New LEED Rating System Crosswalk with STARS
Guidance for synergies for university and college clients using LEED, TRUE or SITES, and the STARS® program
Green Building Team on September 2, 2026
- Rating System/Standard
- LEED
- LEED v4
- LEED v4.1
- LEED v5
- TRUE
- Theme
- Certification essentials
- Certification updates
There’s new guidance for synergies for university and college clients using LEED, TRUE or SITES, and the STARS® program: USGBC’s new “Rating Systems Crosswalk for Higher Education”.
STARS, or Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, is a program from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), a transparent, self-reporting framework to measure sustainability performance of universities and colleges. Fifty Canadian universities and colleges have committed to the STARS program, while three times as many use LEED for new and existing projects, reflecting over 350 certifications in Canada.
This new USGBC resource, Rating Systems Crosswalk for Higher Education, aims to help clients align their STARS commitments with LEED v4//4.1 and v5 rating system credits across BD+C, ID+C, and O+M, as well as SITES and TRUE, to earn points towards certification.
These crosswalks help colleges and universities understand how individual sustainability actions, policies, or programs can be applied across multiple rating systems, stacking benefits, and improving their performance.
Canadian universities and colleges continue to demonstrate their strong commitment to these programs. Recent LEED certifications include:
- Royal Roads University’s Langford John Horgan Campus, certified at Platinum under LEED v4 BD+C, 2026-06-05
- Capilano University’s Fulmer Family Centre for Childhood Studies, certified to Gold under LEED v4 BD+C, 2026-06-09
- University of Toronto’s Science Building, certified to Gold under LEED v4 BD+C, 2026-06-15
- UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Centre Addition, certified to Gold under LEED v4 BD+C, 2026-07-02
- UBC’s Jack Bell Building, certified to Gold under LEED v4 BD+C, 2026-08-05