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LEED Pilot Credits
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Materials-Related Pilot Credits
Integrative Analysis of Building Materials

LEED CREDIT

Pilot-Credits MRpc103: Integrative Analysis of Building Materials 1 point

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Credit language

USGBC logo

© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.

Requirements

Use at least three different permanently installed products that have a documented qualitative analysis of the potential health, safety and environmental impacts of the product in five stages of the product’s life cycle (product assembly/manufacturing, building product installation, product use product maintenance, end of product life/reuse).
Analyze and consider:


  • Intended and reasonably anticipated uses of the product,

  • Potential hazardous exposures,

  • Product service life,

  • Waste generation and/or materials reuse,

  • Contributions to health, safety and the environment, including improvements to occu-pant safety, air quality, water quality, materials reuse, energy efficiency, and carbon mitigation.


Taking into consideration the factors above, impacts in the following areas, at a minimum, must be catalogued, if applicable, as a result of the qualitative analysis.

Potential human health impacts:

  • Carcinogenicity

  • Mutagenicity/Genotoxicity

  • Reproductive & Developmental Toxicity

  • Acute Toxicity

  • Eye and Skin Irritation

  • Aspiration hazard

  • Chronic toxicity Skin & Respiratory Sensitization

  • Systemic Toxicity and Organ effects

  • Air purification/filtration or positive impacts to indoor air quality affecting human health


Potential occupant safety impacts:

  • Passive survivability during natural disasters

  • Functionality, including access/egress, during emergencies


Potential environmental impacts:

  • Air pollution abatement

  • Bioaccumulation

  • Persistence

  • Acute and chronic aquatic toxicity

  • Water use

  • Energy use

  • GHG emissions

  • Solid waste generation/closed loop process

  • Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem



Documentation Requirements



Register for the pilot credit


Survey: Credits 95-105

Credit Specific

Complete the documentation template found on the resources tab

  • Where verified quantitative information is available (e.g. EPDs, LCAs, ecolabels, standards), please include that information.

  • If quantitative information is not available, qualitatively describe potential impacts.

  • Note where information was not available and document the sources checked. If an impact isn’t present at a specific life cycle phase, indicate it as non-applicable and briefly explain why that is the case.




Background


Transparency and life cycle thinking have always been central to the market transformation LEED is seeking related to materials and is foundational to the future development of LEED. This pilot credit is designed to give LEED users the ability to provide feedback on the kind of information currently available related to building products and materials across their life cy-cles, and also inform USGBC of what further information is needed to be able to make com-plex trade-off decisions.

Survey Questions



  1. Why did you select the three products you documented for this credit?

  2. When making decisions about the sustainability attributes of products, did the re-quirements of this credit aggregate the kind of information needed to understand the various positive and negative impacts of the product across its life cycle?

  3. If not, what additional information would be helpful?

  4. Of the products you submitted, which one had the format was the most useful format for analyzing this information?

  5. At what point in the design process would this information be most useful?

  6. Did the information documented for this credit enable a constructive dialogue with product manufacturers? If so, please provide an example.




Not pursuing this pilot but have a comment you'd like to share with USGBC?

Click here to submit your comment
See all forum discussions about this credit »

What does it cost?

Cost estimates for this credit

On each BD+C v4 credit, LEEDuser offers the wisdom of a team of architects, engineers, cost estimators, and LEED experts with hundreds of LEED projects between then. They analyzed the sustainable design strategies associated with each LEED credit, but also to assign actual costs to those strategies.

Our tab contains overall cost guidance, notes on what “soft costs” to expect, and a strategy-by-strategy breakdown of what to consider and what it might cost, in percentage premiums, actual costs, or both.

This information is also available in a full PDF download in The Cost of LEED v4 report.

Learn more about The Cost of LEED v4 »

Documentation toolkit

The motherlode of cheat sheets

LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit is loaded with calculators to help assess credit compliance, tracking spreadsheets for materials, sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions, and examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects for you to check your work against. To get your plaque, start with the right toolkit.

Get the inside scoop

Our editors have written a detailed analysis of nearly every LEED credit, and LEEDuser premium members get full access. We’ll tell you whether the credit is easy to accomplish or better left alone, and we provide insider tips on how to document it successfully.

USGBC logo

© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.

Requirements

Use at least three different permanently installed products that have a documented qualitative analysis of the potential health, safety and environmental impacts of the product in five stages of the product’s life cycle (product assembly/manufacturing, building product installation, product use product maintenance, end of product life/reuse).
Analyze and consider:


  • Intended and reasonably anticipated uses of the product,

  • Potential hazardous exposures,

  • Product service life,

  • Waste generation and/or materials reuse,

  • Contributions to health, safety and the environment, including improvements to occu-pant safety, air quality, water quality, materials reuse, energy efficiency, and carbon mitigation.


Taking into consideration the factors above, impacts in the following areas, at a minimum, must be catalogued, if applicable, as a result of the qualitative analysis.

Potential human health impacts:

  • Carcinogenicity

  • Mutagenicity/Genotoxicity

  • Reproductive & Developmental Toxicity

  • Acute Toxicity

  • Eye and Skin Irritation

  • Aspiration hazard

  • Chronic toxicity Skin & Respiratory Sensitization

  • Systemic Toxicity and Organ effects

  • Air purification/filtration or positive impacts to indoor air quality affecting human health


Potential occupant safety impacts:

  • Passive survivability during natural disasters

  • Functionality, including access/egress, during emergencies


Potential environmental impacts:

  • Air pollution abatement

  • Bioaccumulation

  • Persistence

  • Acute and chronic aquatic toxicity

  • Water use

  • Energy use

  • GHG emissions

  • Solid waste generation/closed loop process

  • Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem



Documentation Requirements



Register for the pilot credit


Survey: Credits 95-105

Credit Specific

Complete the documentation template found on the resources tab

  • Where verified quantitative information is available (e.g. EPDs, LCAs, ecolabels, standards), please include that information.

  • If quantitative information is not available, qualitatively describe potential impacts.

  • Note where information was not available and document the sources checked. If an impact isn’t present at a specific life cycle phase, indicate it as non-applicable and briefly explain why that is the case.




Background


Transparency and life cycle thinking have always been central to the market transformation LEED is seeking related to materials and is foundational to the future development of LEED. This pilot credit is designed to give LEED users the ability to provide feedback on the kind of information currently available related to building products and materials across their life cy-cles, and also inform USGBC of what further information is needed to be able to make com-plex trade-off decisions.

Survey Questions



  1. Why did you select the three products you documented for this credit?

  2. When making decisions about the sustainability attributes of products, did the re-quirements of this credit aggregate the kind of information needed to understand the various positive and negative impacts of the product across its life cycle?

  3. If not, what additional information would be helpful?

  4. Of the products you submitted, which one had the format was the most useful format for analyzing this information?

  5. At what point in the design process would this information be most useful?

  6. Did the information documented for this credit enable a constructive dialogue with product manufacturers? If so, please provide an example.




Not pursuing this pilot but have a comment you'd like to share with USGBC?

Click here to submit your comment

In the end, LEED is all about documentation. LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit, for premium members only, saves you time and helps you avoid mistakes with:

  • Calculators to help assess credit compliance.
  • Tracking spreadsheets for materials purchases.
  • Spreadsheets and forms to give to subs and other team members.
  • Guidance documents on arcane LEED issues.
  • Sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions.
  • Examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects.
See all LEEDuser forum discussions about this credit » Subscribe to new discussions about Pilot-Credits MRpc103