Webinar, LEED and the EU Taxonomy

9 February 20220

The EU taxonomy is concerned with establishing the global reference standards for determining whether an economic activity can be considered environmentally sustainable.

An ambitious attempt that introduces a new approach to “green” assessments focused on economic activities with the aim of encouraging sustainable investments and preventing greenwashing, the so-called façade of environmentalism.

An important path that could really make a difference for many sectors, including the construction sector. To support European policies in this process, as USGBC underlines in the document called Leeds and the EU taxonomy, is the international environmental certification protocol:

LEED is a useful operational tool that already allows for verification of the criteria established by the EU Taxonomy thanks to procedures, applicable calculation methods and comparison between the different metrics.

This was discussed on February 8th during the Webinar conducted by USGBC in which OGB STUDIO participated and which provided interesting technical input on the topic. During the meeting, the LEED V4 and V4.1 BD+C protocols were analyzed, both in the context of the Technical Screening criteria for climate change mitigation and the Do no significant harm criteria (DNSH).

To date, LEED is the most widely used and recognized operating system for performance analysis in green building in the world:

more than 110,000 projects and over 182 countries and territories. “LEED v4, LEED v4.1 and LEED Zero can help meet the established criteria of the European taxonomy and achieve the goals of the #GreenDeal flight to make the whole of Europe a net-zero emission society by 2050,” writes USGBC.

The system with which LEED operates is in fact perfectly aligned with the European objectives. In particular, both (EU and LEED) include objectives of:

  • Reduce climate change
  • Improving individual human health
  • Protect and restore water resources
  • Protect and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • Promote sustainable and regenerated materials
  • Building a Green Economy
  • Improving the quality of life of the community

To learn more, read the article on the USGBC website:

› https://www.usgbc.org/resources/leed-and-eu-taxonomy