anchor
Philadelphia is one of 61 U.S. cities that have been certified. Image: Catherine Kerr/Unsplash
LEED for Cities? Check, say a growing list of communities that have been certified under a new system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council for large metropolitan areas to plan and track progress on quality of life and environmental benchmarks.
So far, more than 200 cities and communities worldwide have been LEED certified. The process is said to be ‘holistic’ and assesses self-reported data in nine different categories to produce a score up to a maximum of 110, which is then subjected to a third-party verification. The framework includes categories, prerequisites, and credits that resemble the LEED building rating systems, with prerequisites for base condition and performance included.
Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Cincinnati, and Ithaca, where students from Cornell were instrumental in guiding a recent push with local officials, can be taken as two case studies for its adoption.