
January 29, 2025
Will the New Version of LEED Be Better?

The Big Picture
The certification requirements span hundreds of pages, but even without diving into their substance, there are some clearly discernible takeaways from the way USGBC has packaged LEED v5 and communicated the big changes in it.
HERE’S WHAT STANDS OUT:
• Simpler messaging: LEED v5 has simplified its impact to three goals—decarbonization (climate action), ecology (restoration and preservation), and inclusivity (quality of life). Every credit and prerequisite maps to one or more of these goals, which makes it easier for clients to communicate the impact of LEED and for design teams to prioritize which credits to pursue.
• Investor alignment: While ESG reporting and investing have become increasingly mainstream (with public debates raging in the business community), its connection to building projects has been tenuous. As a third-party benchmark, LEED certification (as a whole) does feature in several companies’ ESG frameworks. But deeper synergies between building-scale reporting and company- or fund-scale KPIs are still nascent. LEED v5 takes a positive step in that direction with its carbon assessment requirements, which should plug neatly into developers’ portfolio-scale planning for greenhouse gas emission reporting. The new equity and resilience requirements should align more easily with ESG frameworks as well.
HERE’S WHAT’S STILL MISSING:
• Simpler documentation: Does LEED v5 help reduce paperwork and enable teams to spend more time on design impact? A new digital platform promises to streamline how project teams document their work, but it’s unclear whether going through the process will be any less cumbersome than it currently is.
• Performance verification: LEED has never required much on-site verification or post-occupancy monitoring for BD+C/ID+C rating systems, unlike schemes such as Living Future’s Zero Carbon or the IWBI’s WELL. LEED’s emphasis has been on rigorous documentation as a means of proof, and that appears unchanged.
Overall, LEED v5 has the same structure as previous versions, with several mandatory prerequisites and 110 points to choose from. Point thresholds for the ratings—Certified (40), Silver (50), Gold (60), and Platinum (80)—remain unchanged, but the Platinum club is now more exclusive and requires unequivocal commitment to decarbonization. The requirements continue to be wide-ranging and detailed, adding both breadth with new topics and depth to existing themes.

Additions to the Standard
The themes of equity and resilience have graduated to the main rating system after being on the fringes in v4’s innovation and pilot credit catalogs.
• Equity: New requirements include assessing demographics, local infrastructure, human health impacts, and occupant experience. If this doesn’t quite add up to “equity” in your opinion, that’s because the April draft’s “Social Equity Assessment” prerequisite attracted strong commentary on the added effort to meet its requirements for community engagement and concerns about the language’s political implications. So, the originally laudable effort has morphed into the broader and arguably easier “Human Use Assessment” prerequisite in the October draft. Nevertheless, optional requirements for the “Equitable Development” and “Accessible Outdoor Space” credits do cover more ground, addressing community benefit programs, affordable housing, public use of spaces, diversity in project teams, and designing for physical accessibility. The “Accessibility and Inclusion” credit takes it up a notch by addressing physical diversity, aging and safety, social health, and navigation.
• Resilience: In less politically charged territory, new requirements for resilience are fairly technical and make teams address at least two “priority hazards” from a long list of natural calamities. There is ample opportunity to align with jurisdictionally required studies, and for European projects to align with the EU taxonomy. Optional measures push teams to leverage the assessments and incorporate tangible design strategies for the hazards they’ve identified.
Diving Deep on Carbon
Decarbonization-related credits account for nearly half the points in LEED v5, which is a remarkable commitment to climate action. A few key credits are analyzed below:
• Carbon assessment: Projects will be required to compile a holistic 25-year projection looking at operational, embodied, transportation, and refrigerant emissions using data collected in related credits, which in turn require detailed studies and decarbonization planning.
• Embodied carbon: All projects will now be required to quantify embodied carbon for construction materials, but the prerequisite does not require demonstrating a reduction. This is a good starting point, and the corresponding credit awards up to six points for demonstrating reductions in a variety of ways. A whole-building LCA using specialized software is not necessary but does provide the most points. This increased emphasis is laudable, but there are some missed opportunities:— Metrics: LEED v5 still doesn’t provide full clarity on LCA baselines, which is arguably hard to define for a variety of project types (and the April attempt drew dozens of comments), nor does it move toward absolute carbon intensity targets like Living Future’s Zero Carbon. — Procurement focus: Selecting cleaner materials and products lies at the center of the credit, but efficient design to reduce material quantities is not as well rewarded.— Limited scope: While hardscape materials must now be addressed, teams don’t get additional credit for capturing interiors, MEP, and FF&E, which are also increasingly recognized as significant emission sources.
• Electrification and enhanced energy efficiency: With an eye on long-term emissions, LEED v5 prioritizes heating electrification while providing sufficient flexibility for projects in cold climates, having gas for cooking, etc. The v4 energy performance credit has now branched into two: Energy Efficiency—which provides multiple options to reduce energy modeling burdens but still suffers from methodological challenges in tying in to ASHRAE 90.1-2019—and Reduce Peak Thermal Loads, which is a laudable effort with extremely technical compliance paths that will likely see more changes.
• Refrigerant management: Fugitive emissions from refrigerant leakage get more attention in LEED v5. Aligning with the Kigali Amendment, the AIM Act, and more, this credit is now much more stringent and worth more points. Compliance may be challenging initially, but the market must move in line with incoming regulations, making it easier over time.
In aggregate, LEED v5 has barely removed any v4 requirements while adding what feels like another third of additional requirements. In those retained requirements, though, we see several nuanced updates. Among the most prominent in this category is probably the “Building Product Disclosure and Optimization” credit.
This credit has expanded in scope, now addressing themes of social health and circularity more explicitly while retaining emphasis on third-party ecolabels. The calculation methodology remains complex and will continue to draw the ire of project teams, and the exclusion of structural materials also raises eyebrows. But it might be best to withhold detailed commentary on this credit until associated calculators and final updates (which are highly likely) become available.

The Promises and Pitfalls
LEED v5 clearly attempts to do more for climate action and moving the market than previous versions. New additions of equity and resilience make the certification more holistic and help align it with investor frameworks.
However, with this increased depth and breadth, project teams will need more design thinking and analyses than they did with LEED v4. While this may result in higher soft costs, the resulting impact should be commensurate.
That’s because v5 is complex for a reason. LEED still wants to be accessible to projects with varying levels of ambition, different building typologies, and across geographies. And it still wants to be rigorous while not requiring on-site verification. This means providing more options for compliance and asking for more details, which results in a complex set of requirements. To tackle this increased complexity, projects will require specialists or sustainability champions. They will need to corral interdisciplinary teams to navigate all the options and determine which certification pathways will be most effective for each project’s unique circumstances.
USGBC takes pride in the consensus-driven development process of LEED and welcomes industry engagement. LEED v5, coming 12 years after its predecessor, is a huge step in the right direction, and we need the broader professional community to engage in the conversation so we can all get this right.
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