Sign This Letter on Equipment Needs for Building Electrification

We need to eliminate toxic fossil fuels from our buildings. This joint letter to HVAC equipment manufacturers asks them to address the gaps in the equipment that’s currently available.
by P.J. Melton

Have you been moving toward electrifying HVAC systems but struggling to find the equipment you need?

Many engineers are in this position—and the Sustainable MEP Leaders are trying to change that. The Sustainable MEP Leaders peer network brings together the most committed sustainability directors from leading MEP design firms throughout North America. Members are in a sustainability leadership role at a firm with a substantial MEP design practice and a passion for helping transform the building and design industry.

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“Better Materials” Simplifies Search and Documentation for HPDs, EPDs, and More

The chaotic and frustrating process of searching for transparency documents is getting a total overhaul with a better search and pre-verification by GBCI.
by P.J. Melton

If you’ve attempted the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization (BPDO) credits under LEED v4 or 4.1, you probably have war stories about finding, verifying, and documenting those credits—and then potentially having your environmental product declarations (EPDs) or Health Product Declarations (HPDs) rejected because of something you missed in the fine print.

All that frustration is about to go away. Meet the Better Materials initiative from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI).

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Arc Now Free, Includes Category Certs and “Insight”

Arc, the performance-measurement tool from USGBC’s for-profit arm, is now available to anyone with access to a web browser.
by P.J. Melton

Have you ever wondered how your building measures up against the highest-performing buildings on the planet? With the Arc online software tool, you can now find out—for free.

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Is Easier Really Better for LEED 4.1?

Lots of credits are more achievable under v4.1, but should we celebrate? What about the environmental impact?
by Nadav Malin

After we announced the v4.1 “Should I Upgrade?” content on LEEDuser (scroll down for an example here), we got challenged by Nick Semon of Re:Vision Architecture in Philadelphia:

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Webcast

Introducing Fitwel v2.1

Joanna Frank, President & CEO of CfAD, and associate Zach Flora provide an overview of Fitwel v2.1 updates.

If a company provides an EPD but it does not mention on it that it meets the ISO standards required, can we still submit it for LEED or do we need to have that verification?

The EPD must be verified in order to be considered an EPD. It must be listed with a Program Operator to qualify as an EPD. Without that, the material can be considered to have an LCA completed for it, but not a full EPD.

 

 

For Whole-Building LCA, how do you choose the baseline building?

The LEED guidance on baselines is very high-level. From our experience, as long as the baseline is a fair point of comparison for the building, it can be used. Examples of this include a similar building that serves the same function—like an office building. For the projects that were non-standard building types, like an airport terminal, we have seen teams use their first design as the baseline, evaluate that, then suggest changes to reduce impacts to meet the 10% reduction target in GWP and two other categories.

Is it possible to pursue the Whole-Building Life-Cycle Assessment option late in design?

Yes, it is possible to still pursue the LCA at these later stages, but it is harder because changes to the design are harder to implement. There still could be an opportunity to change the sources of the materials (different manufacturers) or material types at this late stage. It just requires closer coordination with the architects and engineers to accomplish.
 

 

What is the difference between LCA and LCCA? Our clients often ask for LCA when they really want Life-Cycle Cost Analysis.

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic method that takes a full life-cycle approach to evaluate the environmental benefits and burdens from the production, transportation, use, and end of life of goods and services. Life-cycle costing (LCC) or a life-cycle cost assessment (LCCA) also employs a life-cycle approach, but applies it to the direct monetary costs from a product or service from production through transport, use, and end of life and does not include environmental impacts.