From the Editor

At Greenbuild, the passion is palpable. Indeed, Greenbuild — the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual conference and expo, held last week in San Francisco — is one of the few industry trade shows at which it’s clear a vast majority of the attendees are truly excited to be there.

But beyond just the good feelings, there was some actual, exciting news, too. Scot Horst, Senior Vice President, LEED, unveiled what USGBC is calling a “Dynamic LEED Plaque.” (You can see a photo from the presentation here.) 

The idea is that the plaque will maintain a real-time LEED score in total, and in each of the LEED categories, based on how the building is operating. The Dynamic LEED Plaque will work in concert with what USGBC is calling the “LEED Box” — which is basically an electronic hub installed in each building that will give that building a “LEED Address,” will allow two-way communication between USGBC and the building, and will provide the data for the LEED Dynamic Plaque.

In total, the goal is performance. Horst said, simply, the idea is to have a better way to bridge the gap between design and operations. Besides, as he said, when project teams and facility managers work together, and have the data, a majority of projects improve — not get worse. USGBC says they’ll begin beta-testing a LEED recertification for LEED for New Construction projects – in addition to the recertification system that’s already in place for LEED-EBOM.

The new Dynamic LEED Plaque isn’t quite ready for prime time yet — Horst said perhaps by mid-next year, the first prototypes will go into buildings. Ideally, by the time LEEDv4 is rolled out next fall, the new plaque will be reading for wider use.

What do you think? Would you be interested in trying a Dynamic LEED Plaque in your own buildings?   

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

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