GBCI Takes Closer Control of LEED Reviews

The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) has begun a process to take closer control over the review of LEED project documentation. The move changes the practice that has been in place since early 2009, following inconsistencies and poor service that have been frustrating to LEED project teams.

GBCI was spun off from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 2008 to run the LEED certification process, as well as the accreditation of LEED professionals. In turn, GBCI hired outside “Certification Bodies,” or CBs, to perform the LEED reviews, while it managed the overall process. Now, GBCI is taking over those reviews directly, both through hiring to increase its own capacity, and through contracting with LEED reviewers—a closer arrangement that has more in common with the earlier USGBC-run system than with the more recent system of CBs.