Paperless and Green

HACCP Builder can qualify your organization for LEED points by eliminating a tremendous amount of paperwork and increasing efficiencies.  On this page we have provided the MR Credit 1.1-1.3 guidelines for qualification.

MR Credit 1.1-1.3:  Sustainable Purchasing:  Ongoing Consumables
1-3 Points

Intent
To reduce the environmental and air quality impacts of the materials acquired for use in the operations and maintenance of buildings.

Requirements
Maintain a sustainable purchasing program covering materials with a low cost per unit that are regularly used and replaced through the course of business.  These materials include, but are not limited to, paper (printing or copy paper, notebooks, notepads, envelopes), toner cartridges, binders, batteries, and desk accessories but exclude food and beverage.  For materials that may be considered either ongoing consumables or durable goods, the project team is free to decide which category to put them in as long as consistency is maintained with MR credit 2, with no contradictions, exclusions or double counting.  Consistency must also maintained with MR credit 7.

A template calculator for MR Credits 1.1-1.3 is available in the LEED for Existing Buildings:  Operations & Maintenance Reference Guide.  One, two or three points are awarded to projects that achieve sustainable purchases of at least 40%, 60% or 80%, respectively, of total purchases (by cost) over the performance period.  Sustainable purchases are those that meet one or more of the following criteria:

- Purchases contain at least 10% post consumer or 20% post industrial material
- Purchases contain at least 50% rapidly renewable materials
- Purchases contain at least 50% materials harvested and processed or extracted and processes within 500 miles of the project
- The purchases consist of at least 50% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - certified paper products
- Batteries are rechargeable

Each purchase can receive credit for each sustainable criterion met (i.e., a $100.00 purchase that contains both 10% post consumer recycled content and 50% of content harvested within 500 miles of the project counts twice in the calculation, for a total of $200.00 sustainable purchasing).

Ongoing consumables must be purchased during the performance period to earn points in this credit.

Potential Technologies and Strategies
When purchasing materials, supplies or equipment, specify those that meet one or more of the criteria.

The sustainable purchasing policy introduced environmentally conscious purchasing to building practices.  The policy-defined objective and sustainability claims verification procedure are the guides to achieving this credit.  Verification procedures may rely on product certifications such as Green Seal and ENERGY STAR.  Take care to confirm the validity of any producer certification criteria before including it in the sustainable purchasing policy.  An acceptable way to achieve this credit is by using the US Environmental Protection Agency's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program guidelines.  The EPP Program information can be found on the associated website;

http://www.epa.gov/epp/.  This credit will support the sustainable purchasing policy through implementing its requirements, and will demonstrate the projects actual, ongoing performance.