LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building certification system. It provides an independent, third-party verification that a building is built and designed in an environmentally friendly way. The LEED certification scheme was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), but it’s very well-known and frequently used on a global scale.
A LEED assessment focuses primarily on the environmental impact of buildings and to a lesser extent addresses the social impacts regarding sustainability. It predominantly focuses on environmental concerns. The LEED scheme consists of different families of rating systems: Building Design and Construction (BD+C); Interior Design and Construction (ID+C); Operations and Maintenance (O+M); Neighbourhood Development (ND); Homes (H). LEED is flexible enough to apply to all building types – commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle – design and construction, operations and maintenance, tenant fit-out, and significant retrofit. And LEED for Neighbourhood Development extends the benefits of LEED beyond the building footprint into the neighbourhood it serves.
Rockpanel provides the information you need to create sustainable buildings. Please find relevant documentation and certificates, including our externally verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) here.
To obtain a LEED certification, you should first of all fulfil some basic prerequisites. After that, there are ways to receive credits based on a point system. Buildings can receive points based on the extent various sustainable strategies are achieved. There are four levels of certification that you can get: Certified (40–49 points), Silver (50–59 points), Gold (60–79 points) or Platinum (80+ points). A building project can assemble up to 110 possible points. Approximately 10-30% of the credits for a building can be achieved when material manufacturers supply documentation in compliance with the LEED® requirements or criteria.
The LEED sustainability scheme looks at various aspects of sustainability. Think of categories such as location and transportation, sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy & atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, innovation and material & resources. This latter credit category focuses on minimizing the impacts and energy use associated with building materials throughout their full life cycle, including what happens at the end of life of a product.
As Rockpanel facade cladding is made from basalt, a natural and non-depletable raw material that’s fully recyclable, using our facade panels can help getting LEED credits in the materials category. Moreover, as Rockpanel products fit perfectly into a ventilated facade, which can help improving a building’s energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality, there are even more opportunities to gain LEED credits here. Further on, Rockpanel can contribute to gaining credits for the 3rd party verified EPD which is available for our products, our recycling program, our ROCKWOOL Sustainability report, the ROCKWOOL Group Code of Conduct for Suppliers and our REACH compliance.
We manufacture board material mostly used in ventilated constructions, for facade cladding, roof detailing, soffits and fascias.
