Environmental Performance Criteria 2.2
Introduction
Introduction
Developers

Sustainable Sites
Cr 9 Safety and Risk Management

Water Efficiency
Pr 1 Lab Equipment Water Use
Cr 4 Process Water Efficiency

Energy & Atmosphere
Pr 2 Minimum Energy Performance
Pr 4 Assess Min Ventilation Req
Cr 1 Optimize Energy Performance
Cr 2 Renewable Energy
Cr 7 Energy Supply Efficiency
Cr 8 Improve Lab Equip Efficiency
Cr 9 Right-size Lab Equip Load

Materials & Resources
Pr 2 Hazardous Material Handling
Cr 8 Chemical Resource Mgmt

Indoor Environmental Quality
Pr 3 Laboratory Ventilation
Pr 4 Ext Door Notification System
Cr 9 Indoor Environmental Safety

Innovation & Design Process
Cr 1 Innovation in Design

Labs21 Environmental Performance Criteria | Version 2.2 | August 2008

The Labs21 Environmental Performance Criteria (EPC) is a rating system for use by laboratory building project stakeholders to assess the environmental performance of laboratory facilities. The EPC leverages and builds on the U.S. Green Building Council's widely used LEED™ Rating System, extending it to set appropriate and specific requirements for laboratories.

The EPC leverages and builds on the U.S. Green Building Council's widely used Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ for New Construction (LEED-NC) Rating System (available at: http://www.usgbc.org/), extending it to set appropriate and specific requirements for laboratories. The EPC is a public domain document that is available for anyone to use as they see fit. Labs21 does not provide a project certification process for the EPC. However, many of the EPC credits may be pursued as innovation points under LEED-NC.

EPC Structure

The Labs21 EPC Version 2.2 follows the format of LEED-NC Version 2.2. When not mentioned, LEED-NC credits and requirements are assumed to remain the same. This document only contains additional credits (over and above LEED-NC credits) as well as modifications to LEED-NC credits. For example, in the Sustainable Sites (SS) category the LEED-NC prerequisite and credits SS-1 through SS-8 remain unchanged. Labs21 EPC proposes an additional credit (SS-9), Safety and Risk Management with a potential two-point credit. Therefore, the Labs21EPC must be considered in conjunction with LEED-NC Version 2.2.

Note that the EPC increases the number of possible points from 69 to 85. The EPC does not specify threshold values for the ratings of silver, gold and platinum because Labs21 does not provide a certification process.

Changes from EPC 2.1

EPC Version 2.2 is primarily an administrative update to align with the evolution of LEED-NC and ASHRAE Standard 90.1, and involved the following changes from the prior version:

  • Energy & Atmosphere (EA) Prerequisite 2 and Credit 1 now reference ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 Appendix G. The thresholds for minimum compliance and improved performance have been changed to reflect the changes in LEED-NC that require a minimum percentage improvement.
  • The percentage thresholds for EA Credit 2 have been modified to reflect the changes in LEED-NC that now include all energy loads (not just regulated loads) in the calculation.
  • Water Efficiency (WE) Prerequisite 1 now exempts equipment that has a flow rate lower than 2 gallons per minute.
  • Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) Credit 6 no longer has any modifications to the LEED-NC credit, as LEED-NC Version 2.2 removed the specific requirement for operable windows.

The EPC home page has a printable version of the EPC as well as the full checklist in spreadsheet format.

 

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