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Extracted Content

Integrated Team

The first step involves assembling an interdisciplinary design team with relevant and impacted parties, including owners, building users, architects, engineers, contractors, and community representatives. Participants are to consider all project phases — from early design to construction and operations — to collaboratively set goals, refine strategies, and balance performance, feasibility, and costs.

During construction and procurement, contractors and builders offer insights on constructability, materials, and life-cycle impacts, while collaboration during occupancy ensures that the design intent is upheld, energy strategies are implemented effectively, and performance is monitored for continuous improvement.

Design Charette

The first charrette with interdisciplinary members is crucial for collective agreement on goals, priorities, and a shared project vision. Teams must proactively address major concerns early to avoid re-design delays and inefficiencies later in the project lifecycle. Leveraging tools such as energy and daylight modeling, Building Information Modeling, and life-cycle assessments (LCA) during the conceptual design phase ensures a data-driven approach to identifying conflicts and optimizing performance.

To foster engagement and collaboration, project teams must implement equitable processes by facilitating well-structured meetings, workshops, and charrettes. Resources such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Handbook for Planning and Conducting Charrettes [9] provide practical checklists and agendas to guide these efforts.

LEED Goal Setting: Decarbonization, Quality of Life, and Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration Goals

Project teams must establish measurable goals aligned with LEED v5’s core impact areas: decarbonization, quality of life, and ecological conservation and restoration. It is an opportunity for project teams to further connect assessment findings to project outcomes. Experts recommend clear metrics to guide decisions, such as carbon reduction percentages, well-being outcomes, or ecosystem restoration targets.

• Decarbonization . Strategies include reducing operational and embodied carbon emissions. Teams can replace fossil fuel systems with renewable or electric solutions,

9 “A Handbook for Planning and Conducting Charettes”, U.S. Department of Energy, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/44051.pdf.

U.S. Green Building Council LEED v5 Reference Guide for Building Design and Construction, April 2025 Launch Edition 41