LEED Recertification – Get the Facts

LEED is a third-party verification for green buildings. Pursuing and achieving LEED certification provides independent verification of a buildings green features in design, construction, operations and maintenance.

How long does certification last?

A building can never lose its LEED certification achievement. You will always be able to say that the building was certified to the level achieved on a particular date. A project can continue to maintain up to date certification by being recertified – and demonstrate additional, important green achievements.

What is recertification?

Recertification is the subsequent application(s) for certification after a project has received an initial certification under any version of LEED for Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED EB O+M). This achievement ensures that the LEED project continues to function to LEED standards. For example: a five-year-old LEED for New Construction certification means that five years ago, the building was designed to be a sustainable building. Project teams choose to recertify buildings, because the original plaque says nothing about whether the building is operating sustainably today.

What LEED rating systems require recertification?

The LEED for Building Operations and Maintenance rating system can be applied both to buildings seeking LEED certification for the first time and to projects previously certified under any version of the LEED Design and Construction rating systems. It is the only LEED rating system that requires projects to recertify. By nature, LEED for Existing Buildings is an ongoing process, and its prescriptive and performance strategies are intended to provide operational benefits throughout the life of the building. If the strategies are sustained, the building can maintain and even improve its performance over time.

LEED O+M projects have two options to maintain their certification:

• Recertify (every 1-5 years) using the credit-based approach in LEED Online

OR

• Recertify annually through the performance based approach in Arc, i.e. ongoing certification

When using Arc for ongoing O+M certification, the team does not need to complete any LEED credit forms. Instead, the team will enter data in Arc under the five categories – Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation and Human Experience. This data will determine the project’s performance score. A previous LEED certification contributes up to a maximum of 10 base points, depending on previous credit achievement in the initial certification. The base score is static and is not impacted by the data entered into the platform. Find out more at http://arcskoru.com/.