A Jan. 22 article in the San Antonio Business Journal headlined “Risk of LEED Decertification Looms Large for Real Estate” contains “several inaccuracies, causing unnecessary anxiety in the marketplace,” says Ashley Katz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Green Building Council. The Washington, D.C.-based group developed LEED, a popular green-building rating system.
Bradley S. Carson’s article is based on a challenge, filed to USGBC last year, to the LEED-New Construction Gold certification awarded in 2007 to Northland Pines High School in Eagle River, Wis. The article said the school could be subject to decertification as a result of LEED 2009 provisions called “minimum program requirements,” or MPRs. A “little-known provision in LEED 2009, which allows LEED certifications to be challenged and removed at any time after they have been certified, presents a threat to all existing and future LEED-2009-certified projects,” says the article.