Expert Advice by: Sarah Gudeman, LEED AP, EIT,
Morrissey Engineering, Inc.
Location: Omaha, NE

Website: http://www.morrisseyengineering.com/
Phone: (402) 491-4144

Chuck asks: My partner and I have purchased new manufacturing equipment that will use 100% post-industrial plastic scrap to produce construction grade sheet goods (think along the line of plywood sheets).

We used to export this scrap to China for production, then import the finished product for a home improvement chain in the mid-west region of the US. The logistics of shipping containers of this material were a nightmare, so now we want to manufacture this product in North Carolina. We have had companies ask if our product was "LEED certified" so they could use it in their projects, but from what I have read on-line, products are not certified. Is this so? And if individual products are not LEED certified, how do my potential customers receive credit for using our product?

Answer: Chuck, you’re correct in that the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system does not certify products. Only buildings may be LEED certified. Currently there are six active rating systems, one in pilot (neighborhood development) and two in development cycle (retail and health care). Active rating systems include New Construction, Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, Commercial Interiors, Core & Shell, Schools and Homes.

By far, the most common rating system is LEED for New Construction (and Major Renovations). This rating system is designed to certify new construction and major renovation projects that distinguish themselves by designing to a high standard of environmental and energy-efficiency. The current version of the rating system, LEED v3, launched on April 27, 2009 and awards points from six main categories: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality and Innovation in Design. I believe the category you’ll be most interested in is Materials and Resources.

While your product is obviously much more environmentally friendly now that it will be manufactured ‘locally’, there are specific Materials & Resources credits that it will apply to, depending on the LEED project’s location.

MR Credit 4: Recycled Content – Use materials with recycled content such that the sum of postconsumer recycled content plus ½ of the preconsumer content constitutes at least 10% or 20%, based on cost, of the total value of the materials in the product.

The recycled content value of a materials assembly is determined by weight. The recycled fraction of the assembly is then multiplied by the cost of assembly to determine the recycled content value. You will need to provide a letter to document the products’ recycled content to your suppliers for LEED documentation purposes for this credit.

MR Credit 5: Regional Materials – Use building materials or products that have been extracted, harvested or recovered, as well as manufactured, within 500 miles of the project site for a minimum of 10-20% based on cost, of the total building materials value.

To help document this credit for your project, you’ll need to track the product, manufacturer, distance between project and manufacturer (in miles, typically), distance between project extraction/harvest (miles), product cost ($), value qualifying as regional, and the information source. Typically including documentation of this source would be beneficial as well.

Please note that for your materials to officially comply with the reference guide definition of post-consumer, the material must be waste generated by households, commercial, industrial or institutional facilities in their role as end-users of the product, which can no longer be used for its intended purpose. While preconsumer material is defined as material diverted from the waste stream during the manufacturing process. Reutilization of materials (i.e., rework, regrind or scrap generated in a process and capable of being reclaimed within the same process that generated it) is excluded.

If you’d like to briefly review these credits, you can view the abbreviated reference guide online at http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=5546. But for more detailed credit information and compliance methodologies, you can purchase the full reference guide through the USGBC website.

Advice provided by: Sarah Gudeman, LEED AP, EIT, Morrissey Engineering, Inc.
Location: Omaha, NE

Website: http://www.morrisseyengineering.com/
Phone: (402) 491-4144