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Is it worth it?
This credit can be easy and with little or no cost premium if your project only has a small amount of wood. A multifamily high-rise, for example, may have little wood on the project except for doors and cabinetry. In this case, it would be easy to reach the 50% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) threshold.Projects with more wood might encounter a larger upfront cost, but have the potential to demonstrate their environmental values of sustainable forestry management. Projects can also go above the 50% threshold and earn an ID point for 95% FSC certified woodWood from a...
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4 Comments
FSC Project Certification and Chain of Custody documentation...
The General Contractor (GC) in project I am currently working has specified 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. 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. in the construction documents for the gym floor and window frames, which together will cost more than 50% of all the new wood in the building. The country where the project is does not have any gym floor or window manufacturers that are Chain-of-CustodyChain-of-custody (COC) is a tracking procedure for a product from the point of harvest or extraction to its end use, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing, and distribution. (CoC) certified, so even though the wood will be FSC, if the traditional method is used, it would not count towards the MRc7 LEED credit, so I have the following two questions: 1) If the GC purchases the wood (therefore having the invoice with the CoC number on it) directly from the FSC CoC certified supplier and contracts a local subcontractor to use the FSC wood to produce the required products, would this pass and earn the LEED point? 2) Does anyone know from experience whether an FSC partial or fully certified project would count towards LEED certification? Any other alternatives I might not have covered would be welcomed...
Hi Ward - I would lean heavily towards saying 'No' - the products will not qualify to support earning the MR7 credit. In my opinion, having the Contractor purchase the wood and then having a sub-contractor modify it will not meet the COC requirements for LEED. The rational for my opinion comes from the "Document Addenda, LEED Reference Guide for Green Building Design and Construction, 2009 Edition (first edition)" Here's the link (you should take a look at this document and come to you own conclusion):
http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6392
Page 28 states that "Entities that install an 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.-certified product on the project building/site (typically project contractors or subcontractors, but also furniture installers and the like), do not require CoC certification as long as THEY DO NOT MODIFY THE PRODUCTS PACKAGING OR FORM EXCEPT AS REQURED FOR INSTALLATION (capitalization added). Contractors and sub-contractors that temporarily possess FSC-certified material prior to installation should be careful not mix or contaminate the FSC-certified material with non-FSC-certified material."
In my opinion, milling the wood into flooring or converting it to windows would qualify as modifying its form - going far beyond basic installation.
| dp
MRc7 collecting documentation
Does the value of this credit exclude labor, hardware, delivery when quantifying casework, stackables, etc.
Does the value of this credit include all paper based products, for instance; laminates are paper based injected with resins. Would this product need to be quantified and added to the total wood on the project?
Thanks for your anticipated comments
Brian, labor is excluded from the materials figures for the MR credits.
Since the credit is about "wood," paper products would normally be excluded, but if you wanted to include them because you found 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. content, I would think you could.
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