Research products by looking at product cut sheets and manufacturing data to see if a product contains recycled content.  Often a product will appear to meet the credit requirements, but you'll need to ask for more specific information from the manufacturer—see the Documentation Toolkit for examples of this.

Use your estimated budget as a guide throughout the project. Don’t fail to earn this credit because you waited until all the materials were purchased before calculating whether you used enough materials with recycled content to gain the LEED credit. 

For some CI projects, like high-end office buildings, furniture costs can be equal to or greater than building materials. Choose furniture that helps the project gain multiple MR points—for example, the materials could be locally harvested and contribute to MRc5 while also having recycled-content materials contributing to MRc4. 

How do you know what amount of recycled content material you need to incorporate in your project? Look at the baseline materials budget. Determine how much you need to spend on recycled content materials to reach the credit thresholds. To earn one point, allocate 10% of your material budget; for two points, allocate 20%. Go through your project’s preliminary budget and identify which items could be purchased with recycled content, and what percentages of recycled content they can contribute. Do these items add up to the amount needed to get one or two points?  

Even if you are using the default budget method, you still have to break out the actual cost (cost excluding labor) of the specific items that you are tracking to contribute toward LEED MR credits.

How do you decide whether to use the actual material cost or the default budget as your baseline? Try estimating how your actual material costs compare to the 45% default. The lower you can get the baseline, the easier it is to purchase enough recycled material to reach the credit threshold. For example, a project that is renovating an existing building may have low material and high labor costs, so it might be better to use the actual budget instead of the default approach.

You have two options in creating a baseline budget—the default budget, or the actual budget (excluding labor). The default budget method gives you a baseline materials budget as 45% of your total budget, while the actual budget gives you a baseline based on what you actually spend.  

Adding Division 12: Furnishings to your baseline materials budget for MRc4 is optional, but must be applied consistently (either included or excluded) across MRc3–6. Analyze the baseline materials budget to see if adding Division 12 works to your project’s advantage. Generally, if the furniture helps contribute to these MR credits, it is in a project’s interest to take credit for it. Most commercial furniture has recycled content. 

The LEED-CI Reference Guide does not explicitly mention what CSI division items to include in your baseline material budget, although it does specify that furniture must be included. Based on the NC, CS, and Schools rating systems you should include items as defined in CSI MasterFormat Divisions 3-10 and 12. Foundations and sitework don’t apply to most LEED-CI projects. 

In your materials budget include the material cost (excluding labor) of all construction items and Division 12: Furnishings. Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and equipment costs are excluded.