Use of certified wood drops in 2011 LEED projects

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PORTLAND, Ore. – This year, significantly fewer Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design projects specified the use of wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

A recent report issued by GreenBiz Group found FSC wood was used in only 26 percent of new LEED construction in 2011, down from 41 percent last year. The significant drop may reflect a program change that impacted projects targeting the standard’s minimum requirements.

Only wood products certified by FSC are eligible for LEED points, and projects must use at least 50 percent FSC-certified wood-based materials and products in order to earn LEED points.

The USGBC in July 2010 issued several addenda that clarified the guidelines relating to the credit for certified wood. Once the addenda went into effect, more organizations in the supply chain had to be chain-of-custody certified in order for their wood products to count toward the LEED credit.

The stricter guidelines impacted cabinetmakers and architectural mill workers whose products no longer counted toward the LEED credit, as well as teams that were banking on those products to give them the 50 percent FSC-certified content that their projects needed to earn the wood credit.

And project teams that did not have much of a buffer built into their plans were left in the lurch when they became aware of the new requirements, according to the president of FSC-U.S., Corey Brinkema.

“It’s our understanding that this change was very significant and explains part of the decrease this year,” he said.

For example, cabinetmakers that install FSC-certified cabinets but are not FSC chain-of-custody certified initially qualified for the credit, Brinkema said, but were no longer eligible after the change.

“One of LEED’s shortcomings is that it’s a threshold system. If you only need a certain percentage to meet the minimum demand, then the market will dictate meeting that minimum standard,” said K.C. Eisenberg, sales director for Sustainable Northwest Wood, one of the leading regional suppliers of FSC-certified lumber.

Because LEED impacts the market for wood-related companies, Brinkema said the organization is working hard to help companies seeking to qualify for the credit.

“We hear it time and again that the credit is the primary reason for being certified. That’s the power of the standard,” Brinkema said. “But we’ve had a lot of questions from businesses this year, asking what they need to do to meet that credit again.”

But Mark Smith, president of Neil Kelly Cabinet Co., said that the addendum the U.S. Green Building Council issued last year hasn’t impacted any of its projects. Rather, cost and availability continue to be the biggest hurdles to earning LEED points for certified wood.

“We offer certified materials to our customers, but the caveat is that it has to be what’s actually available,” Smith said.

Neil Kelly Cabinet Co., a subsidiary of Portland-based Neil Kelly Co., was one of the first to manufacture sustainably constructed cabinets and earn a chain-of-custody certification.

“Depending on what the architect specifies, it’s sometimes difficult to get a certified product to fit that need,” Smith said.

He said that he sometimes offers the same material with a different cut, or a different material that finishes in the same way.

“It’s a good thing for green certifications to be rigid,” Smith said. “But we’ve experienced that it’s sometimes difficult to meet the (LEED) wood credit because of product availability or cost.”

While particular finishes may be difficult to find, Carrington Barrs, co-founder and principal of B&G Builders Inc., said that Oregon builders have relatively easy access to FSC-certified framing lumber.

“Around here you can buy FSC-certified framing lumber for about a 5 or 10 percent premium on a job,” he said.

The deciding factor in an FSC-certified wood decision may be the client. B&G is wrapping up construction in southeast Portland on the Cyrk building, a live-work project that used 99 percent FSC-certified wood and may be rated LEED platinum, according to Barrs. The clients, Will Emery and Bonnie Serkin, were willing to pay nearly 30 percent more for FSC-certified siding.

“At the end of the day, the general public has to understand the value of good forest management,” Brinkema said.

FSC is hiring a new staffer to focus exclusively on the general consumer market in 2012.

O’BRIEN writes for the (Oregon) Daily Journal of Commerce, a sister publication to The Mecklenburg Times.