Cleveland is a Certified LEED Silver City

In 2021 the City of Cleveland announced its LEED Silver Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USBGC). LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, was created by the USGBC and is the world’s most widely used green building rating system. LEED certification is often associated with buildings to ensure efficiency, environmental performance, and healthy spaces for the people who occupy them.

This is a national recognition of Cleveland’s long-standing commitment to improving quality of life through sustainability and climate action. LEED enables Cleveland to measure and track outcomes against key metrics that include energy, water, waste, transportation, education, health, safety, prosperity and equitability. Cleveland is part of a global network of more than 100 certified cities and communities.

The City of Cleveland achieved LEED Silver certification for implementing practical and measurable strategies and solutions aimed at improving sustainability and the standard of living for residents.

~~~

Like LEED for buildings, LEED for Cities and Communities provides a framework for cities to credibly track progress toward overall sustainability objectives and allows for comparison by and among communities around the world. The reporting platform helps local leaders create responsible, sustainable, and specific plans for natural systems, energy, water, waste, transportation, and many other factors that contribute to the quality of life.

Through Sustainable Cleveland, we have established a solid foundation to collaboratively address community needs through sustainability and climate action. The LEED for Cities and Communities rating system will help complement these efforts and allow the City to continue to track progress over time and identify priority areas and actions with the greatest impact.

See a snapshot of Cleveland’s LEED for Cities Score

At the Sustainable Cleveland 2021 Virtual Summit, presenters shared highlights of how their organizations are leading in some of these LEED for Cities categories and participants shared their inputs on how we can collectively meet Cleveland’s climate action and sustainability goals.

While Cleveland performed well in the Water Efficiency, Natural Systems and Ecology, Innovation, and Regional Priority impact categories of the LEED for Cities certification, there is still much work to be done to reach our goal of a LEED platinum city.

In the interactive sessions linked below, we dove into the areas where Cleveland needs to significantly scale up action in order to reach platinum certification. The first video of the three-part series focused on Cleveland’s LEED for Cities certification and the Sustainable Cleveland Dashboard, which explores our ongoing sustainability tracking and reporting efforts, and helps to collaboratively identify priority metrics to drive climate action.

City of Cleveland Press Release

~~~

Written by: Brittany Montgomery

Do you like this page?