Over the past few years, USGBC has been expanding our vision beyond buildings. The next generation of green building will seamlessly integrate buildings into communities, to ensure a sustainable future for all. We’ve been envisioning a new way forward for the growth of smart cities, and our efforts have taught us that in order to scale smart cities globally, we need to encourage all cities to measure and improve the performance of their environment, economy and people.

When cities and communities increase transparency around their performance, they focus more and more on the outcomes generated from their sustainability efforts and strive to make improvements. They start to implement new technologies and practices to make improvements that address the water, energy, waste management and mobility issues they are facing. They realize new ways to engage more of their businesses, residents and community members around improvements. This creates more opportunities, supports improved citizen health and wellness, and provides economic growth, without compromising the environment or our resources.

By focusing on integrated performance, cities and communities can revolutionize the way their buildings, communities and cities are planned, developed and operated. This focus can improve the quality of life of their citizens, open the door for new businesses and new residents, and stimulate a robust, green economy.

Recognizing that cities and communities lacked a globally consistent way to actually measure their performance, USGBC introduced two new certification programs in 2016—LEED for Cities and LEED for Communities—to help local leaders communicate the performance of their economies, environment and people across an array of objectives and to different types of stakeholders.

Link Here:    https://www.usgbc.org/articles/evolution-leed-cities-and-communities