This credit needs a good rest in the Pilot Library! Let's look at the "papal options":
Regardless of whether they are any good or not, a system that is a condition of membership in the trade association (Responsible Care) or the law of the land (OSHA) have no business being rewarded with points in LEED. Its; supposed to be about Leadership not standard practice or obeying the law.
As for NSF 355, despite the name this standard is not really a "greener chemicals and processes" document as it does not offer metrics or a method (e.g., GreenScreen) to evaluate any of the chemicals reported by the standard and determine their relative health or sustainability anywhere along the life cycle. It does provide standardized data about the chemicals addressed which could facilitate comparisons between chemicals, albeit only "gate to gate" excluding all extraction information. It is quite controversial in the environmental health community as it does not require reporting of endocrine disrupting chemicals. I do not know of a published disclosure under 355 yet.
Peggy White
White + GreenSpec88 thumbs up
March 20, 2013 - 1:55 am
What he said...... ;o)
Who exactly framed Option 3? According to the description in Tristan's commentary, Brendan seems to be saying it just fell out of the sky all by itself! Don't be shy Brendan - tell us who created it! Looks like a chemically infused toxic smoke screen to me! I thought this Credit was about transparency.
"Working group" is studying it - who is on the working group? List of names/organizations please!
Melissa Wrolstad
Senior Project ManagerCodeGreen Solutions
228 thumbs up
March 20, 2013 - 10:08 am
I also agree with Tom. Most of the Option 3 requirements are covered by OSHA. Is the idea of this option that organizations like OSHA should begin to third party certify products where the parties in the product supply chain have no OSHA violations? It's not clear to me how this is "green".
Max Zahniser
OwnerPraxis | Buildings Solutions, LLC
1 thumbs up
March 20, 2013 - 11:34 am
Something to consider: my understanding is that OSHA is NOT the law of the land in many of the places our building products come from. Many of our products are coming from places without standards, or at least without ENFORCED standards. American and other companies are going to these places to produce there products in part for that very reason (cost avoidance).
LEED has a long track record of not just rewarding leadership, but also incentivizing the spread of the best base standards (codes), to places that haven't yet adopted those standards. I see a lot of potential benefit in driving better practices into those places, and maybe LEED can extend its track record of doing a better job than protestors in picket lines have, at transforming business behaviors.
Hernando Miranda
OwnerSoltierra LLC
344 thumbs up
March 20, 2013 - 2:20 pm
I am a very long-time proponent of green. I managed green, and documented much of the work myself, for the first ever, not test case, LEED v2 building. I have also certified several LEED Platinum and Gold projects, again by documenting much of the work myself.
LEED used to have a good track record of rewarding green leadership. That is no longer the case.
I find the USGBC arguing with the developers of California's Title 24 energy code, that the developers of the code do not understand the code as well as the LEED reviewers. They also argue with ASHRAE developers that the LEED reviewers know more about ASHRAE standards than they do. I will say, the LEED reviewers do not actually develop the review rules. Those rules are developed by someone else. As Mr. Owens noted, an unspecified "working group" will figure it all out.
As one of the developer of LEED, and vice-chair of the EQ Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for several years, as well as a member of other LEED committees, I will only say that after the consensus committees developed LEED credits and basic requirements, the control of rewriting the work we did was given over to some unknown "working group." The working groups had final say. They were not part of the consensus development required by the LEED Foundations Documents. The membership did not get to vote on what the "working groups" came up with. That is still the case as noted by the comments from the USGBC made for this article.
Abena Darden
Senior AssociateThornton Tomasetti
273 thumbs up
March 20, 2013 - 2:29 pm
I'll second Peggy's sentiment: Much is made of transparency in materials development, but what about transparency in USGBC's decision-making? Who, what, where, when and why? We need to be fully-informed voters. Better practices are a matter of interpretation and we need to understand why, or even if, these new options are in fact "better" and what led to their inclusion in LEED v4.