Materials and Resources
Reduce, disclose, divert
Materials and Resources rewards thinking in a life-cycle way. Two prerequisites apply: Storage and Collection of Recyclables (a dedicated, accessible area sized to the waste stream) and Construction and Demolition Waste Management Planning.
Credits cluster into three families. First, life-cycle impact: Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction through reuse of existing structure and envelope, whole-building life-cycle assessment, or building and material reuse. Second, product transparency: Building Product Disclosure and Optimization, split into Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Sourcing of Raw Materials, and Material Ingredients. EPDs are third-party verified Type III declarations; the credit counts products by cost of permanently installed products meeting thresholds, and rewards both industry-wide and product-specific declarations. Health Product Declarations and Cradle to Cradle certifications serve the ingredient reporting path. Third, waste: Construction and Demolition Waste Management credits at diversion thresholds such as 50% and 75%.
Additional credits cover PBT source reduction (mercury, lead, cadmium, copper) and design for flexibility.
Traps
- Recycled content is not a standalone credit in current LEED; it appears within Sourcing of Raw Materials.
- The life-cycle assessment credit is whole-building, not a single-product comparison.
- Diversion is measured by weight and must be documented with hauling receipts.
- Material credits are usually counted by cost percentage, not by count of products.
Rule of thumb
Say it out loud: reuse the building, disclose the ingredients, divert the waste. Worked example: specifying salvaged brick helps both the life-cycle impact credit and the sourcing credit, but does nothing for EPDs.