Terry Weaver, Committee Chair discussed the take aways from attending the Greenbuild Conference in Los Angeles. He talked about the release of LEED Version 5 and the impact it will have on the construction and recycling communities. To help explain it, Terry welcomed Amanda Kaminski, a LEED AP Specialist and founder of Building Ecosystems LLC.

Amanda stated that there is an increased prioritization of reuse, as compared with other diverted materials. She also went on to say that there is also, an increased focus on third-party verification and the source separation of materials. She noted that a really big change is the capping of C&D recycling rates at 35% for commingled materials that are not received at a third-party verified facility.

Richard Ludt expanded on the conversation making attendees aware that traditionally, LEED O&M, Operation and Management, has never had a recycling, arm to it, but with LEED V5, they target four major materials; furniture, ceiling tile, carpet, and drywall. They have made some of the points for O&M harder to get, but to replace those, they have added a recycling element. So, if you can talk to your contractors about any TIs that are coming up for commercial interior projects, let them know that if the building tracks those four materials, they can now gain points towards O&M.

Terry also discussed the financial pledges to pay for phase 1 and 2 of the LCA project and praised Michael McCamley and his family from New West Gypsum. The McCamley family, who already contributed $20,000 towards the LCA project, just pledged another $10,000, bumping their total pledge amount to $30,000. Terry and the committee expressed their thanks and appreciation to Michael for their generous contribution.

Terry also discussed the third-party verification from Smart EPD that came in higher than expected, leaving the project about $15,000 short of the initial estimated cost. The Phase 3 task force will consist of 9 volunteers who have already had an initial launch meeting to get things started.

Anirban Ghosh from Saint-Gobain and Senior Manager for Strategy and Business Development for Circular Economy Solutions, was the guest speaker for this meeting. He focused on gypsum solutions, specific to Canada. He also presented information on their carbon load gypsum board. This dynamic presentation also featured information about their Montreal plant, which is, North America’s first, and at this time, only zero-carbon gypsum-producing plant.