Newsletter Stories


Thursday, 23 January 2014
LEED provides alternative compliance pathway for architectural woodworkers

 – FSC certified woodword in Vaughan City Hall. (© Vaughan City Hall)© Vaughan City Hall

January 23, 2014


Architectural woodworkers involved with LEED projects can now contribute FSC value to LEED projects via an alternative compliance pathway.  

This alternative path comes after the development and launch of the LEED v4 Reference Guide at Greenbuild in November 2013 and a LEED 2009 Interpretation on October 1st, 2013. 

The alternative path was created to provide Chain-of-Custody certified woodworkers assurance that every piece of FSC-certified wood used on LEED projects will contribute towards the certified wood content.  

Prior to this alternative pathway, certified architectural woodworkers reported challenges in contributing to the LEED Materials and Resources Credit 7 (MRc7), also called the Certified Wood credit.  

FSC Chain-of-Custody certification requires all FSC claims to be provided through invoices, with the proper FSC claim listed alongside each itemized FSC-certified product. These invoices are required for contributing certified wood value to LEED projects. However, since woodworkers typically invoice projects for a proportion of the total contract cost, the FSC invoice method for contributing to the credit was an additional administrative step.  

Also, woodworker’s regularly create custom woodwork, doing so within short turn-around times, sometimes ordering materials on an as-needed basis. Depending on architectural specifications, seasonal harvesting, manufacturer lead times, and other factors related to FSC supply, these shops may not be able to access 100% of the raw materials required for a given building project as certified or “controlled” within the time constraints of the project. Often this predicament could lead to an entire woodwork package becoming ineligible for FSC claims.  

The alternative pathway for architectural woodworkers was developed to address some of these challenges and is now available to use immediately for all those who qualify. It applies to both LEED 2009 and LEED V4.   

The full language of this new alternative path can be found at the link here.