Before your team takes on hours of research to identify credit-compliant equipment, consult with your vendor. Many suppliers and vendors are familiar with compliant equipment and may be able to offer guidance on which models best suit your facility’s needs as well as meet the credit criteria. However, always verify vendor claims by asking for product literature that demonstrates its credit-compliant attributes. 

Establish a system for tracking the cost and number of pieces of cleaning equipment purchased during the performance period. Remember, to earn this credit, 100% of cleaning equipment purchased during the performance period must comply with the associated criteria. You are not required to set up a tracking system, but you will need to provide this information, so it’s good to have a tracking infrastructure in place before you start making purchases.

Establish a purchasing goal, based on the details of your current inventory, to meet the 20% overall inventory requirement―so that you'll know exactly what purchases need to be made to meet the threshold.

If at least 20% of the cleaning equipment currently used in your project building does not comply with the criteria, you’ll have to purchase enough cleaning equipment to meet this benchmark by the end of the performance period in order to earn the credit. This can make the credit costly.

Teams usually use the number of pieces to demonstrate compliance, though cost is an acceptable approach. If you have several relatively inexpensive pieces of non-compliant equipment and one very expensive compliant piece, it may make sense to run the numbers to see if you meet the 20% threshold by cost, if you can’t meet it by number of pieces. If you don’t have cost data for existing equipment and you want to demonstrate compliance by cost, work with suppliers that carry the equipment to gather the cost data.

By the end of the performance period, at least 20% (by cost or number of pieces) of all cleaning equipment used in your project building must comply with the rating system criteria. 

Plan on tracking the progress of RP credits throughout project design and construction to keep your project in line with its certification goals.

Not more than four RP points can be earned, even if you earn all six RP credits. However, it makes sense to aggressively pursue as many RP credits as possible, in case a credit becomes unattainable during the design and construction process or one of your  RP submittals is denied during certification review. Doing so also supports the environmental priorities of your region. 

Projects outside the U.S., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam are now eligible to earn Regional Priority credits. Check out this USGBC document to learn more. 

Discuss as a team the value of these additional RP bonus points, to be sure that everyone is on board with pursuing them. Make sure the additional benefit is understood so that the proper emphasis is put on those credits.