Green Building Law Blog

USGBC/GBCI had its first challenge of a LEED decision.  According to the Green Real Estate Law Journal:

a group of local residents have filed a 125-page complaint with USGBC that challenges the award of LEED Gold certification to the Northland Pines High School, which was completed in the fall of 2006 and earned formal certification under LEED for New Construction Version 2.0/2.1 on May 10, 2007.

GBCI reviewed the challenge and recently upheld the certification. 

Now, GBCI is considering modifying its challenge process.  The revised challenge process will be more formal, and is likely to remove the opportunity for the project to cure any deficiencies in achieving the LEED certification which exists in the current form of the appeals process. I will keep you apprised as more details emerge.

CORRECTION:  This post originally stated that GBCI was modifying the "appeals" process, not the "challenge" process--The Appeals process is what a project team uses to approach GBCI if they feel a credit, prerequisite, or MPR was decided incorrectly. The Challenge process is the mechanism whereby a third party, or GBCI, can initiate an investigation regarding the proper satisfaction of such program requirements. It has been corrected.