blog arrow-icons


Metal Buildings Achieve Sustainability | Earn LEED Credits


Long championed by architects and engineers for their durability and infinite design options, metal buildings also boast sustainability, particularly in regard to energy-efficiency and water diversion. Metallic Products Information on Sustainability and LEED Credits

But did you know that metal buildings are eligible for globally-recognized LEED program designations? LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, provides a framework to create healthy, highly efficient and cost-saving green buildings. LEED buildings cost less to operate and boost employee productivity and retention.

View applicable metal building LEED credits below (courtesy of Metal Building Manufacturers Association):

Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses
Up to 2 credits
Metal building systems (primary, secondary, cladding) are shop fabricated and erected on-site with the ability to minimize the need to stray too far from the building perimeter.

Rainwater Management
Up to 3 credits
Metal roofs provide excellent platform to collect quality rainwater for non-potable uses. Rainwater from metal roofs tends to be cleaner than water collected from other roof types.

Heat Island Effect
Up to 2 credits
Metal roofs are ideal for reducing heat island effects (i.e. cool roofs) with various paint coating to achieve the intended Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) value. This applies to building roof and parking lot-canopies for short term and long-term SRI performance.

Outdoor Water Use
Up to 2 credits
By way of the Rainwater Management program, the quality non-potable water may be implemented to reduce municipality water use for landscaping, toilet and urinal flushing, along with custodial uses.

Indoor Water Use
Up to 6 credits
By way of the Rainwater Management program, the quality non-potable water may be implemented to reduce municipality water use for landscaping, toilet and urinal flushing, along with custodial uses.

Optimized Energy Performance
Up to 18 credits
Metal building envelopes insulated to or above the base-energy codes, along with cool roof coatings, optimize the energy performance as validated through energy models. HVAC systems may be downsized with a thermally efficient building to help reduce electrical loads.

Renewable Energy Production
Up to 3 credits
Photovoltaic (PV) panels and solar thermal units attached to the metal roof profile provide a platform for renewable energy production.

Building Life Cycle Impact Reduction
Up to 5 credits
Adding an edition onto an existing metal building or dismantling and reusing parts of the building helps achieve Building and Material Reuse option for 2 points. Whole-Building Life-Cycle Assessment option for 3 points is ideal for metal buildings when using Whole Building LCA software like the Athena Impact Estimator software. MBMA contributed industry-wide LCI data and the metal building specific drop-down menus help the designer to achieve this credit.

Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Environmental Product Declarations
Up to 2 credits
The MBMA industry-wide LCA Final Report meets the requirement of publicly available, cradle-to-gate LCA, critically reviewed conforming to ISO 14044 standard to help earn credits. LCA Final Report available here. The three MBMA industry-wide EPDs that conforms to ISO 14044 and ISO 21930 with the cradle-to-gate scope also helps earn credits. The EPDs are available here.

Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Sourcing of Raw Materials
Up to 2 credits
Metal building manufacturer’s lists may provide the information to meet the Raw Material Source and Extraction Reporting option. The Leadership Extraction Practices option includes the list of traditional single-source attributes, such as recycled content, materials reuse, etc. The recycled content is a strong point for metal building construction. Steel is the only material with the approved default recycled content of 25%. Many steel producers and metal building manufacturers publish their true recycled content to increase the percentage for calculation purposes.

Construction and Demolition Waste Management
Up to 2 credits
Shop fabricated metal buildings systems provide limited on-site construction waste, thereby likely generating not more than 2.5 lbs of waste per square-foot of building area.

Low-Emitting Materials
Up to 3 credits
VOC emissions off the painted or primed metal building structure is limited. By in large, paintings and coatings applied to the steel are applied off-site and does not affect the VOC calculations within this credit.

Daylight
Up to 3 credits
As metal buildings incorporate a variety of windows, side-lights and skylights to help achieve this credit. Light transmitting panels installed on the metal roof or wall area may also include diffusers to enhance the lighting area.

Interested in upgrading your metal building ventilation system to optimize efficiency and earn LEED credits? Contact Metallic Products today to place an order.