About LEED® and the USGBC
Excerpted from the USGBC Web site, www.usgbc.org.
Following the formation of the U.S. Green Building Council
(USGBC) in 1993, the organization’s members quickly realized that the sustainable building industry needed a system
to define and measure “green buildings.” The USGBC developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) Green Building Rating System™, which is voluntary,
consensus-based, and market-driven based on existing and
proven technology. The system evaluates environmental performance from a whole-building perspective over a building’s
life cycle, providing a definitive standard for what constitutes
a green building in design, construction, and operation.
The LEED rating systems are designed for rating new and
existing commercial, institutional, and residential buildings.
They are based on accepted energy and environmental principles and strike a balance between known, established practices and emerging concepts. Each rating system is organized
into five environmental categories: sustainable sites, water
efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources,
and indoor environmental quality.
product is directly multiplied by steel’s recycled content:
Steel recycled content value = (Value of steel product) x
(Postconsumer waste + ½ preconsumer %).
Let’s say you purchase $10,000 worth of wide-flange
structural steel framing for your building. You would calculate
the recycled content value this way:
($10,000) [ 56. 9 + (½) 31.4%] or ($10,000) (72.6%) =
$7,260. Therefore, the steel framing is a possible contribu-
tor to both the 10 and 20 percent recycled content credits.
Aluminum’s LEED
Wausau Window and Wall Systems, Wausau, Wis., now fabricates all of its products using aluminum extrusions exclusively from secondary billet that contains at least 70 percent
total recycled content. Depending on the customer specification and extrusion source, Wausau’s recycled aluminum
extrusions have a recycled content of 42 to 69 percent for
LEED credits, using the weight-based sum of postconsumer
recycled content plus ½ of the preconsumer content, the
company says.
The window company offers an example; however, as
used in a new building pursuing LEED certification, windows
contain more than just aluminum framing. This example
shows how framing is included with other window assembly
components:
sustainable building expertise as well as design measures
not covered under the five environmental categories. Regional
bonus points are another feature of LEED and acknowledge
the importance of local conditions in determining best environmental design and construction practices.
