| ISO 14021 |
|---|
| the standard a recycled-content claim must meet |
Carson Elementary in Quesnel opens this month built to a LEED Gold equivalency, and it is furnished with our tables and benches. Whether that furniture counted toward the rating depends on paperwork we may or may not have supplied, and that is the point of this piece.
What the credit asks for
Under LEED v4.1, furniture is not required to be included in the Sourcing of Raw Materials credit, but a project team may include it. If they do, the recycled content claim has to conform to ISO 14021, meaning a single stated percentage, not a range, with the post-consumer and pre-consumer portions separated. The alternative route, an Environmental Product Declaration, needs the project to assemble ten qualifying products from three manufacturers, so one furniture EPD is a contribution to that count rather than a credit on its own.
Where we stand, honestly
Our lumber is 100% recycled and we state the split as approximately half post-consumer. That is a true statement and it is not yet a LEED-compliant one. The gap is a document: a substantiated figure from the lumber supplier, in ISO 14021 form. It is worth closing, because every school district, health authority and municipality building to a green standard will ask for it, and the ones that do not ask are simply not counting the furniture.
On site
