This credit focuses on diverting waste from landfills by finding multiple alternatives for end uses of the waste, namely recycling, reuse on site, donation for reuse on another site, or resale. All of these diversion methods count towards credit compliance—50% construction waste diverted for one point, 75% for two points.

Look for opportunities to prevent the generation of waste on construction sites because the less waste you generate, the less you have to recycle or reuse to earn the credit.

This credit is meant to reduce the number of cars on the road and limit the sprawl of parking facilities. It also helps encourage carpooling and reduce transportation-related environmental impacts like emissions, stormwater runoff, and the urban heat island effect.

You have three options to earn this credit:

This prerequisite is a big one, not only because it’s required for all projects, but also because it feeds directly into EAc1: Optimize Energy Performance, where about a fifth of the total available points in LEED are at stake. Master these minimum requirements, and you can use the same compliance path as in EAp2 to earning points.

USGBC's membership approved an update to LEED 2009 effective April 8, 2016. The update only affects LEED 2009 projects registered on or after that date.

This relatively straightforward credit is meant to reduce the number of cars on the road and limit the sprawl of parking facilities. It also helps encourage carpooling and reduce transportation-related environmental impacts like emissions, stormwater runoff, and the urban heat island effect.

If salvaged materials are appropriate for your project, this credit should be easy enough to achieve. But you have to use a lot of salvaged materials to reach the threshold, so it's most feasible for small projects that target sources of salvaged materials early in the design process. Even then, it can be tricky because these are not the sort of things you can specify and count on being able to order from a supplier--the contractor or owner usually has to procure and stockpile salvaged items when they become available.