leed-rating-system / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

What is LEED for Homes about? LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized rating system for commercial buildings and homes administered by the CaGBC (Canada Green Building Council)  to encourage sustainable building practices. While the commercial program has been in effect for...

What is the BREEAM rating system and should I get my home certified? The BREEAM rating system (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is the world's longest-established method for assessing, rating, and certifying the sustainability of buildings. Launched in 1990 in the UK, it has become a glo...

LEED® for Homes: A Guide to the v4.1 version of this Green Building Certification For homeowners in Canada and the United States, the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for Homes rating system is the premier benchmark for designing and constructing healthy, sustainable, and highly efficient homes. De...

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has released its list of the top 10 countries for LEED® outside of the United States, on which Canada ranked No. 1. The list demonstrates the global reach of the movement that is transforming the built environment into healthy, high-performing structures that benefit the planet a...

Why pay for a green home certification? As more people pursue high efficiency green home rating certifications, they become increasingly well known and trusted. Consequently, more people seek them out. Developers build smarter homes when consumers demand them, and the existence of certification programs raises the bar ...

The Net Zero Energy home. The concept of the Zero Energy home is appealing in its simplicity: a residence that generates as much renewable energy for heating and electricity as it consumes. Its annual energy balance is neutral, and its greenhouse gas emissions are 100% offset. The design model home in Canada known as t...

What is Passive House certification? The term 'Passive House' was once obscure jargon used solely by construction engineers & technically-minded home designers, but now Passive House Certification is being increasingly specified by construction professionals and homeowners across North America. The concept of passi...

This is designed to offer only an overview of the 19 LEED for homes prerequisites that must be met for certification. Not all categories have prerequisites, and some have more than one. Please refer to the rating system for more details. Innovation & Design Process (ID)  1.1 Preliminary rating:   Conduct a prelimin...

Toilets usually account for about a third of the indoor water use in a home, so toilets that carry the EPA WaterSense® label are a great place to start looking. Then comes the choice of either single flush or dual flush- it's a bit of a toss up but in the end we chose to go with single flush models, because when human ...

LEED Canada for Homes Providers: Atlantic Canada: Quebec: ThermalWise ThermalWise is Atlantic Canada’s leading building performance consulting company. We support building owners, developers, designers, contractors, property managers and communities to be more sustainable, and energy-efficient while also c...

Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, ON — (July 22, 2015) — Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that Canada ranks first on USGBC's second annual ranking of the Top 10 Countries for LEED, the world's most widely used and recognized green building rating system. The Top 10 list highlights countries outside o...