LEED for Cities certification provides cities, towns and counties with a baseline assessment of jurisdiction-wide sustainability. The data collection process draws from many community partners and existing plans, policies and reports. In addition to several guides and resources currently available on the LEED for Cities homepage, new courses with GBCI continuing education credits have been published to address more specific aspects of the process.

For cities exploring certification and wondering what it takes to kick off the process, Project Management for LEED for Cities and Communities: Guidance for Local Governments (1 CE) is the perfect place to start. This course provides guidance and resources to successfully manage the certification process. Project team members of certified cities provide insights from their experiences, and users will learn about tools like the LEED for Cities Crosswalk and guide.

Once cities are registered, one of the first data collection exercises to take on is completion of the rating system’s prerequisites. The new LEED for Cities Performance Prerequisites (1 CE) course provides a deep dive into the prerequisites in the Water Efficiency, Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use and Transportation, Materials and Resources, and Quality of Life categories. The course provides a comprehensive walkthrough of the five performance prerequisites, common data sources and best practices.

Many of the credits in LEED for Cities ask project teams to report on existing policies, plans or programs, but some require an evaluation of existing conditions. The LEED v4.1 Cities and Communities: Existing Cities—Step-by-Step Guidance on TR c Compact, Mixed Use and Transit Oriented Development (0.5 CE) course provides a detailed walk through of the credit, which requires projects to identify compact, human-scaled, walkable and universally accessible centers in their cities via a mapping and analysis exercise.

USGBC has a variety of resources for local governments, and those can now be found on the new Local Government Leadership Resources page. This page includes resources on high-performance building policies, membership opportunities, staff educational development and much more.

For local governments interested in staying up to date on USGBC’s work in the sector, sign up for the USGBC Local Government Newsletter.

Explore the new resources page

Explore new courses and resources for LEED for Cities certification