LEED Version 4 (v4) Gold Certification Strategies for Existing Office Buildings in the United States

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of project/building characteristics on LEED-EB v4 gold-certified projects in the US. LEED project/building characteristics include project size and the number of buildings built before and after the 1973 energy crisis. LEED-EB-certified projects include a score for Location and Transportation credit (LTc1) and scores for Energy and Atmosphere credits (EAcs) (EAc6, “renewable energy and carbon offsets”, and EAc8, “optimize energy performance”). From 112 LEED projects, two groups of projects with specific achievements were selected. Group 1 (n1 = 13) includes high achievements in LTc1 and low achievements in EAc6 and EAc8. Group 2 (n2 = 13) includes high achievements in LTc1, EAc6, and EAc8. The exact Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney or Fisher’s exact 2×2 test was used to estimate significant differences between two groups. As a result, Group 2 outperformed Group 1 in EAc6 and EAc8 (p <0.001, respectively). Group 1 outperformed Group 2 in project size and the number of buildings built before the “1973 energy crisis” (p = 0.017 and 0.005, respectively). Knowing the project size and the building's construction date can help LEED professionals choose the best certification strategy.