Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED ID+C: Commercial Interiors, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell, LEED BD+C: Schools

Rating System Version

v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - Schools 2007, v2 - LEED 2.2, v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

Our project is a 9 million SF Graduate University located 60 km North of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The University will be dedicated to the research of alternative fuels and renewable energy. The entire campus will be New Construction on a Greenfield site and will consist of research labs, lab support areas, administration buildings, a library, a commons building, food service, an auditorium, conference rooms, lecture halls, offices and public areas. Regionally manufactured building materials are not readily available due to the project location and unoccupied nature of certain areas of Saudi Arabia. Only a small portion of the building materials can be obtained within 500 miles. As a result, a good majority of the materials that will be acquired for the project will be delivered by sea from adjacent countries. Similar conditions exist in Canada. The unoccupied regions of Canada influence the availability of building materials and methods to transport those materials. These conditions have allowed the Canadian LEED rating system to implement a larger distance allowance for the regional materials Credit. Different modes of transport have different fuel efficiencies in transporting goods. LEED Canada-NC 1.0 acknowledges these differences by extending the permissible transportation distance to 1500 miles for those goods transported by rail or by ship. Truck - 2127 KJ/ton*km Rail road - 373 KJ/ton*km Shipping - 138 KJ/ton*km The intent of this Credit is to "reduce the environmental impacts resulting from transportation." The above transport options show significant reduction in energy and fossil fuel use for rail and boat transport. Due to the project site conditions and site transport options, our project is seeking interpretation to use the Canadian requirements for the Regional Materials Credits. The Canadian requirements can be found below. Please advise on our project\'s ability to use this interpretation. Canadian LEED NC 1.0 Regional Materials Requirements Use a minimum of 10% / 20% of building materials or products for which at least 80% of the mass is extracted, processed and manufactured within 800 km (500 miles) of the project site. OR Use a minimum of 10% / 20% of building materials or products for which at least 80% of the mass is extracted, processed and manufactured within 2400 km (1500 miles) of the project site, and shipped by rail or water. OR Use a minimum of 10% / 20% of building materials or products that reflect a combination of the above extraction, processing, manufacturing and shipping criteria (e.g., 5% within 800 km (500 miles) and 5% shipped by rail within 2400 km (1500 miles)).