What is the Living Building Challenge Certification?

The Living Building Challenge℠ is an attempt to dramatically raise the bar from a paradigm of doing less harm to one in which we view our role as a steward and co-creator of a true Living Future. The Challenge defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment today and acts to rapidly diminish the gap between current limits and the end-game positive solutions we seek.

The Challenge aims to transform how we think about every single act of design and construction as an opportunity to positively impact the greater community of life and the cultural fabric of our human communities. The program has always been a bit of a Trojan horse—a philosophical worldview cloaked within the frame of a certification program. The Challenge is successful because it satisfies our left-brain craving for order and thresholds, and our right-brain intuition that the focus needs to be on our relationship with and understanding of the whole of life.

As such the program is a philosophy first, an advocacy tool second, and a certification program third. Within the larger Living Future Challenge framework that covers the creation of all human artifacts and edifices, the Living Building Challenge focuses on humanity’s most abundant creations—its buildings. It is in essence a unified tool for transformative thought, allowing us to envision a future that is Socially Just, Culturally Rich and Ecologically Restorative.

Regardless of the size or location of the project, the Living Building Challenge provides a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people, our community, and nature. The Living Building Challenge calls for action to restore the relationship between people and nature in an increasingly urbanized world as we become more and more disconnected from the world with which we evolved. It is a challenge to immerse ourselves in such a pursuit—and many refer to the ability to do so as a paradigm shift.

Projects that achieve Living Building® certification can claim to be the greenest anywhere, and will serve as role models in their communities for redefining the future of the built environment. Whether the project is restorative, regenerative, or operates with a net zero impact, it has a home in the construct of the Living Building Challenge.

Although it is ambitious to achieve all of the requirements of the Living Building Challenge, the performance-based approach creates a simplicity and ease of use: There are twenty simple and profound Imperatives that must be met for any type of project, at any scale, in any location around the world.

This Standard is decidedly not a checklist of best practices—the Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge are performance-based and position the ideal outcome as an indicator of success.

The specific methodology used to meet the expectations of the Living Building Challenge is not up to our Institute—but rather to the genius of the design teams, owners, and occupants themselves, who are expected to make informed and vested decisions appropriate to the project, place, and bioregion.

The Living Building Challenge is a holistic standard, pulling together the most progressive thinking from the worlds of architecture, engineering, planning, interiors, landscape design, and policy. It challenges us to ask these questions:

What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place? What if every intervention resulted in greater biodiversity and social equity; additional outlets for beauty and personal expression; a deeper understanding of climate, culture, and place; a realignment of our food and transportation systems; increased soil health; and a more profound sense of what it means to be a citizen of a planet where resources and opportunities are provided fairly and equitably?

A tall order to be sure.

The scale of change we seek is immense and, without recording these utmost visions and clarity of purpose, we as a society will never experience the type of future that is possible and necessary for our long-term survival. It is our belief that only a dozen years remain to completely reshape humanity’s relationship with nature and to realign our ecological footprint to be within the planet’s carrying capacity.

Over the last thirty years, green building has grown to become the most important and progressive trend in the building industry. There have been huge steps forward in the design, construction and operation of buildings, and yet when compared with the rate of change required to avoid the worst effects of climate change and other global environmental challenges, our progress can no longer be incremental and barely recordable. That is why, with the launch of the Living Building Challenge 4.0 we are also releasing the Core Green Building Certification, defining the ten essential requirements that define a baseline for green building. It is time to build a bridge between the highest levels of main stream green building certification programs and the Living Building Challenge and to propel the industry toward more Living Buildings.

For more information, visit the Living Future Institute’s website.