By Brendan Owens, Vice President, LEED Technical Development U.S. Green Building Council

LEED is a living document. Its evolution is critical to the transformation of the buildings industry, connecting the market to innovative ways of thinking about the design, construction and operation of green buildings.

The power of LEED is its ability to transform. We recently opened the third public comment for LEED 2012, a key step in compiling industry feedback and finalizing the next update to LEED.

Many people ask us: Why have we chosen to update the rating system in 2012 when LEED 2009 was released just a few years ago?