Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a system of classification for ecological building, by the U.S. Green Building Council was developed in 1998. It defines a set of standards for environmentally friendly, resource-saving, and sustainable construction. LEED (acronym for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a certification system for sustainable buildings, developed by the Green Building Council U.S. (U.S. Green Building Council). It was first introduced in 1998 and used in several countries since then. It consists of a set of rules on the use of strategies for sustainability in buildings of all kinds. It is based on the incorporation in the draft aspects of energy efficiency, use of alternative energy, improving indoor environmental quality, the efficiency of water use, sustainable development of the open spaces of the plot and selection materials (Kibert, 180-95). There are four certification levels: certified (LEED Certificate), silver (LEED Silver), gold (LEED Gold) and platinum (LEED Platinum). Certification, for voluntary use, aims to advance the use of strategies to enable an overall improvement in the environmental impact of the construction industry. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), often also described as Sustainable Design and Green should be considered as a set of attitudes, values ??and principles, and scientific practices, technology and engineering-oriented to the local and global environmental quality. LEED Design (Sustainable / Green) includes key aspects engineering and design-plus-building materials for minimize the overall environmental impact of construction throughout the life of the facility. LEED Certification is an integrated process that usually begins at the stage of conceptualization of a project. Thus, the project moves into detailed processes that achieve LEED Certification (Turner, 56-78).

LEED and the USGBC

The overall goal of LEED is to reduce the effect of the built environment on natural processes. Buildings in ...