LEED Cities

1. Assess Readiness: Review the LEED for Cities and Communities reference guide and determine whether your city or community has the data infrastructure to track performance across energy, water, waste, transportation, and human experience categories.

1. Register on the Arc Platform: Create an account at arcskoru.com, the data management platform that powers LEED Cities. Register your city or community project and set up your project boundary.

1. Establish a Data Collection Plan: Identify data sources for each of the five performance categories. This typically involves coordinating with utility providers, public works departments, transportation agencies, and community survey administrators.

1. Collect and Enter Baseline Data: Input at least 12 months of performance data into Arc. The platform will calculate a score for each category and an overall performance score in real time.

1. Identify Gaps and Improve Performance: Use Arc's benchmarking tools to identify areas where performance is below the threshold needed for your target certification tier (Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum) and implement improvement initiatives.

1. Submit for Certification Review: Once your performance score meets the minimum threshold, submit your application and pay the applicable fees through the Arc platform. USGBC reviewers will evaluate your documentation and data.

1. Respond to Reviewer Queries: Address any clarification requests from USGBC's review team regarding data sources, methodology, or documentation gaps.

1. Receive Certification and Publicize: Upon approval, receive your LEED Cities certification plaque, digital badge, and public listing on USGBC's project directory. Use the LEED mark in communications to signal your city's sustainability leadership.

LEED Cities evaluates performance across five core categories, each contributing to an overall score out of 100 points. Cities must achieve a minimum total score to earn certification, with higher scores unlocking Silver (50–59 points), Gold (60–79 points), and Platinum (80+ points) tiers.

Energy measures total energy consumption and the proportion of energy derived from renewable sources. Cities submit utility data and track energy use intensity (EUI) across the community boundary. Reductions in consumption and increases in clean energy sourcing improve the score.

Water evaluates total water consumption and efficiency across the city or community. Data is drawn from municipal water utility records and tracks per-capita or normalized water use over time. Reductions in potable water demand are rewarded.

Waste assesses total waste generation and diversion rates. Cities must document the volume of waste sent to landfill versus recycled, composted, or otherwise diverted. Higher diversion rates and lower overall waste generation yield better scores.

Transportation examines the carbon intensity of transportation within the community boundary. This includes modal split data (walking, cycling, transit, private vehicle), vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and the carbon emissions associated with the transportation mix. Surveys and transportation agency data are used to populate this category.

Human Experience is a qualitative category that captures resident well-being, quality of life, and community satisfaction. It is assessed through standardized surveys administered to community members, covering topics such as safety, access to services, social cohesion, and overall life satisfaction. This category distinguishes LEED Cities from purely environmental frameworks by integrating social equity and livability metrics.

LEED Cities occupies a distinctive niche in the urban sustainability certification landscape. Launched in 2016 and built on the Arc performance platform developed in partnership with Arcadis, it was one of the first globally scalable, data-driven certification systems for entire cities and communities — as opposed to individual buildings. As of the mid-2020s, adoption remains relatively modest compared to LEED's building-level programs, with a few hundred certified or registered cities and communities worldwide. Notable certified cities include Washington D.C., Atlanta, and communities in India, China, and the Middle East, reflecting genuine global reach but uneven penetration.

The program competes with ISO 37120 (Sustainable Cities and Communities indicators), the STAR Community Rating System (now largely inactive in the U.S.), and various national-level frameworks. LEED Cities benefits enormously from the LEED brand's global recognition and USGBC's established relationships with governments and developers. However, the Arc platform's data requirements and associated costs can be a barrier for smaller or resource-constrained municipalities, particularly in the Global South.

Demand for city-level sustainability credentials is growing, driven by increasing pressure on local governments to demonstrate climate action, align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and attract ESG-focused investment. The integration of LEED Cities with LEED v5's updated framework — which places greater emphasis on decarbonization, equity, and resilience — is expected to increase relevance. However, the program faces competition from free or lower-cost frameworks and from national government-led initiatives that may reduce the perceived need for a third-party certification.

LEED for Cities and Communities was formally launched by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 2016, building on decades of experience with LEED's building-level rating systems, which date back to 1998. The program was developed in response to growing demand from local governments and urban planners who wanted to apply LEED's rigorous, data-driven approach to entire cities and communities — not just individual structures. A key enabler was the Arc platform, developed in partnership with Arcadis and launched around the same time, which provided the data infrastructure needed to track and score city-wide performance continuously.

The program drew on earlier LEED Neighborhood Development (LEED ND) concepts but shifted focus from design-phase planning to ongoing operational performance measurement. Over subsequent years, USGBC expanded the program's reach internationally, with cities in India, China, the UAE, and Latin America pursuing certification. The framework has been periodically updated to align with evolving sustainability priorities, including greater emphasis on equity, climate resilience, and decarbonization under the LEED v5 evolution announced in the early 2020s. LEED Cities is now positioned as part of USGBC's broader vision for transforming not just buildings but entire communities and urban systems.