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Designing & Building with FSC:

FAQ's regarding the LEED® "Certified Wood Credit"

logo: Green Building Council

Please note: these questions & answers relate specifically to earning the certified wood credit in the LEED green building rating system. For help in finding FSC-certified building products, please visit www.findfsc.org. For additional questions about LEED, please visit www.usgbc.org.

Q: WHAT ARE THE CURRENT REQUIREMENTS FOR DOCUMENTING THE USE OF FSC CERTIFIED WOOD IN LEED?

As of April 2008, the guiding language approved by US Green Building Council's Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR TAG) for documenting the use of FSC certified wood across all LEED rating systems -- commercial (i.e. LEED-NC and LEED-CI) as well as residential (LEED for Homes) -- is as follows:

All vendor invoices for permanently-installed wood products, both FSC-certified and not, purchased by the project contractor and subcontractors must be compiled. Vendors are defined as those companies that sell products to the project contractor or subcontractors.

The cost of all wood products, both FSC-certified and not, must be tallied on the appropriate LEED document (e.g., MRc7 template). Wood products that are not FSC certified and those that are identified on invoices as "FSC Pure" and "FSC Mixed Credit" should be valued at 100% of the product cost. Wood products identified as "FSC Mixed [NN]%" should be valued at the indicated percentage of their cost, e.g., a product identified as "FSC Mixed 75%," should be valued at 75% of the cost. (1)

Each vendor invoice must conform to the following requirements (except as noted in the Appendix under ‘Exceptions'):

  1. Each wood product must be identified on a line-item basis;
  2. FSC products must be identified as such on a line-item basis;
  3. The $ value of each line item must be shown;
  4. The vendor's chain-of-custody (COC) certificate number must be shown on any invoice that includes FSC products.

Note that this means that each wood products vendor that invoices FSC-certified products must be COC-certified by an FSC-accredited certifier.

Wood products identified as "FSC Recycled" or "FSC Recycled Credit" do not count toward certified wood credits. They qualify instead as recycled content products.

APPENDIX

Exceptions. In some rare instances, it may not be practical for a vendor to invoice wood products on a line-item basis because the invoice would be dozens of pages long. In such cases, the invoice should indicate the aggregate value of wood products sold by the vendor. If the wood products are FSC certified:

  • The vendor's COC number must be shown on the invoice;
  • The invoice must be supplemented by a letter from the vendor stating that the products invoiced are FSC certified.
  • The invoice or the letter must state whether the products are "FSC Pure," "FSC Mixed Credit," or "FSC Mixed," followed by a percentage. Wood products identified as "FSC Pure" and "FSC Mixed Credit" are valued at100% of their cost. Wood products identified as "FSC Mixed [NN]%" are valued at the stated percentage of their cost.

Q: HOW ARE THESE REQUIREMENTS DIFFERENT FROM HOW THINGS WORKED BEFORE?

Prior to the adoption of this revised language, FSC rules and LEED requirements were out of sync with respect to the extent of chain of custody certification required. Previously, LEED distinguished between products that were individually labelled and those that were not: For individually-labeled products, the manufacturer's COC number was required; for products that were not individually labeled, the required COC number was that of the company supplying wood products to project contractors and subcontractors.

FSC does not make this distinction; it requires that all companies that take legal ownership of FSC products and produce, sell, promote, or trade them be certified for COC. The fact that FSC rules and LEED requirements were out of sync created confusion in the supply chain for LEED projects. The intention of the new requirements is to eliminate this confusion.

In addition, according to previous LEED requirements, the only required documentation was a COC certificate number, but that alone is insufficient to demonstrate compliance with credit requirements. There are two reasons for this. First, a COC certificate gives a company the right to produce, sell, promote, or trade FSC-certified wood products, but it does not mean that company is actually doing so. Second, because the credit calculation is based on the cost of both FSC and non-FSC products, itemized cost information was needed. The revised language therefore focuses on vendor invoices that show both a valid COC certificate number and line items indicating which products are FSC-certified.

Q: WHY ARE PRODUCTS THAT ARE IDENTIFIED ON VENDOR INVOICES AS "FSC Mixed [NN]%" VALUED LESS THAN PRODUCTS THAT ARE IDENTIFIED AS "FSC Pure" OR "FSC Mixed Credit," WHICH ARE VALUED AT 100%?

The most recent FSC Chain of Custody Standard (FSC-STD-40-004 V2) establishes that FSC Pure products are made entirely of wood or fiber originating from FSC-certified forests, while FSC Mixed products combine FSC-certified material, controlled wood, and/or reclaimed material.
FSC Mixed products fall into two basic categories:

  1. Products invoiced on a line-item basis as "FSC Mixed [NN]%." In these cases, the product or products contain the indicated percentage of FSC material.
  2. Products invoiced on a line-item basis as "FSC Mixed Credit." This indicates that the products were manufactured under the "Credit System," in which a percentage of a production batch, corresponding to the percentage of the input that is FSC certified, may be sold as "FSC Mixed Credit." The specific product invoiced as "FSC Mixed Credit" may not itself contain FSC material, but the overall percentage of the batch sold as FSC corresponds directly to the FSC input fraction.

The logic for valuing FSC Pure products at 100% is obvious, as they do, in fact, contain 100% FSC material.
"FSC Mixed Credit" products are also valued at 100% because the amount of material carrying this label corresponds to the amount of FSC material in the production batch, representing a "pass-through" of FSC-certified material: if 90% of inputs into the production batch are FSC certified, then 90% of the products that come out can be sold as FSC certified.

Products labeled "FSC Mixed [NN]%" are valued at the indicated percentage, i.e., the percentage of actual FSC certified content, because this is consistent with past LEED practice and the intent of the Certified Wood credit.