Determining the cost of a replacement item leaves some room for interpretation, but the replacement must be a comparable product. For example, you cannot value the replacement of standard acoustic ceiling tile at the cost of a specialty molded ceiling tile.

Project teams must estimate the value of the reused material. It is optional for projects to value reused or salvaged materials at their replacement cost for the credit calculation. For example, whether a project purchased or received a donation of decorative ceiling tiles, the material value would be the same as what it would cost to replace the donated materials with something new. It may sometimes be beneficial to use the actual salvage price when it is higher than the new material replacement cost; a good example is antique woodwork.

Don’t confuse recycled content materials with reused or salvaged materials:

Recycled Content: Recycled content is incorporated during the manufacturing process from waste products. For example, carpet may be made from used plastic bottles, or plywood may contain waste wood left over from window manufacturing.
Reused Materials: Reused materials are typically salvaged items that have not been remanufactured into a new product, for example, antique wood doors that were salvaged from an old church, or bricks salvaged from demolition and reused.

LEED–NC MRc3: Materials Reuse offers detailed guidance on how to calculate and plan for using reused and salvaged material as it applies to LEED standards.

Purchase individual materials where at least 70% of the material has been salvaged or reused.

Reused and Salvaged Materials 

Because most steel has recycled content, LEED-NC recognizes a default value of 25% post-consumer content if the actual recycled content value is not available. However, the LEED-EBOM Reference Guide doesn’t explicitly offer the same default value. That said, the 25% default is a conservative estimate and isn’t unreasonable for products that fall under EBOM MRc3. It’s likely that the 25% default will pass the LEED review process, but it’s always ideal to provide manufacturer product data sheets that confirm the actual recycled content level.

There should be little to no cost premium for building materials with recycled content.

The thresholds of 10% post-consumer or 20% pre-consumer recycled content are easily found in many products. Products that typically have recycled content include: steel, drywall, insulation, ceiling tiles, concrete, VCT, commercial carpet, and composite substrates. 

LEED-NC MRc4: Recycled Content offers detailed guidance on how to calculate and plan for using recycled content material.