Dear all, 

I have attended the webinar and please see comment below: 

Comment: Structural wood should be included in the "Assess Embodied Carbon" prerequisite, the same as other structural framing materials.

LEED should publish and require regional benchmarks for concrete. Concrete is a regional material that relies on regional material availability. One source of regional benchmarks are published by the Carbon Leadership Forum in 2023 Carbon Leadership Forum, North American Material Baselines v2, August 2023.

Optimized Building Products

In LEED v4, there was a focus on both structural and nonstructural building products when considering product optimization. However, in LEED v5, there seems to have been a shift to only consider nonstructural building products in the optimization process.
Why have structural building products been excluded from the optimization process?
We suggest all building products be included. Structural materials outweigh non-structural materials by far in a building mass balance, and the stewardship of building products is an important aspect beyond carbon emissions. I suggest all building products be included.