The U.S. Green Building Council has unveiled LEED v5, the latest evolution in sustainable building certification, emphasizing decarbonization and energy efficiency across a building’s full life cycle. LEED-certified buildings continue to deliver strong ROI—averaging 21 percent higher market sales prices and over 20% reductions in water, energy, and waste. With its superior insulation performance, EIFS is well-positioned to help architects and builders meet LEED v5’s aggressive efficiency and carbon reduction targets.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Green Building Council launched the LEED v5 rating system for sustainable buildings. This is big news in the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) space.

"Since its public launch 25 years ago, LEED has profoundly impacted millions of people in cities and communities around the world,” said Peter Templeton, president and CEO of USGBC. “LEED v5 raises the bar, further defining and evolving best practices and giving stakeholders across the building industry clear pathways to address today’s challenges to our health, climate and communities.”

Moreover, the release points out that LEED-certified assets are proven to drive return on investment and greater future earning potential. Notably, LEED buildings achieve a 21.4 percent higher average market sales price per square foot over non-LEED buildings; average 11 percent higher rent rates; attract more favorable and stable financing options; and reduce water, energy and waste by more than 20%. These environments also result in healthier and more productive employees and occupants.This version also goes beyond previous ones. For example, decarbonization accounts for half of all points for LEED v5 certification to confront current climate needs. The new rating system provides clear, actionable steps to deliver ultra-low-carbon buildings by targeting emissions reductions across all aspects of the building lifecycle, including operations, embodied carbon, refrigerants and transportation. All LEED v5 projects will complete an operational carbon projection and will be given tools to craft a comprehensive, long-term decarbonization strategy, creating pathways for sustainable transformation.

Given the fact that EIFS is a modern, lightweight building material that is incredibly energy-efficient (the "I" in "EIFS" is for "insulation), it stands to reason that EIFS is poised to be a "go-to" cladding choice for building owners, designers, architects and engineers who want their building project to be certified by the newest version of LEED.

After all, the R-value in EIFS insulation (most frequently polystyrene) is 20 times the R-value of brick, stone, concrete and plain glass and more than three times that of wood on a per inch basis. For more information, visit https://lnkd.in/g9S-sCcv.

This article originally appeared in EIMA's Briefs.