BuildingGreen Designs New LEED for Homes Website

A new Web-based tool for green homes has been published by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), with design by BuildingGreen, Inc.

USGBC’s LEED for Homes Self-Scoring Tool launched to wide acclaim in early March, making the LEED green homes rating system more accessible to newcomers and experienced LEED users alike. “We’re thrilled with the quality of the resource BuildingGreen helped us create,” said Nate Kredich, Vice President of Residential Market Development at USGBC. Kredich noted that USGBC engaged BuildingGreen to help design the tool because of its deep expertise in green building, and its success with building user-friendly websites.

“The LEED for Homes rating system is very sophisticated” noted BuildingGreen’s Residential Services Director Peter Yost. “It has credit requirements that vary by location, and scoring thresholds that change based on the size of the home.” The new scoring tool incorporates much of that complexity into the underlying code, so a user is guided to see only the options that apply to his or her project.

This website, along with its LEED Automation program, is part of USGBC’s effort to use smart technology to streamline the use of LEED, the world’s most popular suite of green building rating systems.

The LEED for Homes Self-Scoring Tool provides two parallel paths for users: A Quick Score option that introduces users to the green design and construction actions in LEED for Homes, and a Credit-by-Credit path that makes it easy for users to go through the actual rating system and indicate their intentions for each credit.

Some aspects of the new website are modeled on BuildingGreen’s hugely successful LEEDuser tool, a guide and peer-exchange forum for professionals working with the nonresidential LEED rating systems. Both sites include the actual LEED credit language and a simple structure for navigating to each credit. Unlike LEEDuser, which was created with support from USGBC and is owned by BuildingGreen, the LEED for Homes Scoring Tool is solely owned by USGBC.

BuildingGreen convened a team to design the tool, including Ann Edminster, principal of DesignAVEnues and, as former co-chair of the LEED for Homes committee, a primary contributor to LEED for Homes. Graphic and user interface design was provided by Ellis Neder, principal of New York City-based Sway Design.

About BuildingGreen, Inc.

BuildingGreen has been creating knowledge to support practice since 1992. Building professionals gather around BuildingGreen’s rich array of media and information resources, including the award-winning Environmental Building News, the BuildingGreen Suite of online tools, the GreenSpec Directory of green products, and the LEEDuser website, so they can work smarter—not harder. www.buildinggreen.com.

About the U.S. Green Building Council

The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council is committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings. With a community comprising 79 local affiliates, 16,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 162,000 LEED Professional Credential holders, USGBC is the driving force of an industry that is projected to contribute $554 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product from 2009-2013. USGBC leads an unlikely diverse constituency of builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofit organizations, elected officials and concerned citizens, and teachers and students.