The new bundling of low emitting categories into one credit is resulting in disincentivizing our v4 projects from pursuing low emitting credits they always used to before.
It takes 5 categories to get 2 pts. But with furniture now including ancillary which is liable to come from smaller providers who tend not to have certification, there are only 3 categories really well positioned to achieve compliance - paints, composite wood and flooring - all of which have long had emissions standards in place.
All of sudden our projects really don't need to care about adhesives and sealants complying at all because they can't get to that 2nd point anyway. This doesn't seem quite right. Am I missing something?
Michelle Halle Stern
Senior Sustainability ConsultantGreenwood Consulting Group
121 thumbs up
January 25, 2017 - 1:49 pm
In order to respond I need to give you a little history on how the rating system was developed. You and others actually inspired me to write a blog post. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhallestern/recent-activity/posts/
I'll give you the highlights.
I don't see a date on this file, document “LEED v4, Impact Category and Point Allocation Development Process,”
but I downloaded to my computer in November 2013. http://bit.ly/2j4ZWBz
In order to both increase the rigor of LEED, and to more closely align it with triple bottom line impacts, USGBC defined 7 impact categories and weighted them according to the “critical question: ‘What should a LEED project accomplish?’” Once the 7 categories were weighted, USGBC devised a computer algorithm to statistically analyze the effectiveness of each credit against these criteria.
Points were massaged and remassaged and reviewed by multiple entities, including public comment, until we have what is there today. We're just going to have to test it out and keep the conversation going. I'm sure there will be adjustments and interpretations.