The Living Building Challenge is a green building certification program that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today and acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions. Projects that achieve this level of performance can claim to be the ‘greenest’ anywhere, and will serve as role models for others that follow.
The Challenge is comprised of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals’: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. Petals are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. This compilation of Imperatives can be applied to almost every conceivable Typology, or project type, be it a building (both renovation of an existing structure, or new construction), infrastructure, landscape or community development. Learn more about the Living Building Challenge by downloading the full Living Building Challenge Standard document below, or by visiting the Understanding the Challenge section of our site. In addition, we've released the Materials Petal Handbook, the first in a series of publications that is intended to serve as a resource for project teams pursing the Living Building Challenge versions 2.0 and 2.1.
Learn about prior versions of the standard.