Green Building
Green building is booming in the United States. By 2013, green building is expected to represent 25 percent of all commercial and institutional building starts and 20 percent of residential construction, up from 2 percent in 2005, according to McGraw-Hill Construction. And FSC-certified wood was found to be the most specified green-building product in McGraw-Hill’s database of 60,000 project specifications collected annually, surpassing even EnergyStar.
FSC-US is committed to providing quality education and service to the green building community. With over a thousand FSC chain-of-custody certified construction product suppliers in the U.S. alone, and thousands more globally, it is easy to find and use FSC-certified wood. See the links at left.
USGBC and LEED benchmark
Since its inception, the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system has recognized FSC as the world’s only credible forest certification system. This recognition has served as one of the more important drivers for FSC market demand as well new forest certification.
Today, the USGBC is under considerable pressure from conventional timber interests to also recognize their certification schemes. FSC approves of the USGBC’s intention to evaluate forest certification by a common benchmark; however, we question whether the rigor of the proposed benchmark will represent exemplary forest management or mark a major step backward for USGBC, green building and our forests.
FSC urged a vote of “Negative, with reason” to proposed LEED revisions in a November 2010 vote by the USGBC, which ultimately failed to meet the two-thirds majority required to pass. FSC remains committed to strong independent standards and a strengthened Forest Certification Benchmark.
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