LEED Accreditation for structural engineers

[OlafTheBlack]

Today, I got asked if I was LEED Accredited to be on a team for a public building. I have worked with this architect on many projects. I have never been asked the question before. The town made it a reqiuirement that the architect, mechanical engineer, and structural engineer be LEED Accredited.

Are other structural engineers running into this type of request?

Is there a decent text resource such at the EIT and PE Fundamentals by Lindeberg?

The LEED stuff looks to me more like learning accounting to work with the tax code than does the practice of engineering technology based on scientific theory. Any thoughts out there as to where LEED is going with structural engineers?

 

[strucguy]

A project qualifies for some bonus LEED points if the members of the team are LEED accredited professionals. What you have just experienced could be a trend in the future as green design and innovation picks pace and becomes more popular. I have just started studying for the exam...but, from what i heard from others, the exam is a piece of cake for engineers. I was told that, a couple of weeks of preparation is good enough to ace the LEED GA exam. But, the LEED AP is supposedly more elaborate and may need a little more hard work from our part. USGBC website has a good list of references. I would recommend you to start exploring the website and familiarizing with the jargon used. Also, you could order many other valuable resources from the following website.

http://www.greenexamprep.com

Hope this is helpful. Good Luck!

 

[H57]

I am at a full service AE firm and have gone through LEED accreditation. It is not difficult. As for the points you can only get (1) point if a member is accredited. If multiple members are accredited you still only get (1) point. Given that about every team member other than structural has more impact on the LEED points, I'm not sure why they would require structural to be accredited. About all you can do is specify recycled or regional materials and certified wood for the structure. You don't even calculate anything as the overall requirements for these will be calculated by the contractor.

I have not seen a project requiring members to be accredited, but for some clients I think it is an advantage to say all team members are accredited.