LEED Green Associate Exam Preparation

Module 1: The Exam and the Credential

Duration: 45 minutes

• The credential path: Green Associate, LEED AP, LEED Fellow
• Exam format: 100 multiple-choice questions in two hours
• Recall, application and analysis questions
• Knowledge domains and how many questions each carries
• The four exam references
• Registering, scheduling, and remote or test-centre delivery

Learning focus:
Know what the exam asks and how to prepare for exam day.

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Module 2: Green Building and the LEED Process

Duration: 60 minutes

• The costs of conventional building practice
• Rating systems as a shared framework
• How LEED is developed and governed
• The rating system family and rating system selection
• Prerequisites, credits, credit categories and impact areas
• Credit weighting and certification levels, including the LEED v5 Platinum requirements
• Minimum programme requirements and the four steps to certification

Learning focus:
Explain how LEED is structured and how a project moves from registration to certificate.

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Module 3: Integrative Strategies

Duration: 45 minutes

• The conventional process and the integrative process
• Systems thinking, life-cycle thinking and iterative decisions
• Integrative teams and early goal setting
• The three LEED v5 assessments
• Social equity, climate resilience and carbon in the project brief

Learning focus:
Understand why early, cross-disciplinary decisions shape every credit that follows.

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Module 4: Location, Transportation and Sustainable Sites

Duration: 60 minutes

• Location efficiency and compact development
• Previously developed sites, brownfields and sensitive land
• Transit, cycling, walking and vehicle strategies
• Site assessment and climate hazards
• Heat island, rainwater management and light pollution
• Habitat, bird safety and outdoor space

Learning focus:
Relate decisions about where and how a project sits on its land to the credits that reward them.

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Module 5: Water Efficiency

Duration: 30 minutes

• Why water is an energy question too
• The water end-use profile and the efficiency-first approach
• Outdoor water and native or adapted planting
• Indoor fixture flush and flow rates
• Process water

Learning focus:
Identify where buildings use water and how demand is reduced before supply is considered.

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Module 6: Energy and Atmosphere

Duration: 60 minutes

• Decarbonisation as the organising idea of LEED v5
• Envelope, loads and right-sized systems
• Electrification and renewable energy on and off site
• Refrigerants and their climate impact
• Metering and commissioning
• Backup power and resilience

Learning focus:
Connect energy strategies to the decarbonisation goals behind the LEED v5 credits.

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Module 7: Materials, Resources and Indoor Environmental Quality

Duration: 60 minutes

• Material life cycle and embodied carbon
• Building reuse, material efficiency and circularity
• Hazardous ingredients and VOCs
• Designing for waste during operation
• Thermal comfort, daylight and lighting, biophilic design
• Source control, ventilation, filtration and air-quality testing

Learning focus:
Understand how material choices and indoor conditions affect climate, health and occupant experience.

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Module 8: Innovation, Regional Priority and Exam Strategy

Duration: 45 minutes

• Regional priorities, exemplary performance and pilot credits
• Practice questions worked through together
• Reading the question and eliminating answers
• Managing time and flagged questions
• A study plan built around the official references and study aids

Learning focus:
Leave with an approach to the exam and a plan for the weeks before it.

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Breaks and Lunch

75 minutes in total
A morning break, lunch and an afternoon break. Discussion and practice questions are built into every module.