USGBC, GBCI launch LEED for Cities cohort in Latin America, CASA 3.1 updates

This news is about city and building-certification programs in Latin America, not something that directly affects U.S. homeowners. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and its certification arm, GBCI, announced a new group of Latin American cities that will work through LEED for Cities, a framework that scores how well a city performs on things like energy use and resilience. The launch happened alongside Construverde, Colombia's annual green building conference, where officials from U.S. cities such as Columbia, South Carolina, and several Florida cities shared lessons with counterparts from Colombia and Mexico.

The conference also introduced an updated version of CASA, a residential building certification program used mainly in Colombia, on GBCI's Arc data platform, which tracks building performance over time. CASA sets standards for high-performing housing, and in Colombia more than 5.4 million square meters of housing have already been certified through it, with nearly half of that being social housing. Homes certified under CASA can also earn credit toward the separate LEED for Communities certification.

None of this changes rebates, incentives, or requirements for houses in the United States. It reflects an expansion of green building standards into new housing markets abroad, with GBCI saying it plans to bring similar programs to other Latin American countries going forward.