Wishful (Magical?) Thinking on Products and LEED's Materials Credits

In my years as chair of LEED's Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR-TAG) I've gotten lots of questions and comments about interesting interpretations and claims from product manufacturers. Most manufacturers are sincere in their efforts to understand the credit requirements and present their products in a positive light. Sometimes they just don't go far enough in studying the credit language before making their claims. Sometimes they just lapse into wishful thinking.

Perhaps the best examples of wishful thinking that I've seen are those who claim that if a product is formed or molded on the building site than they can claim that it contributes to the regional materials credit because it was manufactured on site. Terrazzo flooring manufacturers all seem to jump on this wacky interpretation (here's just one example), and I've heard that spray-foam insulation companies are making it as well.

Another claim I see a lot is for products that supposedly meet LEED's requirement for low indoor emissions, even though they are not in one of the categories to which that credit applies. Those categories are adhesives & sealants, paints & coatings, carpet, composite wood, and (for LEED-CI) furniture. The carpet category has now been extended to include other flooring. Insulation doesn't count as a sealant in LEED, even if it is a foamed-in-place product that reduces air infiltration.

Finally, there is the wild west of recycled content claims. Some products and material sources admittedly fall into a gray area, so it's hard to blame companies for interpreting things to their benefit. Others are not so excusable. Float glass manufacturers, for example, have always recycled off-spec glass back into their product, and it's recycled right back into the same production line. Those conditions clearly violate LEED's definitions of what constitute recycled content, even under the older guidelines which were based on Federal Trade Commission rules. LEED for New Construction has updated its citation to reference ISO 14021, which is clearer on these matters — but nothing is clear enough, apparently, to survive wishful reinterpretations.