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| Ohio has the most LEED certified school buildings above any other state. Edgewood High School Media Center, Pursuing LEED Gold, Designed by SHP Leading Design. Photo courtesy of SHP Leading Design. |
On October 31st, 2013, the Ohio State Concurrent
Resolution 25 (SCR 25) was proposed in effect to ban the United States Green
Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
(LEED) Version 4 from all public construction projects in the State of Ohio.
Ohio Senators Joe Uecker, R-Loveland, and Tim Shaffer,
R-Lancaster introduced the resolution noting that while it is in the best
interest of the State of Ohio to continue to encourage energy efficiency and
green building practices, that LEED v.4 needs to be banned. “This is a
resolution, not a bill. A ‘wake-up call,’ and a ‘please take notice and listen
to our concerns’ kind of effort,” says Senator Joe Uecker.
After extending the comment period for nearly a year, the
USGBC officially celebrated the introduction of LEED v.4 at the USBGC’s
national conference Greenbuild in Philadelphia in October, 2013.
“LEED v.4 has a new credit that requests building owners to track
the chemical content of a certain percentage of the products they use in the
building. This credit could start to evolve into a chemicals redlist [a type of
blacklist] such as one that exists within the Living Building Challenge already,”
says Allison Beer McKenzie, AIA, LEED AP and Sustainability Director for SHP
Leading Design, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
