"New Wood" - perhaps silly to ask

There is a distinction, albeit a bit fuzzy perhaps, between wood products and other things made from wood fiber. I think that paper pretty clearly falls in the "things made from wood fiber" category, and is not a wood product for LEED's purposes.

Landscaping mulch? If it's wood chips, then I would say that it does count as wood (although as you note, if it's recycled that's another matter).

Nadav,

would mulching - (wood chips) fall under the "permanently installed" category?

Hi Dimitris,

Your question prompted me to take a deeper dive into this question of wood chips as mulch. I can't find any reason why they shouldn't be included, and yes, I would consider them "permanently installed." However, I also can't find any evidence that teams have been including them, and I haven't heard of anyone be challenged on that in a review.

I don't know how widely available FSC-certified mulch is. It would seem that, if you could get it, it would have to come from quite a distance for many projects, and it's hard to see how suppliers would justify the cost of CoC certification from something as inexpensive as mulch. So including it, if it isn't recycled, will likely hurt your chances of earning the credit.

This may just be one of those "under the radar" areas where the answer that is technically correct and the way everyone does it are different. Maybe raising it here will lead to a more formal policy being established down the road.

Can you count the use of wood mulch in the MRc4 - recycled content credit? My initial reaction was to think no, since the source material could possibly be classified as a raw material (wood). But then the LEED reference guide definition for Postconsumer recycled content on pg 377 reads...

"Postconsumer recycled content is the percentage of material in a product that was consumer waste. The recycled material was generated by household, commercial, industrial, or institutional end-users and can no longer be used for its intended purpose. It includes returns of materials from the distribution chain (ISO 140221). Examples include construction and demolition debris, materials collected through recycling programs, discarded products (e.g. furniture, cabinetry, decking), and landscaping waste (e.g., leaves, grass clippings, tree trimmings)."

So I guess if you can document that the mulch as being made of postconsumer recycled content from tree trimmings, you can count it? Anyone have direct project experience with this issue?

I think part of this question depends on whether one interprets woods chips as something "permanently installed" in the project or a "consumable." If the project were pursuing LEED EB, one might argue the mulch would be considered a consumable used as part of regular landscape maintenance, so it might not fit the spirit of "permanently installed" materials. My two cents!