Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2, v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

We have very high (54%) local materials component for MR 5.1 well above the 20% requirement. This is largely due to two major materials manufactured locally - if we removed these materials we are still well in excess of the 20% requirement. One of these materials is the grass/gravel pave system which was manufactured in Denver. We introduced this company to a local company who manufactured the product for us locally and will now be the Canadian manufacturer of the product. The environment and economic impact of encouraging this to happen is obvious. The problem is that this material does not have raw materials harvested in it within 500 miles. As such, if we took the two large materials out of the 5.1 calculation we would meet the leed requirement for both 5.1 and 5.2. If we leave it in the 5.1 requirement is at 54% but 5.2 drops to 38%. This seems counter productive. The question is if we have bought products that manufactured locally do we have to include them in the 5.1 calculation if we already met this requirement so that it does not negatively impact the 5.2 calculation. It seems a little silly not to have bought these two products locally so we could get two points rather than 1point. We believe we have sufficient innovation credits and we feel that we should get the 5.2 credit based on what we achieved. Further we ask for clarification on what is meant by harvesting, extracting or recovered materials from 500 miles. To be specific if we buy a local rubber flooring product made of 100% recycled rubber does the recycled rubber component count as a extracted, harvested, or recovered material as the manufacturer obtains the recycled rubber within 500 miles of the product? The same applies for BC gypsum board which contains a recycled component of gypsum? They obviously qualify for the recycling content calculation but I am not sure whether you can also count it towards the 5.2 credit.