Reality Check for LEED v4 Product Credits

Among the biggest changes that LEED v4 brought to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System were three new credits in the Materials & Resources category. These credits cover building product disclosure and optimization, or BPDO: Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Raw Material Extraction, and Material Ingredients. Each of these three credits introduced reporting formats that were either entirely new—like Health Product Declarations (HPDs)—or just unfamiliar to the North American market, such as EPDs.

Some of these new reporting formats have gained quick traction, and the points that depend on them are already easy to achieve for most projects. Others are still elusive, with their points effectively out of reach. See the “BPDO Cheat Sheet” infographic for a quick take on which ones are—and are not—worth pursuing.