Guidance on USGBC Benchmark

What’s going on? USGBC is on the verge of compromising its credibility by establishing unacceptably low standards for wood and forests in LEED. For about two years, the LEED Certified Wood Credit (MR7 in LEED-NC) has been undergoing a process of revision. At the center of this process is the USGBC forest certification benchmark that, if the revision is approved, will be used to judge which forest certification systems are worthy of recognition under the Certified Wood Credit. The third draft of the benchmark and associated documents are now available for public comment. This draft represents a significant “lowering of the bar” relative to the previous version released in September ‘09, and urgent action is needed to persuade USGBC to return to a higher standard. If we are successful in this effort, the benchmark will be further revised and will go to a fourth round of public comment before being balloted. If we are unsuccessful, then the current version will be balloted and we must pull out the stops to persuade participating USGBC members to vote “NO”! Here are the crucial action steps we are asking you to take: 1) If you are a representative of a USGBC member organization, opt in to the consensus body that will eventually vote on this (DEADLINE MARCH 24) https://www.usgbc.org/Login.aspx?REFERRER=%2fDisplayPage.aspx%3fCMSPageID%3d2070 2) Pass it on - encourage others to opt in 3) Submit comments (DEADLINE MARCH 14) – see guidance and suggested ...