by Brianna Crandall — December 13, 2013—UL Environment, a business unit of global product safety testing and certification organization UL (Underwriters Laboratories), recently launched a LEED Green Building Toolkit to support the architecture and design community and other specifiers in their product specification and selection processes, whether for the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program or other sustainability rating systems.
The toolkit includes a completely redesigned, user-friendly “Sustainable Product Guide” created to help users find products with verified environmental achievement. The guide is searchable by sustainable programs and by credits, which UL Environment hopes will facilitate the specification process for users and allow them to save time and resources.
The LEED toolkit also provides a tip sheet for the newly launched LEED v4: “UL Environment Certifications and Validations Point Contributions within the LEED Version 4 Rating System”, and an earlier publication with detailed specification tips for various credit requirements for the previous LEED version (LEED 2009) as well as for building codes and other green building programs: Achieving Points towards Sustainable Codes and Ratings Systems.”
Another component of the toolkit is UL Environment’s comprehensive education program geared to A&D specifiers. It includes a brand-new CEU-accredited course: “Innovation and Transparency: Building Transformation in LEED version 4.” This hour-long CEU offering has been accredited by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), and the Interior Design Continuing Education Council (IDCEC).
