The Living Building Challenge is premised on the idea that buildings should give more than they take. Living Buildings are (1) regenerative buildings that connect occupants to light, air, food, nature, and community, (2) self-sufficient and remain within the resource limits of their site, and (3) create a positive impact on the human and natural systems that interact with them. LBC 4.0 is organized into seven performance areas focused on maximizing positive impacts specific to the place, community and culture of the project.
With so many building rating systems in the market today, selecting the right one for your project can be challenging. Let Light House’s team of accredited professionals help you pick the system that aligns best with your project’s values and goals and manage the process to achieve your building’s certification.
LEED provides a framework for healthy, efficient, carbon and cost-saving green buildings. LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement, and it is backed by an entire industry of committed organizations and individuals paving the way for market transformation. LEED is for all building types and all building phases including new construction, interior fit outs, operations and maintenance and core and shell. To achieve LEED certification, a project earns points by adhering to prerequisites and credits that address carbon, energy, water, waste, transportation, materials, health and indoor environmental quality. Projects go through a verification and review process by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI).
The WELL Building Standard™ version 2 (WELL v2™) is a vehicle for buildings and organizations to deliver more thoughtful and intentional spaces that enhance human health and well-being. WELL v2 includes a set of strategies—backed by the latest scientific research—that aim to advance human health through design interventions and operational protocols and policies and foster a culture of health and well-being. Built upon the pioneering foundation of the first version of the WELL Building Standard (WELL v1), WELL v2 draws expertise from a diverse community of WELL users, practitioners, public health professionals and building scientists around the world.
Fitwel is a healthy building certification to implement, track, and benchmark actions and strategies that impact human health and wellbeing. Obtaining a healthy building certification demonstrates the building’s commitment to improving the lives of residents, occupants, and the surrounding communities.
Passive House building certification is an internationally recognized high performance building standard to achieve net-zero and nearly-net zero in both new builds and retrofits. Certification requires that a building meet specific performance levels with respect to space heating, space cooling, air tightness and total primary energy demand.
TRUE is a zero waste certification program dediated to measuring, improving and recognizing zero waste performance. TRUE is a whole systems approach aimed at changing how materials flow through society, resulting in no waste. It encourages the adoption of sustainable resource management and waste reduction practices which contribute to positive environmental, health and economic outcomes and supports the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused.
BOMA BEST is Canada’s largest environmental assessment and certification program for existing buildings. It is a unique, voluntary program designed by industry for industry; it provides owners and managers with a consistent framework for assessing the environmental performance and management of existing buildings of all sizes.
Built Green is industry-driven organization committed to working with builders interested in sustainability practices in the residential building sector. They offer third-party certification programs for single family, renovations, high density projects, and communities.