Photo courtesy BIA
According to the Brick Industry Association (BIA), clay brick can be used by project teams to meet the Materials and Resources requirements of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) v4.0 and v4.1 program.
A new United States-Canada Industrywide Clay Brick environmental product declaration (EPD) has been completed, third-party certified, and published, reflecting data associated with the manufacture of units that comply with nearly every active ASTM clay brick specification.
The EPD qualifies for use in the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Environmental Product Declarations credit as a Type III EPD, conforming to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14025, Environmental Labels and Declarations, and ISO 21930, Sustainability in buildings and civil engineering works — Core rules for environmental product declarations of construction products and services, with a cradle-to-gate scope.
“The new EPD provides evidence of clay brick’s sustainable benefits and allows designers to further recognize clay brick’s role as a major element in sustainable design and construction,” said Ray Leonhard, BIA president.
Products from an industrywide EPD are valued by LEED v4.1 as one (1) whole product for the purposes of the credit achievement calculation, whereas LEED v4.0 awards a value of one-half (1/2) for these products. A total of 20 products are required on a project to receive this credit.
This EPD represents the average environmental impact of clay brick production in the United States and Canada. The data for the EPD captures 32 percent of 2018 brick production submitted by 13 different manufacturers from plants in 14 states and provinces in the United States and Canada. The range of data includes brick formed by the stiff-mud and soft-mud processes and includes brick made in tunnel and periodic kilns.
