What other green building certifications exist besided USGBC / LEED?

There are other certification programs, but they tend to be regional. For instance here in the Seattle area, the Master Builders have a “Built Green” certification program. In the Portland area, a similar program is called “Earth Advantage”. Maybe you should check with your local builders group to see if they have established their own program. Built Green does not require all levels to be third party verified, just FYI.

There is the Green Building Initiative. http://www.thegbi.org. I don’t know much about it. LEED is by far the biggest program out there. I don’t think the other programs have anywhere near as much marketing pull.

Are you sure you can’t use the Core&Shell LEED rating system?

Try Green Globes at www.greenglobes.com.

an interesting fact:
currently there are about 1,000 LEED homes in this county.
Not one person live in any of them.

What makes you think the building type doesn’t qualify for LEED certification? What are you building over there, anyway?

In reading through the LEED for New Construction v2.2 they mention that ASHRAE 90.1–2004 is used as a basis for energy performance. It also mentions that ASHRAE 90.1–2004 does have requirements for building envelopes of semi-heated spaces, such as warehouses.

I should have clarified… It’s not just a warehouse, it’s a “cold dark shell.” This means it has no electrical distribution of HVAC equipment installed. That work will be by the tenant. As such, USGBC does not allow you to get LEED certification since a) there is no base design to compare it against (the closest thing is an unventilated parking structure, but it will never qualify against that because you’re not going to be able to improve on the energy efficiency of a building with almost no energy usage), and b) there have been too many instances of developers getting a cold dark shell certified under Core and Shell, and then the TI work is completed and the bldg is extremely inefficient. They’re trying to cut down on these types of cases.