More Than 75 Members of Congress Urge USGBC to Open LEED Rating System
Members of Congress have joined with 10 U.S. governors, adding their voices to the thousands calling for an open LEED rating system.
Members of Congress have joined with 10 U.S. governors, adding their voices to the thousands calling for an open LEED rating system.
Today SFI delivered nearly 6,000 petition signatures and hundreds of comments to President, CEO & Founding Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council Rick Fedrizzi urging the organization to open LEED.
As you may have seen, the USGBC recently requested comments on a fourth round of draft benchmarks to evaluate forest certification programs in its LEED green building rating system.
Coming off the heels of the USGBC Federal Summit, we’re as excited as ever to raise awareness of SFI and the program’s role in green building. We continue to garner support for changes to LEED, and government officials continue to back our stance.
Yesterday I talked about how giving credit only to FSC-certified wood discriminates against North American wood for LEED projects. Today’s post discusses the widespread support shown by the forest community and government leaders to open the LEED standard.
You’ve probably seen the U.S. and Canadian SFI statements on the LEED Certification credits referenced on our website, the petition and in various other mediums. These statements are meant to help people understand what we stand for and why LEED must change.
“The only solicited comments the Building Council seems to be heeding are coming from groups bent on promoting a monopoly and others in the building sector who have very little, if anything, to do with forest products.
“Enough already! For the past decade, the USGBC has given the Forest Stewardship Council a monopoly on wood from its forests being used in LEED Projects. It's time for the USGBC to open the door to other wood certification programs.”
Let me start out by saying how grateful I am to all of the SFI, ATFS, CSA and PEFC supporters who have stood behind us in our efforts urging the U.S. Green Building Council to open its LEED Rating System to all credible third-party forest certification systems.
We’ve heard from a lot of people and organizations over the past few weeks about dissatisfaction with the direction the USGBC is taking the forest certification benchmarks.