USGBC to Adopt RELi Building Standard

4 December 2017 — The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced at Greenbuild 2017 that it will formally adopt RELi, a resilient construction standard developed in 2012 by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability, Perkins + Will and others.

Like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, RELi uses a point system across various credit categories. It includes LEED prerequisites for sustainable practices but introduces new criteria for resilient design, including fundamental access to first aid, emergency supplies, water, food, and communications; adaptive design for extreme rain, sea rise, storm surge, and extreme weather, events, and hazards; development or expansion of local skills, capabilities, and long-term employment; provision for social equity and edible landscaping, urban agriculture, and resilient food production.

While it is unclear whether RELi will be incorporated into LEED or continue as its own set of standards, GCBI is “leading the further refinement of RELi to synthesize the LEED Resilient Design pilot credits with RELi’s Hazard Mitigation and Adaptation credits,” according to the GCBI press release. GCBI is creating a steering committee — chaired by Perkins+Will senior associate and RELi 1.0 principal investigator Doug Pierce — to “bring resilience into actionable, mainstream thinking for the design, construction and operation of buildings.”

Source: https://www.proudgreenbuilding.com/news/usgbc-to-adopt-reli-building-standard/