Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a globally recognized standard for design, construction, and performance of buildings and neighborhoods promoted by the U.S. Green Building Council. In order to be a contender for certification, your building needs to meet a number of prerequisite requirements. In order to attain certification, it must score enough points in 5 key performance categories, including:

• Sustainable Site
• Water Efficiency and Usage
• Energy and Atmosphere
• Materials and Resources
• Indoor Environmental Quality

Buildings can also earn points for Innovation and Design Process, two additional criteria which encourage new building designers to look for environmentally conscious ways to engineer new structures to come into compliance with LEED requirements.

Project managers and architects achieve the minimum requirements through conscientious design, and then choose which credits to earn to complement the project, type of structure, and business/residence that will be housed there.

Credits can be earned in a variety of ways including:

• Rainwater Management
• Land Protection
• Access to Public Transportation
• Optimized Energy Performance
• Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction
• Low-emitting Materials
• Construction and Demolition Waste Management
• Use of Natural Lighting

While some of these points are easy to achieve, others require a great deal of effort and creativity. Earned points are applied towards LEED certification. Once a certain point level is met, certification is awarded.

Naturally, the path to certification has been painstaking and involved numerous design implements, but at Mercedes-Benz of El Cajon, we have designed our dealership to be in compliance with LEED requirements and are expecting to be certified within the year. We’re particularly proud of the fact that:

• Our dealership is 15% more efficient than the code requires.
• 75% of the non- hazardous construction and demolition debris was recycled and/or salvaged.