USGBC LEED Green Associate

About the Course

Understanding the need to educate and train in sustainable development principles and strategies, the USGBC has designed several professional credentials that demonstrate different levels of knowledge and skills for the application of the LEED Certification System. The LEED guides propose a series of design and performance strategies to be implemented in a structure with the purpose of addressing the environmental impact issues as well as the operation and maintenance costs related to excessive consumption of energy, potable water and materials. It also aims to improve the interior environment of buildings to promote the production, use and welfare of the occupants and the surrounding community. To maximize the results of the application of the strategies proposed by LEED, the scheme is based on propitiating the synergy between the diverse systems existing in a structure. This theory seeks to create closed cycles where the product of one process turns out to be the input of another. The proposal seeks to combine well-known strategies with modern technology to address the life cycle of a building. In addition, LEED provides metric tools that allow evaluating the most productive way to apply these strategies seeking their implementation from an integrated and iterative planning. The LEED Green Associate credential demonstrates knowledge and non-technical skills to understand and support strategies, ideas and practices that form the basis of sustainable construction, as well as the critical points of the operation and maintenance of structures, specifically related to the LEED program. This basic level of credentialing is presented as an opportunity for everyone involved in a construction project to know the best way to collaborate with the LEED certification process from their respective roles and specialties. This includes engineers and architects, as well as those owners and investors, contractors, consultants, appraisers, environmentalists, planners, and others who equally participate in the process. This integration of the disciplines is necessary for the success of a sustainable project. It is also essential to achieve the necessary market change and the promotion of a cost-effective, socially equitable and environmentally prosperous urban development.