Sustainable Furniture Makes Headway with LEED

Want to specify green furniture in your next LEED project? You can now earn a credit for environmentally friendly furnishings that have been third-party certified.

The new Pilot Credit 80: Environmentally Preferable Interior Finishes and Furnishings recognizes products that have been third-party certified to the ANSI/BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability Standard. Its purpose is to increase the use of interior products with validated multi-attribute environmental and social profiles.

The first certification included in this pilot credit is level, a BIFMA program covering business and institution furnishings. All level certified furniture products may contribute to LEED certification credits based on a sliding percentage scale for level 1, 2, or 3 product conformance tiers.

A project must also include at least five different third-party certified products that account for at least 50% of the total interior finishes and furnishing materials by cost.

While BIFMA’s level is presently the only product standard named in Pilot Credit 80, USGBC is seeking input on other third-party certified products to include.