LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and was developed by the US Green Building Council as a way to quantify environmentally friendly design in buildings and everywhere you go in our industry you hear about people and their projects becoming either accredited or certified; so what’s the difference?
In this corner: a person can become LEED accredited by passing the Green Building Certification Institute’s exams which rate an individual’s knowledge of the LEED rating system. For example, EVstudio has five LEED accredited professionals on staff.
And in this corner: a project can become LEED certified by submitting an application documenting compliance with the rating system (a series of credit categories with possible points that add up to a rating like Platinum, Gold or Silver) and paying some fees.
So the summary is people can become LEED accredited and projects can become LEED certified. Now the next time someone tells you they have just been LEED certified (and it will happen) you can congratulate them on their high percentage of readily renewable materials and array of bike racks.
Bonus match: who vs. whom
This is a classic. Who and whom are both pronouns but you use who when referring to a subject and whom when referring to an object. You ask “Who killed Roger Rabbit?” because the who is the subject but say “For whom the bell tolls” because the whom is the object and the bell is the subject. To help you remember, both whom and him end with the letter “m”; use who if you could substitute “he” (He killed Roger Rabbit) and whom if you could substitute “him” (the bells tolls for him).
“To whom am I listening? I’m listening to the Who.”
