In part two, we examined the United States Green Building Council's LEED green building rating system's application and operation. In part one, we discussed the history and genesis of the program. This time, we'll conclude our examination of LEED with a look at the program's impact on the design and construction industry: past, present and future.
As mentioned at the tail end of part two, the original concept for LEED was a three-year cycle whereby every third year-starting with the millennium year 2000-a new version of LEED would be released. Thus, under this original plan, 2003 should have seen the release of LEED v.3.0 but it didn't happen. For various reasons, not least of which is the programs unexpected exponential growth and expansion, this three-year plan was scraped in favor of the incremental release of modified versions (i.e. v.2.1, v.2.2). Presently, LEED v.2.2 is underway with the possibility of many substantial changes to its predecessor v.2.1. Release of v.3.0 is expected sometime in 2005 but a specific date has yet to be determined.