– Like Illegal Wood – From the Building Material Supply Chain

Today, the U.S. Green Building Council(USGBC) announced the quarterly addenda to the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system, which includes a new pilot Alternative Compliance Path (ACP) credit that is designed to further advance environmentally responsible forest management and help rid our buildings of illegal wood by promoting the use of wood that is verified to be legal. The pilot ACP builds on the robust infrastructure that has been built around responsible wood sourcing and chain of custody to test an approach to prerequisite requirements, which could serve as a model for other building materials.

This new pilot ACP is applicable to both LEED 2009 and LEED v4 systems. While LEED has always rewarded leadership in materials specification. Yet this new ACP seeks to leverage LEED’s unparalleled market power by focusing attention on the significant need for more comprehensive and effective legality verification of building products. The pilot ACP is designed to address a critical piece of the supply chain. Moreover and reward project teams who proactively verify that the wood they are using is legal.

 

 

 

 

Healthy, vibrant forests are an essential piece of life as we know it,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO and founding chair, USGBC.

Over the last 15 years, the green building industry has invested a significant amount of resources related to responsible procurement of forest products. That which have taken up the vast majority of the debate about raw materials sourcing.

LEED

The LEED green building certification system is the world’s most widely used program for the design. Also for construction, maintenance and operations of green buildings. Today, there are nearly 75,000 commercial projects participating in LEED across the globe, with 1.85 million square feet of building space becoming LEED-certified every day.

Green construction is a large economic driver. According to the 2015 USGBC Green Building Economic Impact Study. So green construction will account for more than 3.3 million U.S. jobs. That’s more than one-third of the entire U.S. construction sector. Moreover it is to generate $190.3 billion in labor earnings. The industry’s direct contribution to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is also expected to reach $303.5 billion from 2015–2018.

For more information about the LEED credits visit: www.usgbc.org/LEED.

Source: The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) usgbc.org, Washington, DC – (April 5, 2016)