Skanska Quits US Chamber Over Stance on LEED

NEW YORK CITY-Skanska USA has resigned from the US Chamber of Commerce as a protest against the chamber’s support of an initiative to discredit a more stringent LEED standard. The chamber is backing the American High-Performance Building Coalition, a lobbying group that Skanska says is seeking to effectively ban the future use of LEED for government buildings.

Specifically, Skanska says in a release, the AHPBC opposes the more stringent new LEEDv4 standards and is advocating an amendment to S.761, the Shaheen-Portman Energy Efficiency Bill, that would disallow voluntary LEED certification by the federal government. The New York City-based builder says in the release that company officials met with US Chamber leadership last week in an attempt to persuade the chamber to reconsider its position. After talks broke down, Skanska pulled its name and funding from the chamber, the release states.