What’s happening?
USGBC published the Equity Guide for LEED Cities and Communities rating system on June 24, 2024. This guide applies a lens that focuses on the equity of each credit.
Why do we need LEED Cities and Communities?
For those unfamiliar with LEED’s cities and communities rating system, here is a brief introduction.
The LEED for Cities and Communities rating system provides standards and tools to benchmark the sustainability performance of local planning authorities across nine categories. With social, economic, and environmental elements, this rating system aims to protect all communities from climate-related hazards.
However, many of the hazard prevention measures have to be addressed at the policy-making and programming level; such as assessing the local ecosystem, measuring pollution reduction on a regional scale, measuring transportation performance, measuring water quality at the municipal level, assessing power resources, confirming carbon neutrality within a grid system, judicial solid waste management, and its assessment of quality of life, etc.
What is the “Advancing Equity”?
“Advancing Equity” is a guide that provides guiding principles, case studies, and reflective questions to encourage local governments to apply equity during their planning processes. Nearly every aspect of the rating system has specific or indirect equity considerations. It also highlighted five distinctive types of equity to help planning authorities climate-related action in conjunction with the locale’s unique concerns.
Why the equity guide matters?
Because sustainability is not just about environmental protection, but also about social responsibility and economic investment towards the place we live in. Integrating equity into the decision-making process helps make initiatives more accessible and inclusive. Centering equity in sustainable practice also sets the industry standards to ensure equitable outcomes.
What are the five types of equity in LEED Cities and Communities?
Procedural equity focuses on the inclusive and accessible engagement during the process.
Distributional equity aims at the fair distribution of benefits and burdens across a community.
Structural equity centers on unbiased and non-partisan recognition of history, culture, and institutional dynamics.
Transgenerational equity factors in inheritable impact and tries to minimize the burden on future generations.
Transformational equity emphasizes internal and external aspects of each project. This equity tends to align indigenous capacity with the community’s voice.
What’s the challenge of implementing equity when using the LEED rating system?
Equity takes many forms, and many of them are not quantifiable. Therefore, it is not easy to address equity in the credits of the rating system. With an understanding of equity alignment in each credit, this guide intends to limit systemic inequities at the same time.
Notes and references:
Link to Equity Guide published June 26, 2024 by USGBC.
Exploring LEED for Cities and Communities through an Expert Lens, a credited course created by USGBC.