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What’s considered “regional”?
Regional materials are those that are extracted, harvested, and manufactured within 500 miles (as the crow flies) of your project site.
You may already be aware of the materials that are produced in your region, and in some areas this is easy—it’s no surprise, for example, that the town of Gypsum, Colorado, extracts the raw materials to make drywall, and projects within 500 miles of Gypsum would be wise to source their drywall from there.
Five hundred miles is a long way and you might be surprised how much is extracted and produced in your region. Some coastal or remote regions, or those with less of a manufacturing base, may not find it worthwhile to pursue this credit, however.
Research early and often
Begin researching products early—this...
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6 Comments
Length of supply chain
Sometimes the supply chain from the extraction of virgin material to the complete assembly may be very long and difficult to document. When documenting regional materials, how far do I have to go in the supply chain?
Let's for example consider a manufacturer of precast concrete elements, located within the 500 mile boundary. The factory buys the reinforcement steel from a steel factory, also located within 500 miles. However, the raw material used for making the reinforcement steel is extracted outside of the 500 mile boundary. Does the steel constribute to the regional materials credit in this case?
Magnus, in that case the steel does not count. With some exceptions, e.g. for recycled material, LEED really does want you to know where the raw material comes from. With many items this many be a combination of too difficult and not worth it. With big-ticket items it is worth overcoming the difficulty.
Materials - Core & Shell
Good morning!
my project is classified as Core & Shell, I wonder if the calculations for credit 5 (Materials and Resources) should consider only the materials used in the common areas of the building, or considering I calculate the total material used in the total building .
Thank you.
The credit would cover any materials used in the scope of the CS project—not limited to common area materials.
LEED Letter template
I am looking for the LEED letter template for CS 2.0 MRc5 (the credit requirements specify that this is necessary in order to capture the credit for the tenant lease/sales option). Is this something from I need to get from LEED CI? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks!
Steve, I would request it from GBCI.
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