We selected the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)® standard as our measurement for green building. These standards are constantly reviewed and improved by an extensive stakeholder process that we believe results in the best accepted measure of environmental considerations for buildings available.

Structures that meet LEED criteria are built with consideration to the environmental issues of materials and emphasize water conservation, energy efficiency and indoor air quality. Our staff architects, one of whom is a LEED-accredited professional, work with leading architectural firms that have designed new and remodeled buildings with the LEED standard as the guide.

LEED certification can be an expensive process. However, as the industry becomes more familiar with these methods and alternative products become more available, we have seen costs decrease.

An important note is that we use LEED as a measure of meeting our green building goals, not as the goal in itself. For these reasons we have chosen to set our goal for green building to self assess using the LEED point system and meet or exceed what would be the LEED certified level for all new REI buildings. On a case by case basis we will decide if the LEED application process makes sense for that project.

We are also a pilot user of the LEED-Retail standard which we hope will greatly streamline the application process and make formal LEED certification much more cost effective.

In the end, we believe achieving our green building goals will be win-win for our business, members, communities and the environment.