LEED certification has always meant positive outcomes for the built environment, but in recent years it has started to mean something else to frustrated project managers: difficult to accomplish. With the release of LEED v4 in 2016, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) significantly raised the bar on earning certification, and the construction industry has struggled to keep up with the more stringent requirements.
After hearing significant market feedback over the past few years, USGBC revamped the standards and is now rolling out LEED v4.1 which maintains the high bar of certification but recognizes where markets and manufacturers needed more time to catch up.
Overall, v4.1 offers more flexibility for designers and builders to complete projects that achieve the required level of LEED certification while providing a few additional pathways for getting there. That doesn’t mean project teams can just blindly stumble through the process, though. Making sure a project meets its certification goals requires a clear plan.
The Overview
LEED v4.1 is in a pilot phase for 2019 (and likely early 2020). Any project currently registered for a LEED v4 project can opt into a LEED v4.1 pilot credit on a credit-by-credit basis. This is good news for project teams, as they will be able to review their efforts and opt for the LEED version that benefits the team the most. After the pilot is balloted by members, it will become a stand-alone rating system, at which point new projects will lose that flexibility. To ensure maximum flexibility, project stakeholders can register a potential project as LEED v4 until the new version is official.
Plan of Attack
LEED v4 and v4.1 require a new approach to managing the construction process. Under LEED 2009, contractors were often handed a scorecard with their credits and left to muddle through which products may help them comply. This approach doesn’t work for LEED v4 and 4.1.
Credits that are traditionally labeled as construction credits now require a much more integrated approach with the design and the construction team. Finding LEED v4/v4.1 compliant products that have environmental product declarations and health product declarations takes a combined effort from designers and builders; hoping to stumble across them through the submittal process has become a risky proposition.
Building an organized plan of attack that works to meets the project’s LEED certification requirements is the first step toward achieving those goals, but it isn’t an easy one. Once a strategy has been identified, it is critical for the design and construction teams to remain in constant communication during construction to ensure it is implemented properly and is establishing positive traction towards meeting project goals.
Impacts of LEED v4.1 for General Contractors
While there are a number of changes affecting design credits under LEED v4.1, there’s been a significant impact to credits affecting the general contractor—most to their benefit. Standards remain stringent, but there are more pragmatic approaches to earning each of the Material and Resource (MR) and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Credits
Construction Waste Management
Construction waste management requires diverting at least 50% (or 75% for two points) of multiple materials from the landfill. LEED v4.1 keeps the diversion rate in place, but provides the option for project teams using a certified commingled recycling facility to reduce the total number of material streams from three to two (for one point) or four to three (for two points). This is especially beneficial for urban projects where site constraints don’t allow for multiple dumpsters and commingled recycling is a necessity.
Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)
Changes for v4.1 significantly make this credit more achievable by two ways:
- There are now alternative thresholds for interior projects, core and shell, and ware house projects, which—due to the comparative lack of finishes versus a fully built out building—put those projects at a disadvantage. These projects now only require 10 EPDs versus the 20 required for new construction buildings.
- A beneficial change to all projects, third-party verified EPDs (which make up most of those in the marketplace) now count for 1.5 products—effectively reducing the amount needed for compliance by 33%.
Sourcing of Raw Materials
Many teams have trouble earning this credit under v4, and v4.1 addresses those challenges in two ways.
- The cap on products that are part of a building’s structure or enclosure are gone. Now, 100% of structural steel and framing counts toward credit compliance, rather than being capped at 30%.
- The threshold has dropped from 25% for one point to 20% (with a second point available at 40%). The result is more points available with full recognition for all products’ contribution.
Material Ingredient Reporting (MIR)
MIR experiences the same changes as EPDs; there is a lower threshold for interior, core and shell, and warehouse projects and third-party verified reports count for 1.5, resulting in the same 33% reduction in necessary qualifying products.
Low-Emitting Materials
The big change for low-emitting materials is the expansion of the number of compliance categories that are available—expanding from five to eight. More categories allow project teams to be more strategic in their approach and focus where they know they can have success. The second big change is that while there are more categories of products to go after, less are required to hit the LEED thresholds, making this credit significantly more achievable than LEED v4.
Making the Change
While getting certified under LEED v4.0 certification had a reputation for being extremely challenging, the requirements in v4.1 have been reworked in ways that, with the right credit-earning plan, project teams can see significant improvements in reaching certification goals. Contractors should familiarize themselves with the new requirements beforehand and approach projects with the right mindset to achieve success under the new standards.
