LEED Certification - What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Whether or not you are just fascinated with greening your conferences or are taking steps to make your events more sustainable, you have most likely heard about LEED certification. However unless you are nicely versed in the rising arena of green meetings, you won't be clear about what it is. So what precisely is LEED certification and why should it matter to you?

Management in Vitality and Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally acknowledged green building certification system that provides voluntary guidelines for the event of sustainable buildings, together with resorts and conference centers. Created by the U.S. Inexperienced Constructing Council, this system awards totally different ranges of certification to buildings which have met LEED rating standards in areas equivalent to sustainable web site growth, water financial savings, power effectivity, supplies selection and indoor environmental quality.

To achieve LEED certification, a constructing or project should comply with a stringent record of requirements and endure a rigorous third-occasion commissioning process to verify that the building has achieved its environmental goals and is performing as designed. LEED ratings for brand spanking new buildings embrace Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum and EB for present buildings.

Besides serving to resorts and convention centers entice more environmentally minded conferences and conference business, LEED certification demonstrates that these venues are healthier for individuals and the planet. At present, approximately 17 convention facilities and over one hundred lodges in the U.S. have attained some degree of LEED certification, in accordance with the USGBC.

"What LEED means is that a venue or facility has gone by means of a rigorous set of established, measurable and consistent practices or processes to satisfy with what the trade has decided is a sustainable building," says Leslie Hasvold, CMP, operations and expertise program supervisor of Cisco Dwell at Cisco. "I know that they're doing this with their water, doing this with their excess meals and beverage and that they have a certain waste diversion rate because they managed to realize this explicit certification. It's measurable, constant and one thing I can level to."

In response to Amanda Gourgue, CMP, chief meeting revolutionist at Assembly Revolution and considered one of a small minority planners who has attained LEED AP skilled accreditation, just holding an event at a LEED-certified facility or hotel means you routinely reduce the environmental affect of your meeting.

"To have the option to get LEED it's vital to go through a extremely tough course of to show that your constructing is lower on energy, water and other natural sources than a conventional building," says Gourgue. "Whenever you're doing a gathering in a LEED-licensed facility or lodge, you might be confident that it's a healthier constructing for the environment. The planner doesn't even must do something but but they're doing something good for the planet."

Still, selecting venues which can be LEED-licensed is solely one step in the appropriate route relating to planning and executing extra sustainable occasions, says Paul Salinger, vice president of selling at Oracle and board president of the Inexperienced Conferences Trade Council.

"It is a good first step however it's not the only step," says Salinger. "When you're trying to actually run a sustainable meeting and you want operational information, just being in a LEED resort won't essentially get you there...not every LEED-certified venue is doing the back end operational stuff that needs to be measured when it comes to water, waste diversion and vitality utilization and whether they're doing towel and sheet reuse program. None of that's a half of LEED-certification. So it's a should to watch out in terms of just looking at LEED as the sole criteria for selecting a venue."

And though LEED needs to be a consideration when deciding on a greener venue, needless to say there are also many environmentally friendly properties and facilities that simply have not made the investment in certification, says Hasvold.

"Unfortunately getting LEED certification is usually prohibitive," says Hasvold. "You'll have an incredible boutique lodge that does exactly what they need to do to be LEED-certified but they can't afford to go through the process. However while it's unfortunate that there are a entire lot of really incredible properties out there which may be doing the precise issues, people who did (put cash into certification) deserve a re-assessment by planners."

In the end, what LEED certification demonstrates is that a property or facility has made a severe commitment to the surroundings and is walking the stroll, not simply speaking the talk.

"When you're choosing venues which are LEED-certified, that's an important part of being holistically sustainable," says Salinger. "Fairly than just taking a glance at whether or not you are eliminating bottled water, reducing printing or any of the simple, low-hanging fruit kinds of issues, in case you're looking specifically for those venues which have gone by manner of the time, hassle and expense of getting LEED certification, that's a part of your journey around sustainability and that is important."