Green Business: The Battle for LEED

There’s a fight brewing in Washington, D.C. over the new standards for LEED, the leading green building certification standards, run by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The new proposed LEED Version 4 standard will give credits for building teams that don’t use certain plastics and chemicals, such as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, that are linked to health and environmental negative impacts.

Some members of the plastics and chemicals industry are not happy with these proposed changes.

So unhappy that they’ve set up their own council to counter LEED, called the American High-Performance Buildings Coalition.

Background on what’s at stake for capturing U.S. Government building dollars, via Greenbiz.com:

Will the Plastics Industry Kill LEED?

LEED is the most-used green building standards globally, as well as in the United States, where more than 400 cities and communities, 39 states and 14 federal agencies currently require builders to meet LEED standards. LEED is voluntary, but it has been adopted by the GSA and other government agencies as the required building standard for new construction. Government agencies have been critical to LEED’s success: roughly a third of LEED projects are government-owned.

In response, the USGBC staked its ground with the red, white and blue: LEED Is Private, Voluntary, Transparent and Democratic,

More coverage via treehugger.com:

July 18–Plastic People Set Up “American High-Performance Buildings Coalition” To Fight Restrictions on Plastics in Green Building

July 18–Update on The American High-Performance Buildings Coalition: Their Website is Live, and Here Are Their Members

July 19–What Are The Plastic People So Afraid Of That They Want To Kill LEED?

This promises to be a very interesting discussion.