A Brief Summary of Changes to LEED EBOM

Written by Paul Brown.

A great summary of changes can be found here, on the National USGBC site.

A few of the changes include:

• Under Sustainable Sites, the Credit for LEED Certified Design and Construction has been removed.
• Under Water Efficiency, there is a new Prerequisite to install (permanently) a whole-building water meter which reports data directly to USGBC.
• Within Energy and Atmosphere, the Prerequisite previously called "Minimum Energy Efficiency Performance" is now called "Minimum Energy Performance", and the baseline for compliance with the Prerequisite has been raised from an Energy Star Rating of 69 to 75 (in Option 1).
• Also in Energy and Atmosphere, a new Prerequisite has been created for whole-building energy meters, and for sharing of data with USGBC.
• The Materials and Resources Category has been substantially revised, with re-organization of credits (moving to other categories) and revising of Prerequisites.
• Under Indoor Environmental Quality, the hospitality residential option exception for the Environmental Tobacco Smoke Control Prerequisite has been eliminated, and the former Green Cleaning Credit, has become a Prerequisite called "Green Cleaning Policy".

Those are just a few of many changes; please consult the official documents of USGBC for further important information.