LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design)
The U.S. Green Building Council is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. It is leading a national consensus for producing a new generation of buildings that deliver high performance inside and out. As a member of LEED, using our products may help to achieve LEED credits (up to 7 credits/points). The LEED program focuses exclusively on an individual building structure not a specific product. The purpose of the program is to evaluate the whole building from an environmental performance perspective over the buildings life cycle to determine if the building is a "green building.
Sustainability
Under normal type of foot wear and tear as well as traffic, rubber flooring typically outlasts carpet and linoleum floors. The tiles can be managed in such a way that their life span is doubled and even tripled. Moving the interlocking pieces away from high traffic zones and exchanging them with other interlocking tiles-mats-blocks in low traffic zones achieve this. In addition, the interlocking tiles-mats-blocks are sometimes reversible (depending on the product) and easy to re-install if needed, thus extending the life span.
Once the unitary rubberized safety surfacing, flooring and pavers are no longer being used, the can be shipped back to "UNITY" for recycling. These resulting materials are then used in manufacturing our other environmentally friendly products such as: Tough-Land, Pave-Land, Play-Land, Soft-land, Rainbow land and even Rubber-Land.
LEED Contribution:
LEED is a self-assessing rating system based on a point system that focuses on a number of individual building structure, design and construction categories, not a specific product, which will reduce a building's environmental footprint. Unity can help with four of the categories:
- Recycled Content
- Local / Regional Materials
- Construction Waste Management
- Low-Emitting Materials
The purpose of the program is to evaluate the whole building from an environmental performance life cycle perspective and to determine if the building is "green", or "going-green". Unity Surfacing Systems can help with two of the categories -
- Materials and Resources
- Indoor Environmental Quality.
The following chart summarizes the point potential for both these categories and shows where Unity's rubberized safety surfacing, flooring and paver products may help you contribute to the potential earning of credit points.
Project |
Category |
Credits |
# of points available |
Materials & Resources |
Recycled Content |
MR 4.1 |
1 |
|
Recycled Content |
MR 4.2 |
1 |
|
Local/Regional Materials |
MR 5.1 |
1 |
|
Local/Regional Materials |
MR 5.2 |
1 |
|
Construction Waste Mgt |
MR 2.1 |
1 |
|
Construction Waste Mgt |
MR 2.2 |
1 |
Indoor Environment quality |
Low Emitting Materials |
EQ 4.1 |
1 |
Materials & Resources Credit 4: Recycled Content
Intent:
Increase demand for building products that incorporates recycled content materials, therefore reducing the impacts resulting from extraction and process of new virgin materials.
Credit 4.1 (1 point) Requirements:
Used materials with recycled content such that the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half (the value of) the post-industrial content constitutes at least 10% of the total value of the materials in the project.
The value of the recycled content portion of a material or furnishing shall be determined by dividing the weight of recycled content in the item by the total weight of all materials in the item, then multiplying the resulting percentages by the total value of the item.
Credit 4.2 (1 point in addition to MR.4.1) Requirements:
Used materials with recycled content such that the sum of post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the post-industrial content constitutes at least 20% of the total value of the materials in the project.
Unity's contribution:
Our products are compressed of shredded tires and rubber that is cleaned SBR (100% post-consumer waste) and colorful EPDM flex (30% pre-consumer waste). Recycled content is defined in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization document, ISO 14021 - Environmental labels and declarations:
- Post-consumer material - waste materials diverted from waste stream after consumer or commercial use.
- Pre-consumer material - materials diverted from waste stream during manufacturing process. Excluding is regrind, rework or scrap.
Potential Technologies & Strategies:
Establish a project goal for the recycled content materials and identify material suppliers that can achieve this goal. During construction, ensure that the specified recycled content materials are installed and quantify the total percentage of recycled content materials installed. Consider a range of environmental, economic and performance attributes when selecting products and materials within the Unity line. |