The annual Greenbuild Conference was held two weeks ago at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Still the largest green building gathering each year, 23,000 people attended along with 750 exhibitors. NRMCA exhibited new initiatives on Transparency, Responsibility and Resiliency with "Resilience" as the noticeable buzzword throughout the conference. Senior Vice President of Sustainable Development Lionel Lemay and Vice President of Sustainability Tien Peng were on hand to educate professionals about NRMCA programs.

The US Green Building Council (USGBC) announced last week via a news release that it has extended the date projects may register under the LEED 2009 rating system to October 31, 2016 – an extension of almost a year and a half. It was evident from the education sessions and the USGBC survey from Greenbuild that project teams are "not ready" or "unsure" if they are ready to pursue LEED v4 and require additional time to prepare. While NRMCA has been preparing its members for a number of years, the overhaul of the MR credits has many industries scrambling to develop new programs and metrics. Extending LEED 2009’s availability enables USGBC to work with the broader industry within a longer time frame.

Click here for more information on NRMCA LEEDv4 programs and initiatives or contact Tien Peng at tpeng@nrmca.org or 206-913-8535.