There are some great green conferences coming up in San Diego.
On April 9th, IFMA San Diego is hosting a Green Symposium. It is an all day event at the Four Points Sheraton. The day has four breakout sessions surrounding LEED-CI subjects like furniture, construction, floor coverings and maintenance/green cleaning. The furniture session is hosted by yours truly and I am co-presenting with Ron Sutliff of Integrated Project Management, Danette Ferretti of Carrier Johnson and Kelly Devereaux of DPR. We are planning a riveting talk about movable walls, costs of going green, green wash by the furniture industries and how the LEED points do and do not apply to products. www.ifmasandiego.org
On another fun note, the USGBC - San Diego chapter is hosting what looks to be a great event.
"Collaborating at Intuit". Sounds like a huge crowd is gathering and the content is great. www.usgbc-sd.org
Don't miss these if you are trying to learn about LEED and green.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Think Local
LEED - CI and LEED - NC both have credits for buying locally manufactured products. The idea behind these credits is to support your local economy, which has long term sustainable aspects, and also saves energy ( fuel ) by not shipping materials and goods from all over the globe. Interestingly, LEED-School does not have this credit available and I am not sure why. Research to follow.
When we did a search for manufacturers within a 500 mile radius of San Diego, we came up with 35 or so. It is a little tricky because the credit is for manufacturing, not distribution so when you look up manufacturers, you have to make sure they are actually making the product, not just storing it. For instance, AVA Furniture shows up as 467 miles away from SD however, that is just their corporate headquarters and distribution center. The product is all manufactured in China. This would not qualify for the credit in either LEED program.
The list of local manufacturers - based on our location in San Diego - is posted here for your convenience. I encourage you to submit more and different ones that we don't know about - we are always looking for options and by no means think that this list is all conclusive. Additionally, some research is still necessary to make sure that the products being marketed by these manufacturers are actually produced here and not just imported and sold under the company name. That is a bit more tricky as the information is not readily available. Lots of times manufacturers OEM their products ( in a nutshell, they have a outside equipment manufacturers produce the product for them and they sell it under their name ). Kind of like groceries - Trader Joe's has all sorts of yummy items produced under their label but the actual product comes from a plant that is not Trader Joe's. In the furniture world, all sorts of OEM arrangements are going on.
The LEED credit for using products produced within a 500 mile radius applies to the whole project, not just the furniture purchase. Therefore, it is important to know the details of the credit and how furniture relates or does not relate to the overall scope of work.
When we did a search for manufacturers within a 500 mile radius of San Diego, we came up with 35 or so. It is a little tricky because the credit is for manufacturing, not distribution so when you look up manufacturers, you have to make sure they are actually making the product, not just storing it. For instance, AVA Furniture shows up as 467 miles away from SD however, that is just their corporate headquarters and distribution center. The product is all manufactured in China. This would not qualify for the credit in either LEED program.
The list of local manufacturers - based on our location in San Diego - is posted here for your convenience. I encourage you to submit more and different ones that we don't know about - we are always looking for options and by no means think that this list is all conclusive. Additionally, some research is still necessary to make sure that the products being marketed by these manufacturers are actually produced here and not just imported and sold under the company name. That is a bit more tricky as the information is not readily available. Lots of times manufacturers OEM their products ( in a nutshell, they have a outside equipment manufacturers produce the product for them and they sell it under their name ). Kind of like groceries - Trader Joe's has all sorts of yummy items produced under their label but the actual product comes from a plant that is not Trader Joe's. In the furniture world, all sorts of OEM arrangements are going on.
The LEED credit for using products produced within a 500 mile radius applies to the whole project, not just the furniture purchase. Therefore, it is important to know the details of the credit and how furniture relates or does not relate to the overall scope of work.
Friday, February 8, 2008
The Post, Pre and Industrial Difference
Recycled Content - LEED - NC and LEED - CI credits 4.1 and 4.2.
The intent of the credit is to increase the demand for building products that incorporate recycled content materials therefore reducing impacts resulting from extraction and processing of new virgin materials. Okay, pretty straightforward in concept but the collection of the data and computation of the data can be tricky and difficult.
Credit 4.1 asks for 5% of total value of material on the project to be comprised of recycled content. The 5% must include both post-consumer recycled content and post-industrial / preconsumer recycled content. Post-consumer recycled content is worth double the credit as pre-consumer. What is the difference between the two and why is one worth more than the other? What is post-industrial mean?
Post-consumer waste is a waste type produced by the end consumer of a material stream; that is, where the waste-producing use did not involve the production of another product. It is simpy the garbage that individuals routinely discard, either in a waste receptacle or a dump or worse littering.
Pre-consumer waste or post- industrial waste is the reintroduction of manufacturing scrap ( such as trimmings from paper production, defective aluminum cans, etc ) back into the manufacturing process. Preconsumer waste is commonly used in manufacturing industries , and is often not considered recycling in the traditional sense. Preconsumer waste is often called post-industrial waste.
The way I remember the difference is that post-consumer waste is the plastic water bottle that you just finished. If you recycle that into a HAG office chair, you meet the post - consumer criteria. The scraps from the worksurface that end up on the floor of the Haworth manufacuring plant that are recycled into particle board or firewood to heat the factory is preconsumer / post-industrial waste.
Find out more at www.ftc.gov/bcp/grnrule/guides980427.htm - the FTC Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 CFR 260.7.
Wikipedia helped me articulate the above information about post-consumer waste - they also have a list of things that are qualifiers.
Post-consumer waste is worth double the amount of credit than preconsumer because it diverts waste from landfills.
Lastly, post-industrial and preconsumer are the same thing.
Know your words, know what they mean and then get ready to compute.
The intent of the credit is to increase the demand for building products that incorporate recycled content materials therefore reducing impacts resulting from extraction and processing of new virgin materials. Okay, pretty straightforward in concept but the collection of the data and computation of the data can be tricky and difficult.
Credit 4.1 asks for 5% of total value of material on the project to be comprised of recycled content. The 5% must include both post-consumer recycled content and post-industrial / preconsumer recycled content. Post-consumer recycled content is worth double the credit as pre-consumer. What is the difference between the two and why is one worth more than the other? What is post-industrial mean?
Post-consumer waste is a waste type produced by the end consumer of a material stream; that is, where the waste-producing use did not involve the production of another product. It is simpy the garbage that individuals routinely discard, either in a waste receptacle or a dump or worse littering.
Pre-consumer waste or post- industrial waste is the reintroduction of manufacturing scrap ( such as trimmings from paper production, defective aluminum cans, etc ) back into the manufacturing process. Preconsumer waste is commonly used in manufacturing industries , and is often not considered recycling in the traditional sense. Preconsumer waste is often called post-industrial waste.
The way I remember the difference is that post-consumer waste is the plastic water bottle that you just finished. If you recycle that into a HAG office chair, you meet the post - consumer criteria. The scraps from the worksurface that end up on the floor of the Haworth manufacuring plant that are recycled into particle board or firewood to heat the factory is preconsumer / post-industrial waste.
Find out more at www.ftc.gov/bcp/grnrule/guides980427.htm - the FTC Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, 16 CFR 260.7.
Wikipedia helped me articulate the above information about post-consumer waste - they also have a list of things that are qualifiers.
Post-consumer waste is worth double the amount of credit than preconsumer because it diverts waste from landfills.
Lastly, post-industrial and preconsumer are the same thing.
Know your words, know what they mean and then get ready to compute.
Friday, February 1, 2008
How we can be helpful with LEED
As LEED becomes more ingrained in the world of design and construction, our involvement has changed. Initially, I would get phone calls asking me about what we could do to help with gaining points and occassionally a question about what credits we can help obtain but now I am seeing a shift.
There are several LEED-AP's in San Diego that are working on their second, third, fourth or even more LEED projects. These grizzled veterans as I call them, know the ropes and know what they are looking for during their projects. Yesterday, I met with a LEED-AP who is in the midst of a project and it came out that they are not going to go after the GreenGuard Indoor Air Quality credit. Of course, I asked why and asked if I could show some options that would meet performance, price, quality and Greenguard certification so they could achieve that point.
A few weeks ago a RFP/RFQ came out that asked our company to provide an on staff LEED - AP. We have not seen that before. Additionally, the RFP/RFQ asked us to identify which credits we could contribute to for the project. This required a pretty good amount of knowledge of what products are relevant to what credits and how the whole synergy works in the LEED process. Again, the project team had identified which credits were possible and which credits they were going to pursue. We took that checklist and married up our information and knowledge.
One of the biggest services we provide is knowledge. We see manufacturer's reps everyday, we hear about product attributes everyday and we have the horsepower to weed through the information to find the relevant meat for the LEED teams. Half the battle of getting through green building is knowing what you are doing.
There are several LEED-AP's in San Diego that are working on their second, third, fourth or even more LEED projects. These grizzled veterans as I call them, know the ropes and know what they are looking for during their projects. Yesterday, I met with a LEED-AP who is in the midst of a project and it came out that they are not going to go after the GreenGuard Indoor Air Quality credit. Of course, I asked why and asked if I could show some options that would meet performance, price, quality and Greenguard certification so they could achieve that point.
A few weeks ago a RFP/RFQ came out that asked our company to provide an on staff LEED - AP. We have not seen that before. Additionally, the RFP/RFQ asked us to identify which credits we could contribute to for the project. This required a pretty good amount of knowledge of what products are relevant to what credits and how the whole synergy works in the LEED process. Again, the project team had identified which credits were possible and which credits they were going to pursue. We took that checklist and married up our information and knowledge.
One of the biggest services we provide is knowledge. We see manufacturer's reps everyday, we hear about product attributes everyday and we have the horsepower to weed through the information to find the relevant meat for the LEED teams. Half the battle of getting through green building is knowing what you are doing.
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