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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.
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18 Comments
Review comment asked for extracted etc.
We recieved a list of materials that the reviewer asked for distance for
the extraction. We have one letter concerning one material that
involved quite a bit of cost and does bring us over the 20%.
Will this be adequate to earn the credit?
It would save a lot of work.. Thanks Suzy
Suzanne,
With a CI v2.2 I successfully used this technique. Just excluded the ones I didn't document from the calculation (I think I still left them in the list, just put "unknown" in the distance column). So you could try it.
It was unclear to me in the
It was unclear to me in the calculator above, but when I have a product, say a concrete mix, that includes materials that were harvested and then manufactured at different locations, how do I track that versus the total regional %?
stay-in-place formwork
Shall I included in calculation for Regional materials stay-in-place formwork ?
Alicja, that would be included, yes.
Regional Materials
When calculating distance between the manufacturing plant & the project site, is the distance I should use, actual travel distance by land, or by "how the crow flies"?
I have a product that was manufactured within the 500 mi radius, but the "actual travel distance" is greater than 500. Should I use the "crow" distance or the actual distance by land??
HI Carol, for simplicity's sake, it's "as the crow flies."
Which cost of materials to use?
Dear all,
The retail price of a certain product is $15 (anyone can buy it from the supplier for $15).
However, the contractor has a special discount: he buys this product for $10, but he bills the client $15).
When calculating the percentage of regional materials by cost, do I have to consider the $10 or $15? When I say the contractor bills the client $15, this means that the BOQ states $15.
Many thanks,
The LEED Reference Guide states that "Materials costs include all expenses to deliver the material to the project site."
George, the cost to track is the cost to the project. In this example, that is $15.
Furniture salvaged from site=Regional Mat+diverted Const. Waste?
We will be salvaging furniture from a school already on our site, but we are not going for MR3 (Mat. Reuse) due to the limited amount. However, we might possibly use it for MRc5 (understanding that we would have to deal with furniture calcs for several other credits). My question: the LEEDUser info provided states that if you using the salvaged furniture for MRc3 you can doubledip and count it towards MRc5, but NOT MRc2. So, if I am counting towards MRc5, does this stop me from counting it towards MRc2 Const Waste?
Hi Renee,
My reading of the rules, which I went through pretty carefully a while back, is that you cannot double count materials between MRc2 and MRc5. I think that LEED would look at that the same way it would look at double counting between MRc2 and MRc3--that is to say, if you're reusing it in your project it never became "construction waste" that needed to be managed. But I can't find an explicit statement confirming that, so it's possible you could get it approved.
All this assumes that the school from which you're salvaging the furniture is being demolished (or, hopefully, deconstructed) as part of your project. If that's not the case, then I don't see how furniture from it could ever be counted in MRc2.
You are correct in the assumption that the existing building is being demo'd (lack of funds and time available for deconstruction) thus the furniture is being salvaged.
I decided to re-read the front section of the LEED Reference Guide for the MR credits, and found the following wording on page 337 - "Materials calculated toward materials reuse cannot be applied to the MR credits for building reuse, const. waste mgmt, recycled content, rapidly renewableTerm describing a natural material that is grown and harvested on a relatively short-rotation cycle (defined by the LEED rating system to be ten years or less). materials, or certified woodWood from a source that has been determined, through a certification process, to meet stated ecological and other criteria. There are numerous forest certification programs in general use based on several standards, but only the Forest Stewardship Council's standards, which include requirements that the wood be tracked through its chain-of-custody, can be used to qualify wood for a point in the LEED Rating System.."
The fact that they specifically call out Materials Reuse (MRc3) but none of the other ones leads me to believe that I CAN doubledip with MRc2 Const Waste Mgmt. and MRc5 Regional Materials. It may be a loophole that could be closed down the line, but I think I'm meeting the intent of both credits. The reality is, there are several sister projects being built and demo'd at the same time, so the salvaged furniture from the various demo'd bldgs may or may not go to the new buildings on the same site - it could go to one of the other new buildings on different (local) sites, but all the schools will recieve some salvaged furniture from the various demo'd schools.
Donated Materials
A contractor has offered to donate a salvaged water tank to our project. The tank was salvaged locally so qualifies for the credit, but how do we calculate the cost for a donated item. Can we use the price of a comparable new product?
Yes, that's exactly how you should estimate the value.
Steel
For steel products, would the extraction location be the mill where it is produced?
Jose, extraction would be where the iron ore and other components are mined, or where any recycled content is collected. The mill is the manufacturing location.
Regional Materials
If the harvest location cannot be determine, what figure should I use on my report? It has to be numerical.
If you can't determine the harvest location, then the product isn't compliant with the credit, so I don't see that it matters for your LEED documentation. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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