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Representatives from ARCOM and the U.S. Green Building Council met recently to discuss ways that MASTERSPEC could support efforts being made toward making new buildings more environmentally friendly. The U.S. Green Building Council is the author of the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED™) Rating System, which is a voluntary system for rating and certifying new buildings based on how well they deal with certain environmental concerns. LEED addresses three areas of environmental concern: sustainability, pollution reduction, and indoor air quality. Many of the individual items in the LEED rating system relate more to building design than to specifications; however, some are directly related to specifications while others are related to material or product selection, which affects specifications.
One of the steps identified for initial action was to determine which items in the LEED Rating System are affected by specifications and create a list correlating them with the relevant MASTERSPEC sections. The next step was to determine what type of action would be taken for each affected MASTERSPEC section by way of modifying the Section Text and the Evaluations to enable the specification writer to comply with the requirements of the LEED Rating System items that relate to that section. For many MASTERSPEC sections, the primary effort will be to include discussion on material or product choices as they relate to LEED prerequisites or credits. For some sections, provisions will be added to the Section Text to allow users to specify environmentally friendly materials, such as certified wood products, products containing recycled materials, etc.
The information obtained in the first two steps was then rearranged by specification section number so that it
can be used in the updating process. As sections are updated, each writer will refer to the items listed for the
MASTERSPEC section that they are updating and will take the appropriate action. Because the updating cycle
of the entire MASTERSPEC library takes place over several years, a special LEED update that would contain
relevant material for all MASTERSPEC sections affected by the LEED Rating System is also being considered.
ARCOM has become a member of the U.S. Green Building Council to further support the council's efforts
toward a more environmentally friendly built environment.
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