I'm not trying to split a new hair here, but what constitutes "purchased" for the purposes of credits such as MRc2? Our projects are all government buildings with government tenants and when we "purchase" something, we order it and don't typically provide payment until after the item is received on-site.
So at what point do the MRc2-compliant durable goods fall under the term of being "purchased?" When they're ordered? When they are received and installed on-site (my inclination)? Or when the vendor/contractor received payment (most typically after the installation or reception of the product)? We want to avoid a situation in which we are provided tenant info on an item that is subsequently cancelled or refused on delivery or returned.
Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
June 21, 2012 - 11:10 am
It's a good question, David. In my opinion, you can select any of the options you've listed above as long as you as 100% consistent throughout your documentation. I've worked on projects in the past where we used the date of the purchase order as our documented "date of purchase" with no problems.
The issue of items being returned is a bit trickier. The only suggestion I have is to choose the best methodology to record the "date of purchase" for your government tenants, track all purchases accordingly and then do a final audit of the documentation just before submitting the LEED application to remove any returned items. This way, you are documenting actual performance to the best of your abilities during the proscribed performance period.