Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

On-site salvage and reuse of materials The most resource efficient practice a development team can implement on an existing building renovation is to reuse as much of the building as possible, preserving its embodied energy and avoiding the environmental impact of hauling off demolition debris and bring in additional materials. This practice is rewarded by up to three points in MR Credit 1 - Building Reuse. Unfortunately, existing buildings often require significant modifications to accommodate structural/seismic and accessibility upgrades and improvements to allow the old building to function optimally for new uses. If such modifications must be made, the next best thing to leaving building components in place is the salvage and reuse of materials on-site. This practice reduces construction waste, eliminates the transportation impacts of hauling waste and bringing in new materials (MR Credit 5 - zero environmental impact from transportation) and it reduces the demand for new resources. This practice does require extra effort by the development team to assess potential salvage resources, plan for their reintegration, implement non-destructive demolition and finally to store, refurbish and reinstall the salvaged items. You have stated in your review that we may not take credit for on-site salvage and reuse of materials in the MR Credit 2 - Construction Waste Management calculations and in MR Credit 3 - Resource Reuse. We feel that this interpretation is off-base and does not adequately reflect the multiple environmental benefits and the development teams effort to achieve them. By the LEED rules, the General Contractor could salvage materials from the building, haul them to a salvage material broker and include the weight of these materials in the construction waste management calculator. He could then purchase these same materials from the broker, haul them back to the site and include the material value in the resource reuse calculator. This of course would be absurd, adding cost to the project and carbon to the atmosphere. The salvage and reuse of materials on the project site take a lot of special effort, but has many environmental benefits. This practice produces significantly less impact than hauling away debris and bringing in other salvaged, recycled content or virgin materials, which are the more common practices in building renovation projects. This practice should be rewarded by allowing the project to take credit for these materials in MR Credits 2, 3 and 5. Anything less is a disincentive.