LEED v4.1 BD+C | MR credit Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction (Option 2) | Europe ACP

Buildings Assessments LEED
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Hello,

I am performing a Whole-Building Life-Cycle Assessment for a hotel building in Portugal according to the LEED v4.1 BD+C MR credit Building Life-cycle Impact Reduction (Option 2) requirements.

The LEED online reference guide states in the credit language section that “For European projects, EN standard 15978 may be used as a framework for the Life-Cycle-Assessment. Where the implementation of EN 15978 conflicts with any requirements of this credit, the credit requirements prevail, including the life-cycle stages required and treatment of EPD data.”.

Since EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 no longer complies with ISO 21930:2017, such EPDs cannot be used in Building LCA calculations that follow EN 15804:2012+A1:2013 requirements for their results (adapted from EN 15804+A2: What the changes mean for EPDs | One Click LCA).

Therefore, the One Click LCA’s tool “LEED Int’l (CML)” does not use EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 compliant EPDs.

Is this assessment correct?

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Hi João!

For LEED v4.1 you should indeed use +A1 data (for projects outside of North America) however they do offer a path in which you can follow the Level(s) methodology (Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction | U.S. Green Building Council)

Under this method, you could use the Level(s) LCA tool (which uses EN15804+A2 data) to undertake an assessment.

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All new EPDs on the EU market have to be +A2 compliant which means undertaking the paths using +A1 data will become a bigger challenge.

The v5 draft is already available and even though it still aligns with CML results, I assume a similar setup to the ‘Europe ACP’ will be available as otherwise undertaking LEED assessments outside of North America using +A2 data will be nearly impossible. We will have to wait until the new version of LEED v5 is ready before we truly know in which direction they will go.

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