NRMCA Successfully Defends Concrete at Green Building Code Hearings

Along with industry allies, NRMCA again successfully defended its position on many proposals affecting concrete interests at the International Green Construction Code (IgCC) Public Action Hearings held last week in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  The hearing is the final step in considering proposals and testimonies from the various industries and code officials addressing the significant development of a model green code that can be adopted nationwide. The code official body ratified the decisions made in the Spring Hearings by the code committee. The results of the code development cycle will be the publication of the 2015 IgCC model code.

There were significant wins along with expected losses for the concrete industry. Tien Peng of NRMCA delivered testimony with the following successful results:

• Extending the Service Life considered in Life Cycle Assessments to 75 years;

• Environmental Product Declarations credits not tied to existing green material credits;

• Redefining pervious pavement to void content instead of percolation rate; and 

• Opposing proprietary interests to remove Solar Reflectance (SR) to mitigate Urban Heat Island effects based on bias research data.

Unfortunately, the code officials did not overturn the committee action on the proposals which supported Resiliency. NRMCA will continue its advocacy efforts in the next building code cycle with the International Building Code (IBC).