Furniture Misconceptions

I spoke at the IFMA Green Symposium last week with 3 distinguished other speakers - Danette Ferretti, Kelly Devereaux and Ron Sutliff. One of the key threads through our conversation was a a list of common misconceptions surrounding furniture and LEED.

Buying a specific chair will get you a LEED credit
Greenguard furniture will get you MR credit
Green costs more
Greenguard is the same as LEED
All domestic furniture today is Greenguard
Furniture is a major component to LEED

We addressed and answered the above statement in our presentation -

Buying a specific chair will get you a LEED credit. Nope. LEED is very specific that you can never just buy something to get a point. A specific product does not ever earn a point. The products can contribute to points.

Greenguard furniture will get you MR credit. Nope. Greenguard is about indoor air quality and emissions into the air. MR is about recycled content, reuse, less use etc. Totally different.

Greenguard is the same as LEED. Nope. Greenguard is an independent testing facility and organization that evaluates products. LEED is a voluntary program designed and administered by the US Green Building Council surrounding sustainable building.

All domestic furniture today is Greenguard. Nope. This is an elective test paid by some manufacturers to certify their product. It is becoming more wide spread but initially it was prohibitively expensive for many companies and controversial with some companies. Similarly, we are seeing off shore products starting to get Greenguard interested.

Furniture is a major component to LEED. Nope. It has no direct effect on any points in LEED-NC other than to maybe contribute to recycled content. It has only a minimal effect in LEED-CI, hitting one or the other of two credits, either using Greenguard furniture for the IAQ point or using recycled furniture for an MR credit. Similar to LEED-NC, furniture and movable walls can both contribute to other points such as recycled content or local manufacturing.

There is a lot of mystery in the furniture world but at the end of it all, it is all very simple.