This comment applies to issues across several of the MR Materials Credits (recycled content, materials reuse, regional materials and biobased materials)
COMBINE THE CREDITS: This set of credits are just calling out to be consolidated into one combined credit where materials meeting any of these attributes may be added cumulatively toward the potential points. Too often these credits are bypassed entirely because getting the last couple of percentage points to reach a threshold is too hard. Or efforts stop short once the threshold is reached since there is no incentive to continue beyond the threshold except to use up a valuable innovation credits and even then only if the team can come up with enough materials to reach a new threshold. Pooling these credits together would encourage teams to maximize the amount of materials in each attribute category instead of just shooting for thresholds.
The new LEED for Healthcare 2009 has already demonstrated how this could work with a credit structure that has gone through substantive public comment (see MR Credit 3: Sustainably Sourced Materials and Products at http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=8257http://www.usgbc.org/S... page 57). In brief the concept is to add together the value of materials meeting any of the requirements (reused, recycled, regional, and certified wood (see comments below about biobased/rapidly renewable)), determine the combined percentage of the whole and give a point for each 10% of the total material bill. For full alignment with LEED this would be a 7 point credit, post industrial recycled content would get half credit and reuse would get double credit.
Most of these attributes are exclusive (only one attribute should apply – no double dipping). Regional materials may be the exception.
DON’T DROP STRUCTURAL: I understand the dilemmas that certain structural materials – particularly steel and to a lesser extent concrete - raise with their high volume and growing levels of standard practice recycled content. Use of structural materials can quickly consume the credits with standard practice materials and hence give credits too easily and eliminate pressure to address other product categories. There are other ways, however, to address these challenges without dropping all incentive for improving structural material performance. Again LEED for Healthcare addressed this (see above reference) by setting limits on the concrete and steel structural elements applicable to the credit and mandating a minimum percentage of other products: “If concrete or steel structural elements are applied toward this credit, the project must include at least two other materials or products from CSI MasterFormat Divisions (other than 03 and 05) to attain the first point. Of the total recycled content, no more than 75% may be steel or concrete.”
BIOBASED – CERTIFIED LEGAL HARVEST WOOD PREREQUISITE: Providing a credit for using 10% non structural wood in a project, is too easy for a leadership standard. I suggest dropping this credit and instead adding a prerequisite that all wood used in the project have a certification that it is legally harvested. For all the controversy about the benchmarking proposals in the forestry debate, this is one that I expect all sides should be able to agree upon.
BIOBASED – REQUIRE CERTIFICATION FOR RAPIDLY RENEWABLES: Rapidly renewable products can have serious health and sustainability problems depending upon how they are harvested. Good certification program exist that should be required for agricultural/rapidly renewable products just as they are for forest products.
Brett Beckemeyer
AIA, LEED-AP, BD&CFox Architects
8 thumbs up
January 12, 2011 - 11:31 am
Just wanted to chime in here and second what Tom said here, especially combining the credits and keeping the structural in the MR credits. Maybe combining the credits is something that has to be pushed to the next set of revisions, but please find a fair way to keep some of the structural material in the MR credits.
Linda Smithe
36 thumbs up
January 14, 2011 - 10:51 am
I agree with above as well.
I would like to add I do not suggest a prerequisite for recycled material.
From the on line webinar it was discussed that the Recycled Content points are always being achieved, the market has transformed itself which is good. So just raise the percentage to continue the market transformation.
The MRc 4, 5, 6, 7, points are very time consuming (expensive) for contractors to document and some teams think they are not worth the effort. By making it a prerequisite you force them to do the documentation for what was in the past very few points and again if it is understood almost every project gets this because of market transformation, why are you making the contractors document it?
Also changing the way you document certain materials structural vs non structural just adds to complexity and confusion. Keep it consistent. Where would you put structural door frames? Is the block wall a structural shear wall or load bearing wall or just a fire proof partition? I believe, drywallon the underside of trusses adds shear stability.
Linda Smithe
36 thumbs up
January 14, 2011 - 10:51 am
I agree with above as well.
I would like to add I do not suggest a prerequisite for recycled material.
From the on line webinar it was discussed that the Recycled Content points are always being achieved, the market has transformed itself which is good. So just raise the percentage to continue the market transformation.
The MRc 4, 5, 6, 7, points are very time consuming (expensive) for contractors to document and some teams think they are not worth the effort. By making it a prerequisite you force them to do the documentation for what was in the past very few points and again if it is understood almost every project gets this because of market transformation, why are you making the contractors document it?
Also changing the way you document certain materials structural vs non structural just adds to complexity and confusion. Keep it consistent. Where would you put structural door frames? Is the block wall a structural shear wall or load bearing wall or just a fire proof partition? I believe, drywallon the underside of trusses adds shear stability.
Laura S. D'Ardenne
Sustainability ConsultantPCL Construction
2 thumbs up
January 19, 2011 - 8:01 pm
I also agree with what Tom Lent has posted above.
Combining Credits – If the materials credits are combined then teams would pursue materials with the best attributes instead of what they need to get to a certain percentage and not investigate alternate materials further.
Keep Structural Elements – Materials credits should keep some portion of structural material that can count toward the overall percentage. You could consider limiting the amount of structural materials that can count toward the overall percentage rather than eliminating them altogether. For some projects in very remote or island type settings, structural materials may be the only way to achieve regional materials for example. I also agree with Linda Smithe’s comment that it may become very difficult to delineate what materials are structural vs. non-structural and increase the complexity of documentation.
Prerequisite – The idea of a prerequisite is good but if it remains just for recycled materials this may actually be difficult for some projects to achieve depending on their geographic location, what materials are readily available, and what the structure and interior consist of.