The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) made significant changes to LEED certification with the roll-out of LEED v5 last fall. LEED is the preeminent green building certification in North America, influencing green building standards around the globe.
FSC-certified wood stands to gain prominence in LEED’s new Building Product Selection and Procurement: Materials and Resources credit 4 (BPSP MRc4). The intent of this credit is to encourage the use of products and materials that have sustainability documentation available that have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable impacts in alignment with industry momentum. FSC certification is one of the eligible product documentations and scores the highest in LEED’s new multi-attribute scoring methodology.
FSC-certified Wood in Green Construction Now Available
To educate architects and construction professionals about these opportunities we made an overhaul to our previous course, “FSC-certified Wood in Green Construction” to reflect the changes. Our previous course was approved for the AIA for Health, Safety, and Welfare continuing education credit, which is the more desirable CE credit available. We saw over 1,600 course completions in 2025, both through on-demand learning and virtual live presentations.
The new course opens with insight into FSC as an organization, the impacts we drive, and how our certifications work. It covers LEED v4, v4.1, v5, Living Building Challenge, and FSC Project certification. It also goes into detail on material documentation for the different green building certification programs and advice on successful sourcing. It is again AIA approved to deliver HSW learning units, and FSC US recently became an Educational Partner with USGBC. This new partnership allows the course to deliver GBCI Learning Hours, LEED Specific, which are preferred by LEED Accredited Professionals in the architecture, design, and construction field. By completing the course, learners will earn both AIA continuing education credit and GBCI learning units at the same time.
This new course offering will drive increased interest and understanding of FSC-certified building products, and in turn help drive sales for our CoC certificate holders.
Take the Course Today
The course is currently available on demand through the USGBC Course Catalog and GreenCE.
We’ll be hosting two live, virtual webinars, one each in Q3 and Q4, so keep an eye out for dates and registration info if you’d like to join to earn continuing education credits.
For a stand-alone deep dive into the changes and opportunities in LEED v5, please download our PDF.