Documenting Structural Steel's Recycled and Regional Content

While new projects can no longer be registered under the LEED-2009 rating system, projects already registered under LEED 2009 do have until 2021 to apply for LEED certification.  LEED 2009 grants credit points counting toward various levels of LEED certification for recycled and regional sourced materials. Other standards and codes also require this documentation.  LEED Credit MR-4 addresses the recycled content of materials and Credit MR-5 addresses the regional content of materials used in projects. In both cases, the cost of the materials (as delivered to the project site) qualifying for the credit is taken as a percentage of the total cost of all project materials (assumed to be 45% of overall project costs).  Two thresholds are defined in each credit.  If the project reaches the lower threshold, one point of credit is earned.  If the higher threshold is reached, two points of credit are gained. 

An article published in the February 2013 issue of Modern Steel Construction, Green Roadmap, details the necessary steps for documenting these credits.
 
The source material for documenting these credits must be provided from the producing steel mill. Mill specific documentation for recycled content can be found on the following mill web sites:

• Nucor
• Gerdau
• Steel Dynamics
• Independence Tube        

Current LEED Reporting templates are available on the SteelTools website, www.steeltools.org, under the keyword LEED.