The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification was developed and introduced in the United States in 1999 by the US Green Building Council, the organization including representatives from the building industry, research sector and government agencies of North America, aimed at providing all specialist operators with a useful tool for the certification of building sustainability.
This certification assesses and certifies the environmental, social and economic sustainability of buildings, from the planning stage to their daily management, through a flexible system envisaging different approaches according to building types: LEED New Construction (NC), Existing Buildings (EB), Commercial Interiors (CI), Core & Shell (CS), Homes, Neighbourhood Development.
In particular, LEED-NC deals with the construction of new buildings and significant restructuring of existing structures.
LEED is a voluntary certification that over the last year has spread internationally as the certification system for building sustainability.
The certification method envisages the attribution of a score to buildings based on the verification of their sustainability according to a number of pre-requisites and LEED credits covering 6 areas:
1. Sustainable sites
2. Effective water management
3. Energy consumption and impact on the atmosphere
4. Materials and resources
5. Interior environment quality
6. Innovation of the planning stage
Following the growing interest for this issue - also in Italy- Casalgrande Padana has become a partner of Green Building Council Italia (GBC Italia), the national association acknowledged by USGBC as the promoter of the LEED certification in Italy.
In order to comply with all the credits envisaged by LEED in terms of recycled material, Casalgrande Padana requested and obtained the “product certification technical document with reference to building materials including recycled material: ceramic tiles or semi-finished products to be used in the production of ceramic tiles” from the CERTIQUALITY Quality Certification Institute.
All products of the Bios line by Casalgrande Padana have specific (antibacterial) properties liable to obtain a significant score relating to the ID 1.1-1.4 “innovation in design” credit envisaged by the LEED certification.
