great, thanks

Go to website for the US Green Building Council. It will guide you to LEED. As the USGBC are the ones who put LEED together. They have study guides and places to take workshops. Testing is contracted out to a seperate company. You need to schedule and go take the test. It cost a few hundred bucks.

Do you all feel it's a worthwhile accolade (ie. resume booster)?

do a search on archinect. lots of discussion on test. areforum also.

my personal feeling, if its not in your heart or your spirit or your passion its meaningless. certainly attractive to some firms who use 'market sectors green'. if thats the only reason you want to do it, the accrediation is meaningless [a building gets CERTIFICATION, you, the person, becomes ACCREDIATED]

I think a huge point that many may miss is that the whole LEED Process is giving purpose to Architecture and its role in the built environment. You can argue all you want about what it does to design but I guarantee you will never get more interest from a municipal / city council as when you speak about a LEED certified building. Whether you agree with the sustainable aspects of the process it brings Architects to the for front of the process as the administrators of the process. Recognize it! the only other time we get as much notice is if the building leaks, or over budget. It is a positve light, and many have resurrected their offices based on good sustainable planning and design....have a look around the world needs a little work.

Jefferson: I think it's a worthwhile pursuit, but no I don't think it will help your resume much. We're seeing this accreditation on many (more than half) of the resumes of younger people these days. In and of itself the credential is pretty meaningless. When we interview these people most have not worked on any projects on which LEED certification was pursued, and most have little in-depth knowledge of sustainable techniques/materials - it seems they have merely read the same book. The test doesn't cover much that can't be found in the newer editions of MEEB (Stein and Reynolds.) There is that one-point advantage in the building certification process for having a LEED person on staff - but it sure isn't difficult to find that person these days!

This is an easy credential to get - it basically involves reading a book and/or going to a seminar, paying a fee and taking a multiple choice test. The first version of this test had something like a 90%+ pass rate. The newer version has supposedly been made somewhat more difficult. But I think that for a firm to put much weight on this for hiring purposes you'd need to demonstrate a true passion for the subject matter and/or some actual practical experience with it or it probably isn't going to do much for you.

i think it really depends on where you are working too. i think most offices in boise have a couple of LEED certified people, and rightthisverymoment it isn't all that nessecary, but we can definately see that there is a push coming for more LEED certified buildings.

and, last week governor gregoire in washington state signed the first-in-nation "high performance green buildings" bill (SB 5509) which does require LEED silver certification on all major facility projects funded in the capital budget.

i don't know how much it will help you get a job, but if it is something you care about, then do it, if anything for yourself.

Silver LEED Certification is already required in California for government buildings. One of our assembly reps are trying to push through a platinum rating by 2010.

But:
1. LEED certification for a project doesn't necessarily require an LEED-accredited professional's involvement.
2. At the moment the number of LEED-accredited people is far higher than the number of projects for which LEED-certification is pursued.

Of course it is important for architecture firms (and everyone) to design with environmental issues and sustainable practices in mind. Many clients - from small residential to large commercial and institutional - expect and request "green" architecture. But most clients outside of government clients have never heard of LEED specifically. Of course this may change over time, but at this point in time, for most clients, it is usually sufficient for a firm to demonstrate a knowledge of and a history of this type of work - certification or not.
I don't see any real harm in pursuing the LEED credential. I'm just seeing a lot of interns spending a lot of money to take this test to add it to their resume these days. In my own local experience it seems that pretty much every firm in the area lists at least one LEED person on staff. And I know that some large local firms have paid to send their entire professional staffs to seminars and testing - and so have as many as 30 LEED-accredited people in one firm. So I'm thinking that perhaps we are reaching "saturation" in terms of the marketability of this particular credential in the hiring process - at least in this region.
If you are considering doing it ONLY to add it to your resume then it may not be worth the expense.

you don't need to have a LEED certified professional to have a LEED certified building?

No, you don't. Having a LEED-accredited professional involved will get you one point (LEED certification is an additive point-based system) but it is not a requirement.

ohhhhh....interesting.

Once you get the certification are you bound to any specific obligations for example having all your projects be LEED certified?

No. However, some insurance companies will raise firms' premiums for errors and omissions (liability) insurance based on the idea that having an LEED-accredited person on staff can create an expectation of a "higher level of care." So if the firm is not specifically pursuing LEED certification on any projects they may actually have a bias against hiring people with LEED accreditation (or any other superflous credentials.)