Material Content
The leader in green building product certification since 1990, SCS was the first company to offer manufacturers a program for verifying the accuracy of environmental claims on products. With the basic tenets of environmental protection now ensconced in the public mind, efforts by corporations to reduce waste in material content bring positive recognition and meaningful product differentiation.
Through SCS’s Material Content certification programs, manufacturers earn the right to label products with SCS third-party certification, verifying claims including recycled, reclaimed, salvaged, and bio-based materials content.
For manufacturers to continue building market demand for products using recycled, reclaimed, or salvaged material content, and to receive credit for their commitment to environmental responsibility, third-party certification is critical—and so is consumer recognition of product labels from third-party certifiers.
This distinction elevates the market status of products and also identifies products for credits in programs such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System (LEED). Products certified by SCS as containing a certain percentage of either pre-consumer or post-consumer recycled material meet the criteria for LEED MR 4.1 or MR 4.2. In addition, products certified as salvaged building material meets the criteria for LEED MR 3.1 and 3.2, while furnishings certified by SCS as salvaged meet the criterion for LEED MR 3.3.