The Living Building Challenge (LBC) is a certification program, advocacy tool, and philosophy defining the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment today. As a certification program, it addresses all buildings at all scales and is an inclusive tool for transformative design. Whether the project is a single building, a renovation, an infrastructure project, or a park, the Living Building Challenge (LBC) provides a framework for design, construction, and improvement of the symbiotic relationships between people and all aspects of the built and natural environment.
This document is part of the LBC 4.0 Petal Handbook series, an essential resource for project teams pursuing the Living Building Challenge 4.0. There is one Petal Handbook for each of the seven Petals, and they provide critical compliance details including reference standards, thresholds, methodologies, approved equivalencies, clarifications, and pathways. The handbooks also contain the Imperative intent, requirements, and footnotes from the Standard, to provide a simplified and consistent set of rules for easy reference.
The Living Building Challenge Standard is continuously informed by the work that project teams are doing on the ground. The handbooks define the complete rule sets for each Imperative as of their date of issue, and will be updated quarterly to reflect additional clarifications, exceptions, and definitions. These include updates applicable to all teams that are generated by the Request for Ruling process (see Additional Tools and Support later in the Introduction section). Project teams are held to the information included in the Petal Handbook version that is current as of their date of project registration. Project teams may comply with information added to the Petal Handbooks after that at their discretion.
Additional information about the registration and certification process can be found here and on the ILFI website.
