At our campus we do not have the ability to track waste diversion at the building level. How can we achieve this credit without ongoing tracking at the building level?
The project team is inquiring on how Materials and Resources credit 7: Solid Waste Management – Ongoing Consumables can be achieved by individual building projects on a campus where there is no tracking of ongoing consumables waste at the building level. In such situations, the credit may be earned at individual buildings if both the campus-level diversion rate and the building-level diversion rate revealed in a waste audit exceed the minimum threshold to earn the credit (50% for v2009, 75% for v4). The building-level diversion rate must be extrapolated based on an analysis of the building’s waste profile and the actual destinations of each waste type. Actual destinations are based on ongoing tracking of campus-managed waste streams as well as any specialty waste streams managed at the building level. For example, if the building collects food waste for compost, but the campus does not ultimately compost this waste, it may be counted as diverted at the building level if it is diverted directly from the building. If the campus provides additional sorting of mixed waste at the campus level, the building-level diversion rate may count these additional efforts. The building-level waste profile must be updated bi-annually by conducting a new waste audit. Projects are eligible for exemplary performance at the 95% diversion level using this strategy.