by theme within each credit category. General feedback and requests have also been addressed, including

Standardizing naming conventions throughout rating systems. All naming conventions will be corrected to be consistent across all performance categories.
Updating forms and calculators. All calculators will be reviewed and updated for applicability to LEED 4.1 projects.
Streamlining referencing across adaptations and credits. Credit IDs were removed in LEED v4 for better alignment across adaptations where a category might have a different number of prerequisites or credits. This was done to reduce confusion about which credit is being referred to in comments or discussion.

As the past 20 years have shown, LEED is always evolving. The Foundations of LEED document was updated in 2018 to include this proposal period, in an effort to make LEED even more agile and responsive to the market. USGBC will continue to collect feedback from practitioners and the green building community as a whole, as it works to roll out LEED v4.1 Building Design and Construction, Interior Design and Construction, Operations and Maintenance, Cities and Communities, and Residential.

Read the responses

How LEED evolves: Review responses to the 2018 LEED Call for Proposals