I have a client that has several departments under a building that is being LEED EB-OM certified. One of the departments has a "significant" budget attributed to generating handouts, flyers, etc. that are used by employees of that department. However, the handouts are not made within the confines of the building, nor are they made with consumables (paper) that are purchased and located within the building. These documents are outsourced to a local printing press company.
Does the paper that the printing press uses need to be tracked and verified to adhere to the policy being established for the building? Does this need to be done every time they "sub out" a print job like this?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11475 thumbs up
February 23, 2011 - 8:44 pm
Ted, I would say that this printing is outside the scope of this credit. It seems to fall more under the business activity of the department, and is not related to the building. If the paper is used within the building, then it would be coverede on the waste side, but I don't see a need to cover it on the purchasing side.
Ted Mendoza
26 thumbs up
February 24, 2011 - 11:50 am
I'm contemplating your response. If there is a separation in business activity, wouldn't all office supplies used by the department then be classified under "business activity"? I'm trying to understand the delineation between this type of consumable and others. In other words, what would then be attributed just to "the building"?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11475 thumbs up
February 24, 2011 - 11:56 am
Ted, I think I would need more specific examples to be able to offer more thoughts. Also, my thoughts on the flyers are a bit of an educated guess—I'm unclear how the flyers are consumed by the department.As you can gather from reading earlier discussions on this topic, there is some grey area here.
Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
February 24, 2011 - 1:39 pm
Interesting question Ted - I would agree with Tristan. What you are purchasing, in this instance, is a finished printed product, rather than simply the 'ongoing consumable' portion of that product, the paper. One might argue its similar to buying a newspaper or magazine in that sense. But it is certainly a gray area, I agree. One other thought - if you are purchasing a large volume of printed materials, and you could switch to sustainable paper, I wonder if an Innovation Credit might be entertained? Longshot but interesting. . .
Dan
Kimberly Frith
323 thumbs up
February 24, 2011 - 4:52 pm
Very good question - we are working on an EBOM project for our own building, an AEC firm with lots of printing of project plans, marketing proposals, etc. We use a third-party printing service to manage our equipment and coordinate our large print jobs (full-size drawing sets) and I always took the stance that since we are paying them to do our printing for us (and they are in fact located inside our building), we have the ability to recommend they use sustainable paper - just like we pay our housekeeping staff to use green cleaning products.
Ted Mendoza
26 thumbs up
February 25, 2011 - 7:46 am
Thanks everyone for your input. It has been very helpful in gaining perspective on this one. I plan to work out a stance with my client that will sit well with them. My guess is they will claim the paper volume under purchasing, and we'll get documentation from the printing press on type of paper used during performance period. Obviously, we'll eventually know whether or not it is an acceptable claim with USGBC, right? :-) Thanks again all.