Rating System

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

Rating System Version

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

Inquiry

Materials & Resources credits 3 through 7 state a default percentage of 45% of the total construction hard cost can be used as the Total Materials Cost for a project. We assume this is based on the U.S. construction market. We are working on a project in Europe that is pursuing a Platinum rating, for which the project team believes a more accurate default would be close to 30% of the total construction hard cost attributed to materials cost, while the other 70% is attributed to labor. This is due to the fact that in the European construction market, the labor costs far exceed the material costs, when compared to the United States market. Can we use a different percentage if we provide a letter from a reputable Contractor from Europe stating this fact? If not, what documentation would we need to provide in order to establish a more accurate default percentage for European projects? Please note that in Europe, it is very common to have no submittal process, making it very challenging to collect LEED documentation. The easier we can make it to gain accurate documentation information, while making the real goal to meet the credit requirements and intents, the better experience this project team will have implementing LEED on their project. This will increase the versatility of LEED, making it easier to implement, while still maintaining the same credit requirements and its establishment as a universal metric.