---

LEED-EB Revision Wins Approval

I am please to tell you that the US Green Building Council just announced that the revisions to LEED-EB have been approved and did so by an overwhelming majority!

According to Doug Gatlin, Vice President for Market Development at the USGBC (who was until recently the LEED-EB program manager) “it passed member ballot with flying colors. In fact, we received over 2,110 votes in all. Quorum requirements were for 1200! In addition to this, 98% of all votes were positive. This is a very high number of “yes” votes, so we can take this as a strong endorsement from the membership.”

The revision of LEED for Existing Buildings means really good news for the cleaning industry. In the new version, Green Cleaning is now a prerequisite, which means everyone going after LEED certification must do Green Cleaning which should further accelerate demand for green products and services.

I am especially pleased that the Core Committee has introduced a new credit worth up to two (2) points for conducting a “custodial effectiveness audit” which for the first time will reward facilities who do superior cleaning and will create an incentive for others to improve. Please take just a minute to think about the potential meaning of this --- while more effective cleaning should result in healthier buildings, but think about what happens to your business if building owners demand more cleaning! This is truly a win-win for building owners and their occupants, the cleaning industry, and the environment.

Other important changes include:
• Slightly changing the name to LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance as a way to clarify how this Rating System is to be used.
• Clarifying that Green Cleaning requires “effective” cleaning as opposed to just switching to a few green products.
• Adding Environmental Choice as an additional option to Green Seal for “certified” products to make compliance even easier.
• Reorganizing the credits to make finding all of the Green Cleaning credits simpler.
• Including language that requires the development of a program to encourage handwashing.
• Clarifying language on equipment requirements and adding some additional language for CRI certified products.
• Adding language that allows janitorial paper products derived from rapidly renewable resources or made from tree-free fibers in addition to those made with recycled content.

While we (the LEED-EB Committee) still has work to do to revise the Reference Guide, I am absolutely delighted with the changes and thank each of you and your companies for your support and voting for the new Rating System.

Steve

---