Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment for LEED 

How many LEED credits can you get

with One Click LCA?

Credits subject to project constraints. One Click LCA Ltd accepts no responsibility for omissions or errors in the above data.

MRc1 – Whole-building life-cycle

assessment for LEED

Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction, Option 4

Conducting a whole building life-cycle assessment to reduce impact has been an achievable way to earn credits in LEED Building Design and Construction (BD+C) since LEED v4 was released in 2013. The latest version, LEED v4.1, encourages wider adoption of LCA by offering a credit for completing a whole building LCA, even if no improvements are demonstrated.

You can refer to our article on Whole-building life cycle assessment in LEED v4 and v4.1 for more information.

LEED BD+C v 2009 (or v3)

In LEED BD+C v 2009 (or v3), you can follow this process to achieve the MRpc63 Whole-Building Life-Cycle Assessment credit.

Effortless Whole-Building LCA with One Click LCA

One Click LCA complies with all LEED requirements and supports all required impact categories, and provides dedicated LEED-specific applications to North American LEED users.

The North American version is powered by datasets from U.S. and Canada and uses TRACI 2.1. The application provides a fool-proof template that helps you deliver an LCA report for LEED certification. There is a bonus, too. If you achieve any improvement over the required credit thresholds in all six impact categories, you are eligible for the exemplary performance credit. LCA is also a regional priority credit in Canada and many parts of the United States: Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Illinois, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

MRc2 – Building product disclosure and optimization: Environmental Product Declaration

LEED v4.1

Option 1. Environmental Product Declaration (1 point)

The requirement of the credit is to use at least 20 different permanently installed products sourced from at least five different manufacturers that meet one of the disclosure criteria below.

• Products with a publicly available, critically reviewed life-cycle assessment conforming to ISO 14044 that have at least a cradle to gate scope- 1 product. 
• Product-specific Type III EPD (Internally Reviewed)- 1 product.
• Industry-wide Type III EPD — Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external verification – 1 product.
• Product-specific Type III EPD (Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external verification and external critical review) – 1.5 products.

Option 2. Embodied Carbon/LCA Optimization (1 point)

The requirement is to use products that have a compliant embodied carbon optimization report or action plan separate from the LCA or EPD. The credit requires the use of at least 5 permanently installed products sourced from at least three different manufacturers. Products are valued according to the table below.

LEED v4

Option 1. Environmental product declaration (EPD) (1 point)

In LEED v4, the requirement of the credit is to use at least 20 permanently installed building products from at least five different manufacturers that have an environmental product declaration (EPD). The type of the EPD defines its weight in calculations. 

• Product-specific declaration: Products with a publicly available, critically reviewed LCA conforming to ISO 14044 –0.25 product
• Industry-wide (generic) EPD: Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external verification, in which the manufacturer is explicitly recognized as a participant by the program- 0.5 product
• Product-specific Type III EPD: Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external verification in which the manufacturer is explicitly recognized as the participant by the program operator- 1 product

Option 2. Multi-Attribute Optimization (1 point)

In LEED v4, the requirement is to show that at least 50 % (by cost) of permanently installed building products demonstrate LCA impact reduction in at least 3 impact categories compared to the industry average. Alternatively, this may be shown by compliancy with other USGBC approved programs. This option weights the location of sourcing (products extracted, manufactured, purchased closer than 100 miles / 160 km counts as double) and caps structure and enclosure to not more than 30 % of the value of compliant building products.

For more details refer to LEED v4.

One Click LCA comes with an integrated North American EPD database

To be able to initially specify, and later to get these credits, you’ll need to go through a vast range of options and locate manufacturers with EPD data and review their impacts. One Click LCA helps you to get this done easily. We have an extensive LCA database that includes all major North American databases and EPDs, in addition to generic materials: NRMCA, ASTM, NSF, SCS Global Services, UL Environment, and Quartz. What’s more – you may have already chosen the EPDs when conducting the LCA analysis for MRc1 using One Click LCA. From there, you will just need to mark the EPDs you are actually going to use in the building design, to achieve this credit.

Our database conforms to ISO 14025, 14040, 14044, and EN 15804 or ISO 21930 and has at least a cradle to gate scope.

MRc3 — Building product disclosure and optimization, Sourcing of raw materials

The credit is concerned with responsible sourcing of permanently installed products.

LEED V4.1

Responsible Sourcing of Raw Materials (2 points)

In LEED v4.1 the requirement of the credit is to use products sourced from at least three different manufacturers that meet at least one of the responsible sourcing and extraction criteria below for at least 15%, by cost, of the total value of permanently installed building products in the project (1 point).

Use products sourced from at least five different manufacturers that meet at least one of the responsible sourcing and extraction criteria below for at least 30%, by cost, of the total value of permanently installed building products in the project (2 points).

LEED V4

Option 1. Raw Material Source and Extraction Reporting (1 point)

The requirement of the credit is to use at least 20 building products from at least five different manufacturers that have publicly released a report from their raw material suppliers which include raw material supplier extraction locations, a commitment to long-term ecologically responsible land use, a commitment to reducing environmental harms from extraction and/or manufacturing processes, and a commitment to meeting applicable standards or programs voluntarily that address responsible sourcing criteria. The credit looks for third-party verified corporate sustainability reports which comply with one of the following: GRI, OECD Guidelines, U.N. Global Compact, ISO 26000, or USGBC approved programs (1 product). Self-declared reports count as half product.

Option 2. Leadership Extraction Practices (1 point)

The requirement is to show that at least 25 % (by cost) of building products comply with one of the USGBC-nominated responsible extraction criteria, which include: extended producer responsibility (half weighting), bio-based materials, certified-origin wood products, reused materials, recycled content, and other USGBC approved programs. Like MRc2 credit, this option weights the location of sourcing (products extracted, manufactured, purchased closer than 100 miles / 160 km counts as double) and caps structure and enclosure to not more than 30 % of value of compliant building products.