Barriers in implementing material transparency in LEED v4 projects

Hi Susan,

It's a combination of things for us. Major manufacturers certainly increasingly can provide these things, but small players are disadvantaged. Architects, general contractors and subcontractors aren't up to speed yet on what these reports are. As an implementation issue, there are some strategic issues. The more you specify particular products the more you limit GCs and subs in their sourcing which has cost implications. So do you focus the requirements only on particular spec sections where compliance is more likely across numerous products to reach the necessary thresholds? Or do you put the requirements throughout? And how do you handle substitutions? Do you reject a product that doesn't have an EPD/HPD outright? Even though you can theoretically pick them up on other products?

We've had projects that put the onus entirely on the GC to manage this with the "commodity" products that they typically source. And we've had projects where the architect has carefully specified certain products and created a spreadsheet to track them during the submittal process. We've seen success with both approaches but there is more labor and education involved.

Agreed with the above. And, one other barrier is not knowing exactly what to do with the information. I might know a couple toxic chemicals to look out for or what numbers on an EPD are most important, but actually having the knowledge to interpret/compare those documents is a whole other level. And unless an owner is specifically pushing for eliminating certain chemicals or lowering the embodied carbon of the project, no one has the time or authority to review the documents and use them in material selection.

So the collection of these documents is driven by LEED points rather than by their content. (That's not a knock on the LEED credit - driving more transparency is an important effort in itself!) But from the perspective of most project team members, it's solely a documentation collection effort and that's difficult to feel strongly about.