From the Editor
One of the lesser known, but more important, tenets of the LEED for Existing Building: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) rating system is the requirement that facility managers re-certify buildings at least once every five years. The reason why the re-certification requirement is important, says Michael Arny, president of Leonardo Academy, is because all a LEED certification plaque – whether EBOM or New Construction – really says is that at some point in the past, the building was sustainable. The plaque says nothing about the current state of sustainability. In fact, says Arny, a LEED certification plaque hanging in the lobby is a little like a five-year-old review on display at a restaurant. What’s to say the quality hasn’t gone way downhill?

So, making sure sustainable goals are still on track is critical. “Recertification is important because it’s a course correction,” says Arny, who recommends recertification every two to three years, as opposed to the five-year minimum. Recertification helps ensure the building continues to perform as well as it did the day you hung the plaque on the wall. What’s more, if facility managers sustain on the strategies implemented to attain the initial LEED certification, are continuously commissioning building systems, and are faithfully collecting and analyzing data, then recertification should be a slam dunk.

Arny says he recommends registering your project for recertification and setting a firm timeline immediately after you receive your latest recertification. That way, you set a deadline for completing the work. Another benefit is that you lock in the version of LEED at the time of registering, so you don’t have to worry about trying to conform to future changes to LEED.

As far as refuting the fact that paying the money for formal re-certification isn’t worth it, Arny says the same argument for first-time certification applies. Third-party verification of your sustainable initiatives is always more credible to upper managers than simply just telling them you’re doing well

As always, I’m interested to hear from you. Have you planned a formal recertification on your building? What was the process like?

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

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