## 1 Introduction
The authors reported low certification performance: 51-55 and 61-68.5 points for Silver and Gold, respectively. They concluded that the category achievements for the Silver level confirmed the results previously reported by [PERSON], et al. [15]. In particular, the SS, WE, EQ, and IN categories showed intermediate performance (56.0-68.3% of possible points), whereas EA and MR showed low performance (30% and 41% of possible points, respectively). [PERSON] and [PERSON] [17] studied 1598 projects certified Silver and Gold under LEED-NCv3 in eight states in the U.S. (California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Washington) in 2012-2017. The comparison analysis of Gold vs. Silver revealed that the EA category achievement showed the highest increase, the SS and EQ category achievements showed intermediate increases, and the WE, MR, and IN category achievements showed low increases, confirming the results presented by [PERSON], et al. [13] for projects certified under LEED-NCv2.2. Notably, all the aforementioned empirical studies of LEED-NCv2.2 and LEED-NCv3 analyzed the issue of certification/category/credit achievement points only, whereas [PERSON] [18] analyzed the question of the consistency of achievement points in categories with the same level of certification (Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum). Consequently, [PERSON] [18], having analyzed 433 LEED-NCv2 projects from the USGBC database in 2013, concluded that the categories SS, WE, MR, IEQ and IN have inconsistent achievement points at each certification level. The current version, LEED-NCv4 [5], includes 110 points in total, the same as LEED-NCv3. However, a new category, Integrative Process (IP), with one possible point, was added to the previous categories. The SS category (26 possible points in LEED-NCv3) was split in LEED-NCv4 into Location and Transportation (LT, 16 possible points) and Sustainable Site (SS, 10 possible points). The WE category was expanded in LEED-NCv4, including new requirements related to the conservation of water used for cooling towers and installation of a water consumption metering system. In LEED-NCv4, the EA category mostly remained similar to LEED-NCv3, with only an increased weight for enhanced commissioning credit (six possible points versus the two in LEED-NCv3). The MR category was reshaped in LEED-NCv4 to introduce new life-cycle-assessment-based requirements regarding building and material optimization, reuse and sourcing, and production of raw materials, building materials, and components. In general, the EQ category in LEED-NCv4 considers issues that were of concern in LEED-NCv3, with only one new credit: acoustic performance. Thus, the empirical evidence of LEED-NCv4 may differ from the empirical evidence for LEED-NCv3 reported previously by [PERSON] et al. [15] and [PERSON] [16; 17]. However, to the best of my knowledge, empirical evidence for LEED-NCv4 has not yet been published. The purpose of this study was to determine the consistency of achievement points in categories and the effect size between possible points and achieved points in categories and credits in LEED-NCv4 Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum projects in the U.S. during 2015-2019. This is the first empirical evidence for LEED-NCv4-certified projects. This knowledge may help LEED experts to reduce inconsistencies and correct the currently rarely-achieved credits in next version of LEED-NC toward a proper balance in the performance of LEED categories.