From The Miron Blog

With all of the acronyms thrown around in the conversation around green building, talking with an eco-broker can sound more like alphabet soup than real estate to the untrained ear of a prospective buyer. Of the terms you should really know, LEED, or Leadership in Environmental Energy and Design, is it (because the nod and smile can only get you so far). Not only is LEED the basic standard of green building, but it’s also a useful tool for evaluating the different degrees of sustainability to which a building’s developers can ascribe.

LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a Washington D.C.-based coalition of business leaders, in order to facilitate sustainable design throughout the various stages of the building process. In order for a building to achieve LEED certification, it must score a minimum of 26 points in five green design categories—sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality—each which has its own set of associated goals. When a building is newly constructed, it is ranked Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum depending on the number of points accumulated across the categories.

The LEED-certification process is a vigorous one, led by a third-party team of LEED APs, or accredited professionals, who have passed an exam given by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) demonstrating their proficiency in green building practices, principles, and requirements.

According to the Urban Green Council, the New York City-specific chapter of the USGBC, 24 LEED-certified projects have been completed and over 240 LEED-registered projects are underway currently in NYC. Visit TheBuiltEnvironment.org for a complete list of Manhattan's green buildings.