I have been receiving LEED material forms along with submittal documents for each materials where they provide an exact distance between the manufacturing site and the project site, but when it comes to the distance between the extraction site to the project site it's either "<500 miles" or "> 500 miles". I prefer to have both distances exact just to be sure what the manufacturer is saying is true, so I will have to send some of the forms back to be revised. But then I check the submittal form for one of these materials with the vague "> 500 mile" extraction distance, and it says the reason they cannot provide exact extraction distance is because they regard location of its raw materials "as proprietary company information, the disclosure of which could have a negative impact on its competitiveness." What do I do then, should I still send that form back to be revised with actual distance or leave it as is and take their word on it?
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Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 11:19 am
i wouldn't bother with trying to get excact location or mileage info from mfgr if they say "> 500 mi" as they likely don't track sourcing in a way that they can even provide that info. I will say that if they say mileage is <500 mi you can ask for city/state location but depending on the material I've found they can't give you that info especially if it's wood. They usually give you a radius from the mfgr location for such.
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 11:26 am
Correct, I wouldn't ask for anything outside of 500 mile radius, I'll just consider those materials as non-compliant. But then what should be my plan B if there's a chance the manufacturer will not disclose extraction site info, such as city and state? To comply with this credit, I need to use the greatest distance per material, whether that be either extraction distance or manufacturing distance, I don't know if providing a radius on the map from the manufacturing location would suffice.
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 1:03 pm
if you're using v2009 then you can just get extraction location city/state or radius in miles from mfg location, city/state.
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 1:32 pm
Where does it say that in the LEED v2009 handbook? I've been going over the Regional Materials credit section and I can't find where it says we can consider the extraction distance the same as the manufacturing distance.
Keith Lindemulder
Environmental Business Development- LEED AP BD&CNucor Corporation
193 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 1:43 pm
Some products, like steel, uses recycled content collected from a large number of sources within a 500-mile radius from the jobsite. Those exact locations and even the quantity of those locations vary depending on the jobsite location. So there isn't a single "city, state" location that can be used and determining the one location farthest away isn't really reflective of where the recycled content was sourced.
Over 10 years ago we created a tool - a calculator - that summarizes the volume of scrap sourced within a 500-mile radius of any zip code. We routinely use "<500 miles" on the documentation and recommend using the steel mill zip code as the "recovery" location on the project information submitted to GBCI. This has worked very well for a long time.
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 1:48 pm
not saying they are the same. I'm saying you need raw material extraction location which is often given in a mile radius from mfg distance then you would add those 2 numbers for a total distance.
The radius could be subtracted from mfg location but unless you know otherwise you'd need to add the mileage together for total raw material extraction distance from jobsite. there's a lot on this on leeduser do a search for such
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 2:07 pm
Understood, Keith. In this case, the material in question is batt insulation, but they haven't given me a zip code or any other location information from where it could be extracted.
Sorry for the confusion Debra. They haven't provided distance between the extraction site and the manufacturing site because that's still considered "proprietary company information".
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 2:25 pm
without any raw material extraction data at all, the material cant qualify.
im curious, what's the product name?
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 2:46 pm
Agreed, like they give me a vague number and expect me to just go along with it, when that's not the case when accounting for both extraction and manufacturing distance. The product's name is Roxul AFB Insulation, which is manufactured by Rockwool.
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 26, 2019 - 6:17 pm
email this gentleman for that info:
Antoine.Habellion@rockwool.com
ANTOINE HABELLION | M.Eng., M.A.S.
BUILDING SCIENCE MANAGER, ENERGY DESIGN CENTRE | ROXUL INC.
For more information on EDC Sevices visit the EDC Webpage.
8024 Esquesing Line
Milton, Ontario L9T 6W3, CANADA
Cell: (905) 691-0875
Office: (905) 875-5751
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 27, 2019 - 3:10 pm
Thank you for that, I will do so soon. You wouldn't happen to have contacts like that but for other manufacturers?
Debra a. Lombard
Construction Administrator/ LEED APBywater Woodworks, Inc.
47 thumbs up
August 27, 2019 - 3:38 pm
yeah many!
Please email me a list of ones you need & I'll see what I can dig up :")
I'm always glad to help,
Debra Lombard
bywater.debra16@gmail.com
Edgar Arevalo
Associate19 thumbs up
August 27, 2019 - 3:48 pm
Awesome!