ABSTRACT
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has followed up on its very successful Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction (LEED-NC) rating system with two new systems—one for Commercial Interiors (CI) and the other for Core and Shell (C&S). These two companion programs, LEED for C&S and CI, were developed in response to marketplace demand for a LEED rating system that would enable tenant organizations to have a green workplace while enabling developers the opportunity to provide green buildings for tenants to move into. In the commercial building developer marketplace as currently exists, developers can build a basic building consisting of a C&S with few to no interior fitouts. As tenants are secured, interior fitouts are constructed in accordance with tenant requirements. The result of this process is that the developer can control the greenness of the C&S, and the tenant can control the greenness of the fitout spaces, but neither of them controls the whole building design. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction was unable to accommodate effectively the need to “unbundle” the various elements of a green building—hence, the development of C&S and CI. This entry concludes with a short discussion of some of the obstacles that the USGBC and the LEED programs have met and overcome, and with a forecast of LEED activities.
