Hello All,
One of our project, the system furniture supplier is offering our client to buy back the existing furniture from the old office (which is at the different location from the new office which we are planning to undergo LEED assessment) and will help them to recycle on our client behalf. They will also issue the recycling certificate. I just want to know if this can contribute to LEED. Since the existing project location is different from the new office, I doubt to claim under MR credits. Is there any possibility to claim under ID? Any input/suggestion would be appreciated.
Many thanks!
Alan Lopez
8 thumbs up
May 31, 2010 - 10:02 pm
I own an office furniture dealership, and over 20 percent of our sales are in pre-owned furniture. I have never seen this done, but consider those systems may well be used in a different application for another LEED project. We recycle (based on our calculations) over 300 tons of office furniture per year! This must be work something to someone! It may be worth your while to attempt to contact the USGBC for trying to get this accepted as a credit.
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11477 thumbs up
June 1, 2010 - 11:43 am
LEED's requirements for an ID credit are that you need to demonstrate:
- an innovative approach
- comprehensive in scope
- quantifiable environmental benefit.Based on my experience in seeing a lot of what has and has not been accepted for IDc1 (and how the standard is pretty high), I would say that this idea is not a shoo-in. The problem that I see is that the practice falls under the scope of a couple of the regular MR credits, and only doesn't qualify since it's not part of the project's scope. That it's outside of the project scope doesn't strongly recommend it for qualifying under IDc1. It may also have trouble with the "comprehensive" criterion. How much of the other waste generated by the old office is being diverted from the landfill?Here's what I would recommend—implement LEED-EBOM MRc8 as an ID credit. If the tenant sets up a comprehensive waste management strategy for durable goods, building on its experience with diverting the furniture from the old office, this might fly.
Grace Ming
Senior ESD Consultant95 thumbs up
June 10, 2010 - 3:57 am
Hi Alan and Tristan: Many thanks for your replies. I'll look further into this.