The ChallengeThe U.S. Green Building Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization, in 2000 established the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. Developers using the LEED program can generate energy savings of up to 40 percent. The program has become very popular, with corporations such as Walgreens, Starbucks, and The Home Depot queueing up to get certifications. This has put a strain on the resources of the USGBC, which has a staff of just 170 people, and the organization was concerned delays in certification would hurt the program.
USGBC turned to Booz Allen Hamilton to find a way to meet the demand for LEED certification and support its broader mission of encouraging sustainable building practices. Drawing upon our extensive experience helping non-profits optimize efficiency and increase employee productivity, we identified that handling the certification process had the potential to drain the organization's resources and distract from its larger mission.
We proposed that USGBC outsource its LEED certifications to a network of trusted, highly skilled contractors. They then asked us to develop a business model to encourage contractors to participate and to act as liaisons with the top global certification bodies, and we began negotiations to build a network of outside reviewers. USGBC used our solution to establish the Green Building Certification Institute in 2008 to oversee the credentialing program.
Now we are working with USGBC to focus on scaling up to meet strong growth in the U.S., and to develop market entry strategies to expand internationally, evaluating potential partner organizations in countries such as Brazil, China, and India, to develop new business and governance models for expanding the LEED certification programs.
Download a PDF version of the case study entitled, "A New Model To Meet Demand for Green Building Certification: The US Green Building Council."
Meet David Erne, one of the Booz Allen senior associates who worked on this client assignment.
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