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Materials & Resource — Recycled Content: Points in this category range from 1 to 2 depending on the amount of post-consumer or post-industrial recycled content of the product or products used.

The criteria for this category calls for a minimum of 25 percent of all materials used in the project to contain, in aggregate, a minimum weighted average of 20 percent post-consumer recycled content, or 40 percent post-industrial recycled content. The aggregate of all materials is based on calculating the total purchased dollars of each material.

Given this structure, it’s not important that insulation per se be high in recycled content because insulation typically represents only about 1 percent of the dollars spent for all materials in the project.

To verify the recycled content of materials, LEED allows the use of the product database maintained by the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) at www.ciwmb.ca.gov/rcp. The Website has a six-page list of 145 insulation products and reports the post-consumer content (PC) and total recycled-content (TC) for each product listed.

Materials & Resource — Local/Regional Materials: The intent of this category is to increase demand for building materials and products that are extracted and manufactured within the region, thereby supporting the regional economy and reducing the environmental impacts resulting from transportation.

Points in this category range from 1 to 2 depending on the amount of materials that are extracted and manufactured regionally within a radius of 500 miles of the project.

The category calls for a minimum of 20 percent of all materials used in the project to be manufactured (final assembly before shipment to the jobsite) within a 500 mile radius of the project. You can gain an extra point if 50 percent of the regionally manufactured materials are extracted, harvested or recovered within a 500-mile radius of the project.

To meet this criterion substantiating documentation must be provided describing distance and the dollar amount of each material used.

The good news in this category is that insulation — a bulky but light material — is generally not shipped great distances from where it is made. The business tends to be very regional with manufacturing facilities scattered throughout North America. On the other hand, insulation typically represents only about 1 percent of the dollars expended for all materials on a project so it is difficult to achieve the needed percentage of recycled content with such a low-cost product.

Materials & Resource — Rapidly Renewable Materials: This category allows 1 point if at least 5 percent of all materials used in the project are considered rapidly renewable.

Rapidly renewable resources are materials that substantially replenish themselves faster than traditional extraction demand. Like the previous category, it is not particularly important that insulation per se be considered rapidly renewable because insulation typically represents only a small portion of the dollars expended for all materials in the project. Nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified glass fiber and other types of insulation as rapidly renewable and, therefore, insulation can help meet this point criterion.