Has anybody tried this with PEFC certified wood

A different type of certification will not influence this particular dialogue - specification divisions are organized around product categories.
dp

Hi Jean,

Are you looking to establish compliance with MRc7 through the use of PEFC certified wood? You may want to wait a few months on that and see where the current debate of the LEED credit standards ends up.

As you may know, certified wood is a particularly controversial topic in regards to the LEED rating system. For the past 6 or 7 years, there has been nearly non-stop debate on whether or not the FSC should be the exclusive compliant certification scheme. After a tremendous amount of debate and lobbying by all sides (and some very good research by the Yale School of Forestry http://www.yale.edu/forestcertification/USGBCFinal.htm) the USGBC has proposed a new benchmark for wood certification systems. This new benchmark is very similar to the FSC standard, but allows other certification programs, such as PEFC or SFI, to establish compliance with the LEED standards and thus qualify for MRc7. This benchmark has just gone through a fourth round of public comment, and my bet would be on a final draft being released late this fall or early next spring.

Long story short- if you submitted a project today using anything other than FSC certified wood, the credit would be denied. If you are committed to using PEFC wood to establish compliance with MRc7, you will need to wait for the release of the benchmarks, and then for the establishment of PEFC compliance with the benchmarks.

Hope that helps -anne

Hi Jean - As Anne Nicklin noted above, if your question is about applying a different certification than FSC to the credit, then I think you will find that difficult.

Also, From my perspective, there are in fact signficant differences between the proposed USGBC Benchmark and FSC in several key areas including governance, social equity, GMO's and the use of potentially hazardous substances in forestry.

If you are interested in an overview and some details, you can go to the Perkins+Will FSC Equal + Better web page commenting on the 3rd USGBC Forestry Benchmark DRAFT (as Anne noted, a 4th DRAFT has already been through the public comment phase, but the proposed changes were modest):

http://www.perkinswill.com/fsc.aspx

You can download the Perkins+Will proposed FSC Equal + Better Forestry Indicators (Benchmark) which is a line-by-line critique of the USGBC 3rd Forestry Benchmark DRAFT. It includes proposed improvements that go beyond the current FSC standard:

http://www.perkinswill.com/files/sdi/FSC-Equal-Better.pdf

Best Regards - Doug

Dear Anne,
I saw that you had posted the response on PEFC a year and half ago. Has anything changed in a direction of acceptance of other standards for sustainable forestry? Is it possible for projects to use mixture of FSC and PEFC wood to prove compliance?
Thank you in advance!

Hi Maria - PEFC certifications are not accepted by LEED V2009. FSC continues to be the Leadership Standard for sustainable forestry management worldwide and LEED recognizes that at the moment.

Doug