Building Green About to Get Easier
USGBC’s Life Cycle Assessment Group Issues Recommendations
The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) working group has developed initial recommendations for incorporating LCA of building materials as part of the LEED Green Building Rating System.
Before specing out a building, designers and other industry pros will now have the tools to evaluate the environmental impact of products throughout their life cycles: from the extraction or harvesting of raw materials through processing, manufacture, installation, use, and ultimate disposal or recycling.
“We are venturing into new territory,” said Tom Hicks, vice president, U.S. Green Building Council, the nation’s leading green building organization.
For now, the LCA working group’s recommendations are specific to a building’s structure and envelope. They’ll be ranked according to their environmental impact, with LEED credits awarded accordingly.
As it stands, any LCA-based LEED credit must meet two essential requirements: the basis of the credits must be fair and objective, applied across all products at all stages of life; and, because LCA is inherently complex, the tools and methods used for credits must be very practical and intuitive for designers, specifiers and facilities managers to use at appropriate stages in the life cycle of buildings.
The LEED Steering Committee is considering the recommendations and will have a plan for implementation in place by the end of 2007.
For more information, visit: https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=2240
and https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=2241.
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