Pilot credit 80 requirements are not clear

Helen;

I'm new to this credit as well, but looking at the USGBC pilot library, the following information clarifies that division 9 products are also included:

"Determine the total value of all interior finishes and furnishings by adding the value of the hard costs of CSI MasterFormat 2004 Divisions 9 and 12. This includes cost associated with delivery of the product to the site, but excludes installation and labor costs."

http://www.usgbc.org/node/2736716?return=/pilotcredits

True. They list that other materials should be evaluated as to whether they meet "Other USGBC approved multi-attribute certification programs"--but since USGBC does not have any listing of multi-attribute certification programs that they have approved, they are rather leaving us in the dark.

It does state that "If compliant products are limited to only one CSI division, project teams are permitted to account for costs in that single division.", though--which is a bit odd, but would certainly simplify the complicated calculations required from a GC to balance and evaluate Division 9 materials, especially since we're not sure what would comply with the certification requirements for those materials.

BIFMA is a furniture manufacturer's organization that has a third party certification program (and I'm sure that was stating the obvious). You can find more information about that here: http://levelcertified.org/. The credit say finishes and furniture which is where the BIFMA standard comes into play.

As for the 'other USGBC approved multi-attribute certification programs', you could try other established programs like Cradle to Cradle which also has a certification program with different levels. Try looking at LEED for Schools, LEED for Healthcare and maybe even LEED v4 for these other programs. I would verify with GBCI that anything listed in v4 is okay to use for this PC but it gives you a place to start. It seems to me that this credit was written quickly but this is just my opinion.

Furniture items are often written completely separately from the project's specifications and not usually listed in a CSI division by the designer writing furniture specs. CSI does list office furniture, seating and other similar items under 12 40 00. Your interior design may need to review CSI and modify their normal approach to those specs. They can still be issued later than the other project specs.

Helen,

To answer your question about the 25%, 50%, 100%... I didn't understand that either when I first read it. It look me some time to understand, but now I got it. Those percentages refer to the contributing value of each product to your 50% total cost. So, for example, say you specified a set of board room chairs that cost $10,000. If they are level 1 certified, you get to count $2,500 toward your 50% threshold. If they're level 2 - $5,000, and level 3 - all $10,000 of it counts. You use these "weighted values" to see how much of your total cost is "environmentally preferable" and if that amount is at least 50% of the total cost for division 12 (assuming you're only counting furniture), you qualify. The part about having at least 5 compliant products has nothing to do with the percentages; they're just saying that you can't hit for 50% mark using less than 5 product values.

Finally, this could help everybody because it definitely helped me - BIFMA's own FAQ page about this credit: http://www.nationalofficefurniture.com/nof_data/pdf/sustainability/leed_...