Fedrizzi said in a statement, “We have heard repeatedly that while our community continues to fully embrace our mission, they need more time to absorb the changes we’re proposing and to get their businesses ready to take the step with us. Most importantly, they want more visibility into the infrastructural improvements we’ve promised with the LEED 2012 program — forms, documentation, education, and LEED Online — to inform their internal adoption strategies.

“Therefore we’ve decided to delay ballot on LEED 2012 until June 1, 2013 (or potentially sooner in 2013 if our members and the market tell us they are ready). We will use this time to deliver on the infrastructural improvements to the LEED program already underway.”

Due to the date change, USGBC will “begin to refer to this next version of LEED as LEED v4.”

Fedrizzi also noted that the commitment to a fifth public comment period “has been done to take advantage of Greenbuild in November, where we will hold public forums and educational sessions on site in San Francisco to help stakeholders better understand the requirements as well as any final changes that may appear in the new draft. It will also allow us to debut some of the new forms, submittal documents, LEED Online enhancements, and other infrastructural upgrades that will help improve and enhance the project teams’ experience. We will solidify the infrastructure of the LEED v4 program in early 2013 in advance of ballot.”

Publication date: 6/11/2012