GBCI Takes Closer Control of LEED Reviews
For the past 18 months, GBCI (which stems from the U.S. Green Building Council) has been outsourcing project review duties to “certification bodies,” rather than performing the reviews itself. According to BuildingGreen, LEED users have shown negative attitudes toward this process for reasons ranging from inconsistent certification awarding to bad customer service. GBCI president Peter Templeton has called these concerns “too great for us to ignore.” New and recent LEED-seeking projects will be reviewed by GBCI, while many projects under construction will continue to work with their assigned certification body.
Templeton went on to say that, despite the use of certification bodies, quality has been improving in an important area: 94% of current project reviews are on time, whereas only 45% were on time 18 months ago.
This improvement is worth noting for all professional designers. Delays in the certification process could result in significant damages and economic losses for a project owner. In delayed projects, those losses could lead to breach of contract, breach of warranty, or professional liability claims against the design team.