EBOM 2009 MRc3: Sustainable Purchasing—Facility Alterations and Additions

First thing is you must read your lease VERY carefully. Unless it lays out clearly in the lease that you must follow 'green' there is no LEGAL reason for you to follow those rules, however there are two other aspects. 1. What are you trying to succeed at in your space...LEED CI? if so you will already be following the EB requirements. 2. There is the moral aspect. You're moving into an 'accepted green building', why would you NOT want to follow and support the in house team?

It sounds like you are looking at a single material and deciding whether it has 70% of its cost or replacement cost coming from a salvaged source. If it does, it qualifies as a "sustainable purchase" and gets to count toward the total value of sustainable materials purchased for facility improvements.

For an individual material or product, the denominator is the cost or replacement cost of that item. The numerator is the % of that item's value that comes from a salvaged source, FSCIndependent, third-party verification that forest products are produced and sold based on a set of criteria for forest management and chain-of-custody controls developed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international nonprofit organization. FSC criteria for certifying forests around the world address forest management, legal issues, indigenous rights, labor rights, multiple benefits, and environmental impacts. source, recycled source, etc. (We've not seen a definition of an "item" but in the US we have assumed it to be a single section number in the CSI numbering system such as "096400 Wood Flooring" or "081001 Interior Doors.)

For example, assume one of the improvements is a new fitness room, where 90% of the flooring is reclaimed wood floor from a bowling alley. The total cost for new wood flooring would be $10,000. Since more than 70% of the value of the wood flooring is coming from a salvaged source, it qualifies as a "sustainable purchase" and you get to include all $10,000 in the numerator for the whole credit calculation even if you paid less for the salvaged wood.

Does that answer your question?

Thank you, I understand the way to calculate. If I have difficulties in calculating actual values for submittal, let me ask again.

Hi Reynaldo, this would depend if you have operational control or judgement on what you purchase. Your questions is confusing in that you mention clients. We are working on a convention center that has many shows that move in and out with exhibits, construction etc that the center staff has no control over. The best that we are working on is providing recommendations, making them aware of our IAQIndoor air quality: The quality and attributes of indoor air affecting the health and comfort building occupants. IAQ encompasses available fresh air, contaminant levels, acoustics and noise levels, lighting quality, and other factors. Construction plan etc.
If your staff or your contractors are repairing that it should be included. Hope this helps.

Chris, as long as the garage and office are in the LEED project boundary, I think it should qualify.

The EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. MRc3 language doesn't address this explicitly. Under NC Salvaged materials can also count for Regional content (see BD&C reference guide page 365) but salvaged materials are defined there as items that have been "used." See if you can get documentation that the donated carpet was in a condition that would qualify as used or unable to be returned/ resold - such as partial rolls, remnants from a custom order, etc.

I think you can take one of two avenues here..1. Doesn't matter if you bought, traded it or stole it....if the carpet follows CRIColor-rendering index, or CRI, is a scale of 0 to 100, used by manufacturers of fluorescent, metal halide, and other non-incandescent lighting equipment to describe the visual effect of the light on colored surfaces. Natural daylight is assigned a CRI of 100. standards (or similar) then you're going to use the documentation provided (or you'll find the documentation). 2. This second answer is a little tricky...maybe LEED user won't like it...but...here goes...Only YOU know the carpet is new...no-one else does...so just say that you had carpet donated to you, value it at a minimal sum and add it into the salvaged materials list...the down side, well if the carpet is NOT CRI standard the VOC's will be awful and what you gained with the free carpet will be used up in Advil to cure the headache!

The lack of guidance on whether we're allowed to use the 45% default value for material cost could be an unintentional omission (to quote the movie Harold and Maude: "consistency is not really a human trait"). The CI Reference guide uses the 45% default, so it seems reasonable to use here. Still, you might get questioned by a reviewer, so it might be worth asking the sub or vendor to estimate the percent of material cost in case you need that as back-up. The only reason I could imagine not allowing the 45% default value might be the argument that facility alterations under EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. can involve fewer trades and be less typical than the full scope of a CI or NC job, and thus wouldn't "average out" as consistently, but that seems like a stretch. Stranger things have happened, though!

As with any credit you can put forward an alternative. However the alternative must meet or exceed the suggested standard shown....in this case carpet to CRIColor-rendering index, or CRI, is a scale of 0 to 100, used by manufacturers of fluorescent, metal halide, and other non-incandescent lighting equipment to describe the visual effect of the light on colored surfaces. Natural daylight is assigned a CRI of 100. standards. You will have to show all backup documents to 'prove' that you meet or exceed the suggested standard. Just the recycled content will probably not work.

I just entered carpet in the credit template & included it's recycled content for value as it's sustainable criteria... and the template counted it. So - CRI is not the only sustainable criteria that carpet can meet for this credit.

FYI/ BTW - I also indicated it was low-emitting and it counted as double value. Tinker with the credit template on your end to see how that works. Shocking to see double value, but it is legitimate.

Chris, what criterion were you hoping to use to qualify the Energy Star roofing membrane for this credit? I just reviewed the credit requirements and I don't see a provision that would allow this.

I think your better bet is try to earn SSc7.2.

I'm curious—I thought that Energy Star rated membranes that were light colored—cool roofs. Does it really jive to have an Energy Star light-colored membrane with rock ballast?

No, we are removing the rock ballast and reusing it at another site for landscaping. We are hoping to help achieve MR Cr9 by doing this. The Energy Star roof is now going to be just a solid white. The adhesive and bonding materials being used to attach the new roof all qualify as low-VOC. Therefore we were hoping to use these materials for MR Cr3. However, if we must include the roofing and insulation in MR Cr3 as construction materials, and these materials are not compliant, then that could completely throw our percentages off, since the roof would obviously be the bulk of the cost.

Hi Chris, In my opinion you would definitely need to include the purchased roofing materials in the MRc3 calculations. The membrane wouldn't qualify as compliant just based on its SRIThe solar reflectance index (SRI) is a measure of a material's ability to reject solar heat, as shown by a small temperature rise. Standard black (reflectance 0.05, emittance 0.90) is 0 and standard white (reflectance 0.80, emittance 0.90) is 100. For example, a standard black surface has a temperature rise of 90_F (50_C) in full sun, and a standard white surface has a temperature rise of 14.6_F (8.1_C). Once the maximum temperature rise of a given material has been computed, the SRI can be calculated by interpolating between the values for white and black. Materials with the highest SRI values are the coolest choices for paving. Because of the way SRI is defined, particularly hot materials can even take slightly negative values, and particularly cool materials can even exceed 100. value, but would have to meet one of the sustainability criteria established in that credit's requirement. Recycled content, maybe, would be a possibility?

Folks - I'm not confident the roof replacement should be included in MRc3. The EBOMEBOM is an acronym for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance, one of the LEED 2009 rating sytems. Ref Guide front matter notes that alterations and additions "refers to changes that affect usable space in the building. Mechanical, electrical or plumbing system upgrades that involve no disruption to usable space are excluded."

Fair enough, Dan. But I think this is a case where there's a few difference conflicting definitions. The MRc3 credit requirements state that it covers materials that are "base building elements permanently or semipermanently attached to the building itself." Based on this, a roof would definitely qualify.

I think both this definition and the one in the front of the Reference Guide could both use a little tweaking to be more expansive - if you consider the analogous credits in NC, everything but MEP is basically included, including materials used on the exterior of the structure, like the roof, facade or semiattached structures (e.g., canopy or trellis materials in an exterior seating area).

Maybe the project team should use a CIRCredit Interpretation Ruling. Used by design team members experiencing difficulties in the application of a LEED prerequisite or credit to a project. Typically, difficulties arise when specific issues are not directly addressed by LEED information/guide if they can't tolerate the risk associated with not knowing for certain how this fits into the calcs, or based on the intent of the credit, just explain the special circumstances in the LEED form and see how the reviewer reacts.