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What is the Arc score and how does it work?

  • Updated

What type of scores does Arc provide?

Arc allows you to score your place in a couple of different ways.

  1. You can enter data in any of the five categories – Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation and Human Experience - to generate a score in that category. You can utilize your category score for comparison to the category score from last month or last year, and to local and global averages. As long as you provide data for a 12-month period, you can generate an Arc Performance Certificate for that category.
  2. When you enter data covering at least 24 months, Arc will provide an Improvement Score as well. This allows you to compare the performance of your project against itself for other time periods. You’ll have an indication of how you’re doing against your own internal goals.
  3. When you enter data across all five categories, an overall Performance Score between 0 – 100 is generated. The Performance Score is based on the criteria established under the LEED rating system by the USGBC. This utilizes consistent criteria for all places worldwide and offers a true global benchmark.
  4. Based on your Performance Score, you’ll have an indication whether your place achieves the minimum requirements for LEED certification. After reviewing other pertinent LEED requirements, you can choose to submit for LEED certification at this stage if you choose.

How does the Arc Performance Score work?

To receive a Performance Score, you must enter data for all five categories – Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation and Human Experience. The score generated in each category looks at the most recent 365 days of data and then translated into a common denominator. For example, water used per unit of area is compared in order to generate a score. There are required building or space settings that are necessary in calculating the score. Those are area (in square feet or square meters), the number of occupants (staff and visitors), the business operating hours and the zip code.

How does the Arc Improvement Score work?

When you enter data covering at least 24 months, Arc will provide an Improvement Score. This allows you to compare the performance of your project against itself for other time periods. You’ll have an indication of how you’re doing against your own internal goals.

What are base points?

Once a building or space has completed certification under any LEED rating system, that place is awarded a score of 10 to get started. This score is automatically awarded and supplements the category scores as well as gets applied toward LEED recertification.

Why did my score change?

Once you enter your project data and the building settings, the following aspects can impact your score:

  1. If your data is older than 365 days, your score in that category will become zero. For example, if you conducted the Transportation survey more than 365 days prior, the Transportation score will be zero points until a new survey is administered and is made available in Arc. You can find more information on missing data in your project Overview page in the Notifications panel or by selecting the Bell icon in the top right corner of the platform when you’re logged in.
  2. You may see your score change when you enter new data for your project into the platform. For example, when new water use data is entered and that data reflects higher consumption, you may see a decrease in your score. You can track changes to each category by navigating to “Data”, select “Details”, scroll to the bottom of the page, and select “Activity.”
  3. Periodically, system-wide or rating system updates may occur that can impact your score. Arc, USGBC, GBCI offer multiple notifications and tools to visualize the impact to your building or space ahead of each change.
  4. There may be a reason you have to adjust your Building Settings. These include Occupants, Gross Floor Area, Operating Hours, Emissions Factor and Operational Days. Changes to any of these may cause a recalculation to occur which impacts your score.

Updated 10/5/2022

 

I entered data, why am I not seeing a score?

The most common reason that a score doesn’t compute for your project is due to missing critical information such as 1) area, 2) operating hours or 3) number of occupants. These are required inputs for calculating a score.

Another reason could be the data entered is older than 365 days. The score is based on data entered in the most recent 365-day window. You can review the notifications for your project profile by selecting the Bell icon in the upper right-hand corner to ensure no other information is missing.

Who can see my data?

Your data is only visible to the project team associated with that specific project profile and select GBCI staff. Because someone is a team member on one project, doesn’t mean they will have access to another project you work on unless they are a team member for that project as well. You can review and edit who has access by selecting the project, then “Manage”, and then “Team”.

Who can see my score?

Your project’s score is available in a few different places. It can be seen in the project profile located on arcskoru.com, on the leader board on arcskoru.com under “Today's Top Performers” if it qualifies, on USGBC’s project directory and the App.

Anyone with access to the project profile can also view the score. You can manage who has that access by selecting the project, then “Manage”, and then “Team”.

You have the ability to make your score confidential by selecting the project, then “Manage”, and then “Private”. Two-thirds of the way down the screen are buttons labeled Yes and No under the heading, “Private”. If you choose Yes, the score will be confidential, and only people who have access to that project profile are able to see the score. This will make all engagement with Arc and LEED confidential and your project information will not be published anywhere on the Arc or USGBC platform, including the USGBC’s directory.

Where can I learn more about the technical details of the scoring?

In an effort to share more information about Arc and scoring, we’ve written a number of articles and created an educational video-based course. These provide a good baseline for how and why we score:

Can I talk to someone to understand the score?

Yes, please send us an email at contact@arcskoru.com with the LEED ID or Arc ID of your project and any questions you may have. The LEED ID and Arc ID are unique numbers to each project profile and will help us review the profile and best respond to your questions

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