Last week at Greenbuild 2016 in L.A., exhibitors, seminars and special events zeroed in on providing helpful information to attendees about the countless sustainability certification standards, their individual requirements, challenges in the certification process, and countless other topics.

The USGBC is moving its LEED standard forward with the release of its newest version, LEED v4.
Over the past few years, architects and designers have seen new standards introduced to address LEED’s weaknesses and other gaps in focus. Among these “new” kids on the block are the WELL Building Standard by the International WELL Building Institute, introduced in 2013, and the Living Building Challenge, introduced by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) in 2006.
The A&D community is comfortable thinking about and working towards LEED; LEED is a normal part of A&D life now. But newer certification standards are questioning traditional ways of thinking about and achieving sustainable goals.
The WELL Building Standard’s mission is to improve human health and wellbeing through the built environment, which shifts focus from the health of the earth to the health of humans directly. This, along with organizations such as the Center for Active Design, is refocusing the wellbeing discussion onto humans.
But it’s ILFI’s Living Building Challenge that is arguably bringing the most holistic approach to sustainability certification in the built environment.

“The Living Building Challenge™ is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard,” reads the standard. “It calls for the creation of building projects at all scales that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature’s architecture.”
The Living Building Challenge is versatile; it can be applied to any building project, in all shapes and sizes, for both new construction and renovation projects, in any climate zone and country.

“Because the Challenge is performance-based, the guiding principles and performance metrics apply regardless of where in the world the project is located – what changes is the specific mix of strategies and technologies – leaving it up to the genius of the design team to choose the most appropriate design response.”
Living Building Challenge v3 is explained in an 83-page document, available here. It’s an interesting read, even if you’re skimming. But, in an effort to peak your interest by giving you the basics, we’ve paired down that document to the main keys of the challenge…

“To be certified under the Challenge, projects must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements over a minimum of 12 months of continuous occupancy.”
The seven performance categories are called “Petals.”

“Petals are subdivided into a total of 20 Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. This compilation of Imperatives can be applied to almost every conceivable building project, of any scale and any location.”
Before you can start working toward achieving each Petal, your project team must register the project and declare a “Typology that aligns with their project to determine which Imperatives apply”:

>Renovation. “Any project that does not form the substantial portion of a complete building reconstruction…”
>Landscape or Infrastructure (non conditioned development). “Any project that does not include a physical structure as part of its primary program, although open-air, park-like structures, restrooms, amphitheaters, and the like do fall into this category. Projects may be as diverse as roads, bridges, plazas, sports facilities, or trails.”

>Building: “Any project that encompasses the construction or substantial renovation of a roofed and walled structure created for permanent use – either new or existing. Projects that occupy more than 75% of a building and alter either the envelope or major systems are considered Building projects.”
Here are the seven Petals, with Imperatives listed alongside each:

>Place: Restoring a healthy interrelationship with nature. Intent is to “realign how people understand and relate to the natural environment that sustains us.” *Imperatives include: limits to growth, urban agriculture, habitat exchange, human powered living.
>Water: Creating developments that operate within the water balance of a given place and climate.” Intent is to “realign how people use water and to redefine ‘waste’ in the built environment so that water is respected as a precious resource.” *Imperatives include: net positive water.

>Energy: Relying only on current solar income. Intent is to “signal a new age of design, wherein the built environment relies solely on renewable forms of energy and operates year round in a safe, pollution-free manner.” *Imperatives include: net positive energy.
>Health & Happiness: Creating environments that optimize physical and psychological health and wellbeing. Intent is to “focus on the most important environmental conditions that must be present to create robust, healthy spaces, rather than to address all of the potential ways that an interior environment could be compromised.” *Imperatives include: civilized environment, healthy interior environment, biophilic environment.

>Materials: Endorsing products that are safe for all species through time. Intent is to “help create a materials economy that is non-toxic, ecologically restorative, transparent, and social equitable.” *Imperatives include: the Red List, embodied carbon footprint, responsible industry, living economy sourcing, net positive waste.
>Equity: Supporting a just, equitable world. Intent is to “transform developments to foster a true, inclusive sense of community that is just and equitable regardless of an individual’s background, age, class, race, gender or sexual orientation.” *Imperatives include: human scale and humane places, universal access to nature & place, equitable investment, JUST organizations.

>Beauty: Yes, beauty. Celebrating design that uplifts the human spirit. Intent is to “recognize the need for beauty as a precursor to caring enough to preserve, conserve, and serve the greater good.” *Imperatives include: beauty + spirit, inspiration + education.
There are a few pathways to Living Building Challenge ertification. First is the full Living Building Certification, which means achieving all requirements for the assigned Typology – super rigorous and the most optimally sustainable. You can also achieve Petal Certification, which allows you to complete the requirements of three or more Petals, at least one of which must be Water, Energy, or Materials.
And finally, a project team can achieve a Net Zero Energy Certification, which requires achievement of the NZEB portions of the Living Building Challenge Imperatives: 01, Limits to Growth; 06, Net Positive Energy, 19, Beauty + Spirit; and 20, Inspiration + Education.

The Living Building Challenge also has a Scale Jumping overlay, which allows “multiple buildings or projects to operate in a cooperative state – sharing green infrastructure as appropriate.”
“Living building challenge projects have their own utility, generating their own energy and processing their own waste. They more appropriately match scale to technology and end use, and result in greater self-sufficiency and security. Yet, the ideal scale for solutions is not always within a project’s property boundary. Depending on the technology, the optimal scale can vary when considering environmental impact, first cost and operating costs.”
The International Living Future Institute has a lot going on outside the Living Building Challenge.
In 2014, it launched the Living Community Challenge, and in April 2015 it introduced the Living Product Challenge – both built on a unified framework of programs that began with the Living Building Challenge.
And notably, ILFI’s Declare label, a “nutrition label” for products that helps make ingredient disclosure easier, was just adopted into the LEED v4 standard.
A few other programs and resources for designers, planners, architects and manufacturers round out ILFI’s base of support. The Institute holds a few big events each year, including the Living Product Expo, which happened just last month in Pittsburgh, and the Living Future unConference, which will be held May 17-19, 2017 in Seattle.
“Living Future is the forum for leading minds in the green building movement seeking solutions to the most daunting global issues of our time. This year’s three-day conference will focus on the diverse layers of ‘Genius and Courage.’”
We’re putting it on our calendar now and are eager to see the full programming schedule – check out the event website here.
We encourage you to browse around living-future.org and to check out the new features of the Living Building Challenge 3.0. In next week’s issue, you’ll find a recently completed Living Building project in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned!