LEED is a government sponsored program to measure the environmental friendliness of a building
. Typically office buildings pursue LEED certification as they can typically be the worst offenders in energy consumption across the United States. A building that is LEED certified has integrated certain elements to reduce its carbon footprint and impact on the environment.
Certification typically starts with the planning of the building during construction. Design elements are brought in to gain points across several specific categories. Water consumption is one of the categories a building can be measured. A shift to low flow shower heads can help add up and make an impact on the amount of water consumed.
The points accumulated are then tallied up to determine if the building can be certified and at what level. LEED Certification is broken down into multiple tiers: Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each tier comes with its own benefits such as zoning privileges and tax breaks for the foreseeable future. The lasting affects for the environment can also have a lasting impact on the companys bottom line. The United States Government has added these benefits and perks as a way to attract more companies to pursue certification and to help offset any additionally incurred upfront cost for the extra steps to pursue LEED Certification.
The Government is not content with merely dangling the carrot for companies to follow the path of certification and be friendlier to the environment. Techniques are being developed for the building process and shared with others to aid in the construction research required to achieve certification.
Many companies claim that the products produced are environmentally friendly or green. The Government has created this program as a measuring stick for exactly how green the company is concerning its building. It is easy to state environmental responsibility, and quite another to actually obtain certification verifying that responsibility. It is critical to the environment that more companies shift to an eco-friendly position to improve the conditions on this planet and take ownership of their carbon footprint.
The process starts by contacting a LEED Professional in your area with a click here. This Professional is capable of helping during the planning process to give tips and ideas of how to effectively achieve the desired level of certification. The LEED Professional will also perform the evaluation to determine if certification can be met. Companies are starting to see cost benefits and take responsibility for the impact they have in the environment surrounding them.