Basics of BIFMA LEVEL Certification
by Danny McGee
How do you get a BIFMA LEVEL Certification?
First thing I remind anyone trying to understand LEVEL Certification is that it is a sustainable product certification. By LEVEL’s definition, a product certification is not a sustainable building certification like LEED or sustainable company certification like B Corp; the scope of a product certification includes a product, building and a company. To explain it another way, consider these statements:
• A sustainable company can produce non-sustainable products in non-sustainable buildings.
• A sustainable building can house a non-sustainable company, which makes non-sustainable products.
• A sustainable product must be made by a sustainable company in sustainable buildings.
The LEVEL Certification defines “sustainable” vs. “non-sustainable” using a credit system that considers the materials, chemistry, energy, environment, human health & wellness, and social impacts of making a product.
Sustainability ≠ Recycled Content
There is something in the larger cultural understanding of sustainability that leads us to think it rests entirely on the concept of recycled content. I want to nip that in the bud. There are sustainable products that do not have any recycled content. There are products that have recycled content that are not sustainable. This is true under most definitions of sustainability but even more true with the LEVEL Certification. The technical language is that the standard is a “multi-attribute sustainability standard,” which essentially means that sustainability is defined to encompass a wide range of impacts, not just recycled content.
Lastly, LEVEL Certification is not in and of itself the goal. The effort required to achieve LEVEL Certification is not insignificant. A company must recognize that the certification will require resources outside the normal scope of operations. Consider any of the credits related to materials. Suppose you do not have an up-to-date Bill of Materials for a specific product. In that case, determining the recycled content or scrap rate will require a more significant amount of work. Credits require data, tracking, supply chain engagement, and analysis. However, investment in LEVEL Certification becomes more accessible year over year as you streamline data collection and strategize ways to achieve credits that align with your existing operations.
How to Strategically Align BIFMA LEVEL Credits
At Foresight, we tailor our certification strategies to align with your current processes. We stack credits and efforts that are complementary. For example, we know that if you are tracking the percentage of scrap, you can likely report on material efficiency and solid waste tracking. If you have a green team in place, you are probably surprisingly close to implementing a management system. I bet your facility manager even has a database of Safety Data Sheets that could be critical in tracking your maintenance, process and product chemicals and answering all of those supplier requests you are getting. All of these can be incorporated into a LEVEL Certification strategy.
Because of the wide range of credits, BIFMA LEVEL Certification can be tailored toward your current sustainability efforts. Growth opportunities become apparent when you see which areas you aren’t presently pursuing. Our team can help you strategize your future sustainability efforts that most closely complement your company strategy, interests, and impact. We’ve been working on LEVEL Certification since the beginning. We literally wrote the guidance manual.