The Vinyl Institute responded to the LEED v4's Materials and Resouces credits. The email is listed in full:
Buildings designed to protect human health, minimize impact on the environment, conserve resources, and contribute to economic well-being depend greatly on modern materials that perform well in their intended applications.
Unfortunately, the language in LEED v4’s Materials and Resources (MR) credits disadvantages or eliminates the use of many modern materials, like PVC based on simplistic, non-consensus programs and certifications that fail to account for comparative life cycle and risk/exposure assessments. The credits disregard past input of many stakeholders, including The Vinyl Institute (Environmental Product Declarations, Raw Material Sourcing, Material Disclosure and Optimization), on issues related to the parameters of the credits and could lead architects and designers to make less desirable decisions. Furthermore, USGBC has made it difficult for industry to be a part of the development process, ignoring the overwhelmingly positive evidence regarding the health, safety, and performance of the material.
“While the goal of the LEED v4 Materials and Resources credits to encourage the use of products and materials that have environmental, economical, and socially preferable life cycle impacts is admirable, the nuances, and in some places over-simplification, of the MR credits could cause the opposite effect,” said VI President and CEO, Dick Doyle. “The credits will make it difficult, if not impossible, for manufacturers and suppliers of nearly any building product to provide substantive data to guide architects and designers in the selection of truly sustainable materials.”