FSC and LEED v4

Moving on to certified wood, LEED v4 includes a number of changes with regard to how these products are evaluated. In terms of how the respected Forest Stewardship Council certification fares in the updated rating system, the reviews are mixed.

While FSC actually had its own credit in LEED 2009, this is no longer the case with v4. Instead, it is one on a list of criteria which can help enable materials to earn one of the two points with the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization—Extraction of Materials category.

“This can be seen as a dilution of the incentives for FSC in LEED, but it can also be looked at as a stimulus,” observes Grant.

On the one hand, LEED 2009 awards a point if at least half of the permanently installed wood, as measured by cost, was FSC-certified, and a bonus point if projects installed 95 percent FSC-certified wood. In reality, however, many projects don’t reach this threshold, so once a project surpasses 51 percent FSC-certified wood, there is no incentive to increase this percentage if 95 percent is out of reach.

Under LEED v4, wood is grouped together with other building materials and counts accumulatively toward the requirement that 25 percent of the cost of all building materials meet certain sustainable standards.

Given that the total budget for wood in most commercial projects is rarely more than 10 percent—because the building structure is usually steel and concrete and the wood is used mostly for interior finishes—“One could use 100 percent FSCcertified wood and still not receive a point,” explains Grant. “But on the other hand, one will be motivated to specify as much FSC as possible because doing so will help get closer to that 25 percent threshold.”

Bowyer also points out that the wood industry is currently the only industry offering third-party verification of adherence to transparent standards for responsible, sustainable production.

“Despite the establishment of a Mining Stewardship Council in the same year that the FSC was established, zero headway has been made in getting the steel or cement industries to develop sustainability standards with third party oversight,” he says. “Ditto for the plastics industry.”

It is also interesting to note that the new credits have been structured to place more emphasis on material life, and not just the source of materials.

“Project teams will be required to use materials that have been sourced through environmentally preferable means, as demonstrated by a published life-cycle analysis,” explains Borgesi. “This puts less weight on FSC and forestry programs, which are primarily concerned with the harvesting of the material, and more weight on the overall life cycle—such as harvesting, manufacturing, distribution, use, disposal or reuse—of the material itself.”

One criticism of LEED v4’s approach to certified wood is the USGBC’s decision to include other wood certification systems besides the “Gold-standard” FSC, thereby bypassing the traditional member-vettingand- approval process.

“Unfortunately, USGBC staff is not technically qualified enough to be making these evaluations, and approving them without the benefit of member input and the consensus voting process is a great disappointment to many of us in the design arena,” laments White.

The issue here, explains Pierce, is that other forest certification programs do not stipulate the same level of positive forest management. To back this up, Pierce performed a side-by-side comparison of five different forest certification programs on the basis of old-growth protection, clear-cutting, natural forest conversion to plantations, chemical use and genetically modified organism use, and concluded that the FSC standard was significantly more demanding and rigorous in all areas.

Grant also bemoans the decision to downgrade FSC to a single attribute certification despite the fact that it has helped lead a market transformation of the forest products industry over the last decade. As he writes in a Green Building Product Dealer blog, “FSC is ranked the same as certification for recycled content or bio-based material or recovered/reused material. Never mind the fact that FSC certification’s 10 principles, 56 criteria and hundreds of regional indicators address myriad issues from ecological functions to biodiversity to threatened and endangered species and other high-conservation values to pesticide use to water quality to community and worker welfare to indigenous people’s rights—it’s still ‘single attribute.’”

Factoring in Recycled Content

Using recycled content has been a long-time standard practice in the wood products industry, and it is commonly used in products like particleboard, medium density fiberboard and finger-jointed framing members.

However, as Marc Lash, LEED AP, sustainability ambassador, FrontStreet Facility Solutions, Weston, Conn., explains, the growing challenge and limitation is sourcing wood-based waste for use in the manufacturing process.

“Currently, the demand for acceptable wood-based waste surpasses supply. Until we address the waste aggregation process, build processes and logistical systems that optimize reclamation, and identify clear definitions for usable wood waste, we will limit our ability to costeffectively produce finished goods made in whole or in part from recycled wood materials,” he says.

Fortunately, AWC is currently working with the Building Materials Reuse Association to develop the tools to increase the reuse and recycling of products at end-of-life. “Through this project, we hope to increase the amount of wood recovered that is still usable in some fashion, and implement programs, as other industries have done, to encourage reuse and recycling, and divert waste from municipal solid waste streams.”

In terms of LEED v4’s recognition of recycled content in wood products, not much weight is given as recycled content represents one of five different options for receiving just one point under the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization— Sourcing of Raw Materials section.

In addition, there is an FSC Mix Credit which covers FSC-certified products with pre- or post-consumer recycled content. However, according to a recently published LEED Interpretation (#10372), the project team must decide whether to classify the product, or some fraction of the assembly, as either FSC-certified or as recycled content. In other words, the team must choose to claim the material under MRc4: Recycled Content, or MRc7: Certified Wood, but not both.

Conclusion

In any case, despite the nitty-gritty of credits for recycled content, FSC-certified products and EPD limitations, in the grand scheme of things, wood products stand to fare quite well under the new LEED v4 credit system. Ultimately, this will hopefully continue to promote sustainable wood choices for building projects moving forward.