FAQ

What is a LEED Proven Provider?

The LEED Proven Provider program has been created by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) to acknowledge LEED consultants who consistently produce excellent LEED submissions. Project teams working with a Proven Provider can expect a smoother and faster LEED certification experience. Design Balance is one of the select group of Proven Provider firms working with the LEED for Building Design and Construction program.

What is LEED?

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

LEED is a voluntary certification program that can be applied to any building type and any building lifecycle phase. It promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in key areas: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, Innovation in Design and Regional Priority. For more information about what LEED measures, visit this USGBC web page.

Which LEED programs do you work with?

We work with LEED for New Construction, LEED for Schools, LEED for Core & Shell, LEED for Commercial Interiors and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance.

What is your role on projects?

It depends on the scope that our client needs. The most typical scope gets us involved very early in design and continues to the end of construction. We work closely with the design and construction teams to help them set sustainable design goals early, and keep them on track throughout the design and construction process. It's our job to stay on top of the newest information available to improve the sustainability of the built environment. Quality assurance and documentation of goals are also core services. For more information, please visit the Services section of our website.

Do you work with other green building programs?

Yes, we work with many other green building programs such as the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (which has been tailored for many States), the Living Building Challenge initiative by the Cascadia Green Building Council, Energy Star and other high performance building programs. We also develop custom green building programs for firms to use as their private label programs.

Do you recommend materials?

Yes, we research materials and systems on an on-going basis to keep track of the new developments in the green/sustainable design field. We keep the results of our research in a database that we use to pull recommendations for our projects. Since each project's requirements, budget and sustainable design goals are different, we make our recommendations keeping all of these constraints in mind.

Where are your projects?

Design Balance has been providing sustainable design services since 1996, so we have developed a deep client base with projects all over the U.S. We currently have projects in Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, Idaho and Washington. We have also worked on projects in states as diverse as Vermont, New York, Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon and California.

Who usually hires you?

Our clients are building owners, architects, contractors, government agencies, school districts, developers and real estate trusts. Who hires us depends on the type of project, how it's being built and the client's priority for sustainable design excellence.

Frequently Asked Questions