Living Building Challenge 4.0 Meets Market Demand for Increased Scalability and Accessibility

SEATTLE, May 2, 2019 /3BL Media/ - The International Living Future Institute announced today the release of Living Building Challenge 4.0 (LBC 4.0), which meets demand from the marketplace for increased scale and accessibility. Google and King County committed to test the new standard in their construction, among others.

“This new generation of the Living Building Challenge is streamlined, directing 80% of the effort into 80% of the impact,” said Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the International Living Future Institute. “We heard consistent feedback from the first 100 certified projects, and the next 100 on drawing boards, which we incorporated into LBC 4.0,” she added.

Updates include the inclusion of ten new core imperatives which all projects (Petal or Living) need to achieve. These imperatives require 10 best practices critical to any green building, an increased focus on embodied carbon, and a revision to the Materials Red List, to avoid regrettable substitutions. In addition, these 10 core imperatives on their own make up the new Core Green Building Certification program, also announced today.

LBC 4.0 was released alongside new commitments from some of the world’s leading organizations: Google, PCC Markets, King County, Community Rebuilds and the BLOCK Project.

"When we align with a third-party certification system, it is important to us that it provides aspirational leadership that resonates with Google’s values of health, sustainability, and community. The Living Building Challenge has been a great partner in guiding our real estate portfolio to ensure better spaces for our team members and better buildings for the environment,” said Mary Davidge, Director of Campus Design at Google. “We are committed to the health of our employees and are excited to partner with the Institute to help advance sustainable design across the industry,” she added.

“King County has committed to developing ten Living Buildings by 2020 as part of our Strategic Climate Action Plan,” said Dow Constantine, King County Executive. “Climate change is the issue of our time, and we see the Living Building Challenge as an important way to take climate action and promote social equity,” he added.

Also announced today is the Institute’s new Volume Certification program for organizations looking to scale LBC 4.0 across their real estate portfolios in a streamlined fashion. For organizations with multiple projects, Volume Certification offers an opportunity to address environmental impact while reducing the cost and complexity of certification.

The Institute is also offering the Volume program for Zero Energy and Zero Carbon certification for organizations to address energy and carbon efficiently and systematically. Demonstrating leadership in climate change reduction, Salesforce and Kingspan announced significant commitments to the Zero Carbon Volume Certification program.

Salesforce has committed to certification of its new, major worldwide commercial office portfolio, including its Salesforce Tower in San Francisco and signature properties that are planned across North America, Europe and Asia. Kingspan has committed to certifying its portfolio of manufacturing facilities in Europe and North America.

LBC 4.0 was released at the Living Future unConference, an event that brings together 1,300+ leaders focused on regenerative design in products, buildings and communities. As the threat of climate change increases, now more than ever we need a compelling vision of the future to reconcile humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The Living Building Challenge represents that vision and re-defines what good looks like.

About the Living Building Challenge (LBC)

The Living Building Challenge is the world’s most ambitious performance standard for buildings. People from around the world use the LBC regenerative design framework to create spaces that, like a flower, give more than they take. For more information visit www.living-future.org/lbc.

About the International Living Future Institute (ILFI)
The International Living Future Institute is an environmental NGO committed to catalyzing the transformation toward communities that are socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. ILFI is premised on the belief that providing a compelling vision for the future is a fundamental requirement for reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world. ILFI operates the Living Building Challenge, the built environment’s most ambitious performance standard. It is a hub for many other visionary programs that support the transformation toward a living future. For more information please visit https://living-future.org/.

###