Choosing EnviroSafe products for your school or other construction projects can increase your LEED credit score and play an important role in achieving an eco-friendly environment.
The EnviroSafe® Foam Competitive Advantage |
||
 | Urethane/Poly Foams |
|
| 100% Toxin-Free | YES | No |
| Zero VOC's or Off Gas | YES | No |
| Hypo allergenic | YES | No |
| Latex-Free | YES | No |
| Fire Retardant Calif 117 T.B. | YES | No |
| Mold and Mildew Proof | YES | No |
| 100% Recyclable | YES | No |
| No Leachable Chemicals | YES | No |
EnviroSafe from CoverSports USA is a new green foam product that is a smart, safe and healthy alternative to Polyurethane, Polyethylene and Bonded foams. Enviro- Safe is made from 60% recycled and 40% virgin polyester fiber (and is 100% recyclable). There are no toxins or chemicals used in the manufacturing process.
| 2" Med-Firm EnviroSafe Folding Mat | Number of Plastic Bottles Used |
|---|---|
| 4' x 6' | 403 |
| 4' x 8' | 537 |
| 5' x 10' | 839 |
| 6' x 12' | 1208 |
The EnviroSafe® Advantage is highlighted here:
Soft IFD-100 – Similar to IFD-100 Polyurethane
Medium-Firm – Similar to Bonded
Extra-Firm – Similar to Polyethylene
The CoverSports USA EnviroSafe product line includes indoor and outdoor wall padding and indoor gymnasium mats. They come in varying degrees of firmness and in any size, custom made to your needs. For the purposes of our LEED Certification discussion, we will focus primarily on indoor wall panels.
Our EnviroSafe wall pads are made with a phthalate free, fire-retardant PVC coated vinyl covering, urea formaldehyde free backerboards and water based, solvent-free adhesive.
At CoverSports USA, we don’t just manufacture the nation’s most durable and most attractive covers for athletic surfaces. We also strive to do so in a sustainable manner.
In an industry that is filled with fabrics, textiles and materials that have a negative impact on the environment, we are committed to using products that contribute to making our covers more ecological. Making our world a more sustainable place requires a collaborative effort from all of us, particularly those in the green building industry. Achieving the goal of sustainability may prove to be a long, challenging journey, but one that we hope to help make as smooth as possible.
With the development of our new EnviroSafe mats and padding collection, we have learned a tremendous amount about the role interior products play in green building. This applies not only to the idea that EnviroSafe foams are made with recycled content, but also the fact that the foams are recyclable.
Using mats and pads that are made with recycled content and are recyclable leaves a much smaller environmental “footprint” than your typical foams. Recycling consumes less energy and natural resources while releasing fewer harmful substances into the air and water. Its no wonder, then, that using recycled and recyclable mats and pads can help a building achieve official designation “green.”
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is the nation’s foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. USGBC is:
To transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.
Categories of LEED Ratings:
LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC)
LEED for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB)
LEED for Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI)
LEED for Core & Shell (LEED-CS)
LEED for Schools
LEED for Retail
LEED for Healthcare
LEED for Homes
LEED for Neighborhood Development
We are going to look specifically at one rating system – LEED for New Construction & Major Renovations, as it is most applicable to indoor mats and wall pads.
LEED-NC Categories
LEED-NC addresses the following areas:
Category 1 Sustainable Sites (SS)
Category 2 Water Efficiency (WE)
Category 3 Energy and Atmosphere (EA)
Category 4 Materials and Resources
Category 5 Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ)
Category 6 Innovation and Design Process (ID)
For more information on each category, refer to the LEEDNC Reference Guide (available for order at www.usgbc.org). The LEED-NC Reference Guide is a supporting document to the LEED-NC Green Building Rating System. The Guide is intended to assist project teams in understanding LEED-NC criteria and the benefits of complying with each criterion.
Each LEED-NC category is defined by a checklist of prerequisites and credits. Fulfilling items on the checklist earns points towards LEED certifications. The Materials and Resources category contains one prerequisite and 14 credits. One of these credits focuses on recycled content:
What is the intent of this credit?
According to the LEED-NC Version 2.0 Reference Guide, it is to “increase demand for building products that incorporate recycled content materials, thereby reducing impacts resulting from extraction and processing of virgin materials.”
What are the requirements?
“Use materials with recycled content such that the sum of the post-consumer recycled content plus ½ of the preconsumer content constitutes at least 10% or 20%, based on cost, of the total value of the materials in the project.”
One LEED credit can be earned if the recycled content value is 10%. Two LEED credits can be earned if the recycled content value is 20%. “The recycled content value of a material assembly is determined by weight. The recycled fraction of the assembly is then multiplied by the cost of the assembly to determine the recycled content value.”
Definition of Post-consumer material = “waste material generated by households or by commercial, industrial and institutional facilities in their role as end-users of the product, which can no longer be used for its intended purpose.”
Definition of Pre-consumer material = “material diverted from the waste stream during the manufacturing process. Excluded is reutilization of materials such as rework, regrind or scrap generated in a process and capable of being
reclaimed within the same process that generated it”.
What submittals are required?
A LEED-NC letter template must be completed and signed by the architect, interior designer, owner or other responsible party, for submission to the USGBC. USGBC provides forms for documentation that can be downloaded and completed (see template). For more information,
visit the USGBC website at www.usgbc.org.
How to pursue MR Credit 4.1 and 4.2: