Congress returned from recess with a full plate, including federal budget issues and the Iran nuclear deal. It’s safe to say that fenestration priorities will be on the back burner for now, but that doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made elsewhere.

Over the years, I’ve been pretty vocal about the lack of transparency and disturbing shifts toward building materials de-selection from the U.S. Green Building Council® (USGBC®). While LEED® has been a strong, positive force for our industry, its shortcomings have often eclipsed its merits. But today, there might be reason for optimism.

It appears that current CEO Rick Fedrizzi will be stepping down at the end of 2016. The proposed new CEO is Mahesh Ramanujam, who currently serves as the organization’s president. What I like about this shift is that Ramanujam has a strong business background with Emergys, where he was chief operating officer prior to joining USGBC, consulting with IBM on business transformation at Lenovo and Ricoh.

The View from Here is that the new leadership will hopefully take a more business-like approach to reforming and advancing LEED with a practical eye to material selection—a very good thing for the industry and the green building movement in general.

Read more about the USGBC’s shift in leadership here.

What’s your view? Email me directly at Eric.Jackson@Quanex.com.