The transition to a more rigorous LEED certification regime will take longer than the devisors of the building rating system originally envisioned. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has given program participants an extra 16 months to register projects under the current criteria before LEED version 4 (v4) becomes mandatory on the newly revised launch date of November 1, 2016.

“The market has requested additional time to prepare for LEED v4 so we are responding,” Rick Fedrizzi, the USGBC’s CEO announced, Oct. 29. “Our international LEED users, which account for some 50 per cent of new LEED registrations, have also indicated they would like to have more time to move onto the new rating system.”

The announcement follows a survey conducted at the USGBC’s annual national conference, Oct. 22 – 24, in which 61 per cent of respondents declared they would not be ready to pursue LEED v4 as initially scheduled for June 16, 2015. Thus far, there have been few voluntary registrants for the program in Canada, where it has been available for an early tryout since the winter of 2014.

“It’s an interesting move. Certainly, the CaGBC (Canada Green Building Council) and USGBC don’t usually slow things down. Their objective is to move the market,” observes Jenny McMinn, green building and energy business unit manager with the consulting firm, Halsall Associates. “I suspect they thought more projects would have been registered for v4 ahead of the official date. We really haven’t seen a lot of pioneers who are stepping up to the plate to take the lead on this.”

As the label v4 reflects, regular updates are central to LEED’s objective to continuously push the industry to improve, and foster new skills and market responses. However, the latest makeover is considered a much steeper step-up than any of the previous iterations.

It includes more stringent requirements for energy and water efficiency, greater emphasis on measurement and verification, and a much broader scope applied to building materials and the resources expended to extract, manufacture and ultimately dispose of them. The call for transparency and documentation through environmental product declarations (EPDs) will mean new compliance costs and pressures for both LEED proponents and their suppliers. Indeed, manufacturers are counted along with prospective registrants among the beneficiaries of more preparation time.

“Whenever a rating system creates a shift, or attempts to create a shift in the marketplace, there is a bit of a learning curve for all aspects of the design and development community,” says Wells Baker, manager of sustainable development for Minto Group, who is overseeing a number of in-progress projects slated to be certified under the currently applicable version of LEED — known as LEED 2009, in the reference to the year the USGBC adopted it.

For Canadian proponents, the eligibility period for LEED 2009 has been shorter still since the CaGBC didn’t actually adopt it until 2010. Once registered, proponents will have until 2021 to complete the project and obtain certification, creating the real possibility that two vintages of LEED projects — those registered just before and just after the compulsory start-date for LEED v4 — will be leasing up and completed at approximately the same time.

“Due just to the nature of construction, it takes a fair amount of time from design to completion and then certification on top of that. So, based on the previous schedule, we would have had to start working on v4 before we had actually delivered any 2009 projects,” Baker explains.

USGBC officials speaking at the CaGBC’s annual national conference in June 2014 were already acknowledging the industry’s concerns. Scot Horst, USGBC’s senior vice president of LEED, noted the general sentiment that LEED 2009 is “too soon to sunset” while LEED v4 is expected to be a challenge for “pretty much everybody”.

“The thing about transformation is it’s always really challenging,” he added.

Horst also asked attendees in one of the conference’s educational seminars for their insight, gleaning comments like: “I feel like I need a PhD to read an EPD “; “Too much, too fast, too far and a world of pain, but I think it’s important and necessary, philosophically”; and “If it gets harder to get Gold, we will probably drop certification.”

Green building specialists speculate this has all been factored into the decision to extend the deadline for LEED 2009 registrations.

“There are always the frontrunners who are constantly looking for what the next challenge will be in terms of delivering superior buildings. I think the challenge for the CaGBC and USGBC is providing the opportunity for those leaders to excel and demonstrate the ability to be the best without closing the door or making the program inaccessible to the leading pack within the industry,” Baker reasons. “They risk alienating the larger pack if they make it too difficult so it’s probably a good idea to give a little bit more time for the rest of the industry to catch up.”

That also allows more time for the still elusive vanguard to appear and test v4 while they can still voluntarily choose it — initiative, McMinn suggests, that could be a clear market differentiator.

“My gut feeling is that it will be tenant driven,” she predicts. “I actually think it will be the private sector that will pick it up first.”

Barbara Carss is editor-in-chief of Building Strategies & Sustainability and Canadian Property Management.