New LEED v5 resilience credits to provide much-needed guidance

To keep people safe, extend a building’s life cycle and protect affordability, resilience must be built in at every stage of the process. This is why the USGBC, on LEED v5, embeds a renewed focus on resilience outcomes across design, construction and operations.

LEED v5 introduces new credits and prerequisites that demand proactive planning and resilient design. These measures help projects respond to today’s heavier storms, flooding and extreme heat. They also safeguard occupants and assets with backup systems, resilient site design and emergency plans that minimize downtime and reduce recovery costs.

These strategies maximize a building’s lifespan by creating safer, more stable spaces and avoiding premature repairs or replacements. This article explains the origins of this effort and what the updated rating system and supporting tools offer project teams.

LEED Resilience Working Group

In developing LEED v5, USGBC held extensive discussions with practitioners, owner-operators, consultants and other members of the built environment community. Among the key principles that emerged from this process was the imperative to inspire and recognize adaptive and resilient built environments.

To translate this imperative into action, USGBC convened the LEED Resilience Working Group, a committee composed of volunteer subject matter experts and professionals whose insights shaped credit requirements throughout the entire rating system. It included two Canadian volunteers from CAGBC member companies to represent Canada’s needs. As a result of this committee’s direction, resilience is embedded across LEED v5 for Building Design and Construction (BD+C), Interior Design and Construction (ID+C) and Operations and Maintenance (O+M).

Climate Resilience Assessment prerequisite

All LEED projects must complete the new Climate Resilience Assessment prerequisite.

The assessment evaluates current and future natural and climate hazards, promoting hazard awareness, clarifying risks, reducing vulnerabilities and encouraging long-term safety and sustainability. Hazards considered include drought; extreme heat and cold; flooding and storm surge; hurricanes, tornadoes, hail and high winds; landslides; sea-level rise; tsunamis; wildfires and smoke; winter storms; and other locally pertinent hazards.

The assessment produces data and narratives that inform the design process and help project teams integrate resilient design measures more effectively.

From this assessment, project teams uncover opportunities to strengthen resilience throughout the LEED v5 rating system, ranging from enhanced envelope strategies to emergency operation plans and occupant-support measures during disruptions. Project teams earn additional points by achieving credits that require mitigative design strategies to address the assessed climate hazards, such as the Enhanced Resilient Site Design credit in the Sustainable Sites category and the Resilient Spaces credit in the Indoor Environmental Quality category.

LEED v5 helps project teams address business-continuity planning, occupant-support protocols during emergencies and other best practices for hazard-responsive design in the Existing Buildings (O+M) rating system as well. For Existing Buildings, there is the new LEED v5 O+M credit: Operational Planning for Resilience, which requires hazard-response protocols, readiness drills and guidelines for sustaining critical operations through and after emergencies.

Resilience Pathway credit

Projects opting for the new Resilience Pathway pilot credit, now available in the LEED v5 Project Priorities Library, also build on the Climate Resilience Assessment prerequisite by pursuing additional exemplary and innovative adaptation strategies. This comprehensive pilot credit supports projects by cohesively aligning multiple LEED v5 resilience credits and strategies to reduce risks from identified hazards. It encourages deeper integration across credits that address building systems, site design, operations and emergency preparedness.

Teams earn this credit by integrating a suite of resilience best practices and credits, including Exemplary Performance in Enhanced Resilient Site Design and Exemplary Performance in Resilience Spaces. Projects then select one additional resilience measure, ranging from establishing community resilience hubs to advanced operational planning for emergencies.

To qualify for the Resilience Pathway, projects must use future climate projections and provide a detailed narrative documenting the hazards addressed, design assumptions, implemented strategies and levels of protection achieved. Integrating design, site and operational measures weaves resilience into every project phase, safeguarding occupants and assets now and into the future.

Further resilience credits

Other newly released resilience pilot credits incorporated in the Resilience Pathway include the following:

• Resilience Information Summary pilot credit: Supports transparency in how a project addresses climate and hazard risks. The credit helps communicate building resilience strategies to insurers, lenders, tenants and buyers.
• Resilience Hubs pilot credit: Encourages the development of or partnership with Resilience Hubs, facilities that support community needs during emergencies and throughout the year. These spaces provide critical services, particularly for vulnerable populations, in response to climate-related events and other disruptions.
• Earthquake Resilient Spaces pilot credit: Interiors criteria for enhanced resilience to earthquake hazards.

LEED v5 resilience and adaptation strategies are supported by best-in-class resources, including the LEED v5 Climate Resilience Assessment Template, which can be used to document the prerequisite, providing further detailed guidance and curated data sources.