In June of 2005, Whatcom County Council unanimously approved a resolution calling for all future County building projects to be built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) “Silver” standard.  This meant that for all projects begun after that date, the concepts of sustainable design, energy and water conservation, indoor environmental quality, and waste reduction would be incorporated from the earliest planning stages of the building.

In November of 2006, Whatcom County began further exploration of the specific details of the LEED certification process.  Through that research, it became apparent that previous upgrades to the County Courthouse had placed the building well within the realm of certification under the “LEED for Existing Buildings” designation.  When the County hired Christina Reeves as its full-time Conservation Resource Analyst in January 2007, County Administration decided to pursue this certification for the Courthouse.  This provided an opportunity to get acquainted with the LEED certification process in advance of the requirement, and it was also a good test of the rigor with which the County had been previously maintaining its buildings.

The majority of the requirements for LEED-EB certification had already been met prior to LEED registration.  Therefore, most of the work was simply a documentation process.  The following initiatives are examples of the work that had already been done before January of 2007:

However, there were some operational changes made to the Courthouse in order to pursue LEED Certification.  These included:

The documentation process took about 10 months to complete, and was done without the help of a LEED consultant.  Though this took somewhat longer than with a consultant, it has provided Whatcom County with the opportunity to become extremely familiar with the LEED process. Christina Reeves recently passed the exam to become a LEED Accredited Professional, which has greatly facilitated the process. The completed documents were submitted to the US Green Building Council in November 2007, and the County received notice of successful certification in late March of 2008. The Courthouse was awarded 33 points on the LEED scale, which placed it in the "Certified" level.