Sustainable (Green) Building: High Performance Schools

Criteria: Recycled Content Credit

There are two methods for earning points for using recycled-content materials within the CHPS Best Practices Manual, Volume III, Criteria. There is a prescriptive or a performance approach. The prescriptive approach awards points for specifying materials from the U.S. EPA's Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG). The performance approach awards points by achieving a recycled content rate, which is calculated based on the cost of recycled content materials in comparison to the cost of all building products. Based on feedback from demonstration projects, it appears that the prescriptive approach is the easiest to pursue at this time.

• Prescriptive Approach
• Performance Approach

Performance Approach

There are two options in the performance approach:

Option 1: Calculation utilizing total project material cost and post-consumer recycled content value to come up with the recycled content rate. This approach provides an incentive for products with over 20 percent post-consumer recycled content.

Option 2: Calculate recycled content rate from products that meet State Agency Buy Recycled Campaign (SABRC) (50:10) requirements of 10 percent post-consumer recycled content with at least 50 percent total recycled content.

Prescriptive Approach

A school can earn up to two points towards CHPS certification by specifying recycled content products. In order to earn two points, a school must specify six products that meet the recycled content percentages outlined in the U.S. EPA’s Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG) Construction products list and two other products from any of the other EPA's CPG lists. Several tools are available to assist in locating products that meet the EPA's CPG.

• These tables include products that meet the EPA's CPG recycled content levels. Because of their focus on California-specific manufacturers, these lists are limited and additional products may be available.
  • Construction Products (Adobe PDF, 121 KB)*
  • Park and Recreation Products (Adobe PDF, 101 KB)
  • Landscaping Products (Adobe PDF, 95 KB)*
  • Compost Products (Adobe PDF, 116 KB)*
  • Transportation Products (Adobe PDF, 93 KB)*
• The EPA's CPG Web site includes a searchable supplier database. While they make "reasonable efforts to verify that the information posted on this database is accurate and that the vendors and suppliers meet the CPG's [recycled content percentage] recommendations," there is no guarantee the products included in the list meet those requirements.
• GreenSpec (fee based) allows on-line browsing of products that meet the CPG recommendations.

*Note: To access the PDF files, which include graphics, you will need to first download the free Adobe Reader.

Last updated: January 15, 2008