The desire to know exactly what goes into the products used in buildings has taken a front-row seat in the past few years and especially since the U.S. Green Building Council launched LEED v4.
Manufacturers move toward full disclosure and transparency
At the end of last year, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released revised position statements on a variety of topics including material health. The added section on material health highlights the potential impact of building materials on human health and the environment, emphasizing that the material life cycle should be part of an architects’ decision-making process. The statement reads:
The AIA recognizes that building materials impact the environment and human health before, during, and after their use. Knowledge of the life-cycle impacts of building materials is integral to improving the craft, science, and art of architecture. The AIA encourages architects to promote transparency in materials’ contents and in their environmental and human health impacts.
There are many options for product manufacturers to be transparent about the materials that are used to manufacturer their products. Here is an overview of some of those options:
Environmental Product Declarations
According to UL Environment, Marietta, Ga., a business division of UL (Underwriters Laboratories), an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a comprehensive, internationally harmonized report that documents the ways in which a product, throughout its life cycle, affects the environment, as defined in ISO 14025. Compiled in a single written report, an EPD tells the complete story of a product and includes information about its environmental impact, such as global warming, ozone creation and depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Additionally, EPDs can also include other impacts, such as human toxicity, risk and corporate social responsibility. Usually created after a product life cycle assessment (LCA), EPDs are based on applicable product category rules (PCRs). PCRs, as defined in ISO 14025, are a set of specific rules, requirements and guidelines used for developing environmental declarations for products that can fulfill equivalent functions. PCRs determine what information should be gathered and evaluated for the EPD.
“As the transparency movement in the building materials market continues to grow, EPDs play a key role in providing the data needed to make informed specification and purchasing decisions,” says Anna Nicholson, environmental product manager at UL Environment. “As EPDs become more and more comparable, they will continue to facilitate that decision making, and thus add to the continuous improvement of green building projects. Additionally, the data provided by these EPDs will also help inform green building standards so that industry benchmarks for performance can be continually refined.”
Many manufacturers have created EPDs for their products, and the
Metal Construction Association offers three industry-wide EPDs for metal composite material panels, insulated metal panels and roll-formed steel panels for roof and walls.
The EPD Registry, www.theepdregistry.com, is a new online searchable database of EPDs. EPDs are searchable by product name, manufacturer or MasterFormat number.
Health Product Declarations
Health Product Declarations (HPDs) are another option for manufacturers looking to disclose the ingredients of its building products. Originally developed by the HPD Working Group with support from the Materials Research Collaborative, a collective effort of the Healthy Building Network and Building Green, the Health Product Declaration Standard is now managed by the HPD Collaborative, Charleston, S.C. The HPD Standard outlines a consistent format for reporting the ingredients of materials content of building products and the health effect associated with exposure to these ingredients and materials. Version 2 of the HPD Standard is set to be released in March.
Product Transparency Declarations
Product Transparency Declarations (PTDs) were introduced by the
Resilient Floor Covering Institute as an alternative to HPDs to report the chemical ingredients in building products. The emphasis of the PTD is on the use phase of the product. A PTD provides a list of product ingredients and reports whether any ingredients are at levels that require a warning notification to installers and/or occupants due to ingredient exposure.
Bill Yannetti, director of operations at ALPOLIC Materials-Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va., explains that PTDs are very similar to HPDs. “PTDs are driving to the same result where you have information provided to the architect and the designer about the health impacts of our product as we deliver it to the job site: what’s in it and what possible negatives there could be from the materials in it,” he says.
Yannetti says there is an American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTM) committee working to make PTDs an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-approved, consensus-based industry standard by the end of the year. ALPOLIC Materials currently has three PTDs available and is working to creating ones for its custom colors as well.
www.rfci.com/ptd-product-transparency-declaration/
Material Health Certificates
A Material Health Certificate (MHC) uses the material health assessment methodology of the Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard to provide manufacturers with a way to communicate their work towards chemically optimized products. MHCs support industry and consumer interest in knowing more about the chemicals in products and supply chains, avoiding chemicals of concern and shifting to inherently safer chemicals, and making a commitment to continual improvement towards greener chemistry. There are four levels of Material Health Certification: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Products are recertified every two years; and if problematic chemicals are identified, the manufacturer commits to make a good-faith effort to phase them out.
“To truly understand the full human and environmental impacts associated with chemicals, a full chemical assessment needs to be performed by a chemist or toxicologist,” says Stacy Glass, vice president, built environment at the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. “The Cradle to Cradle Material Health methodology does just that-helps a manufacturer identify the chemical constituents in their products, screen for known bad chemicals, and then performs an assessment against 24 human and environmental endpoints and considers exposure to chemicals throughout the life cycle.”
“With all of this good information, a company can start to optimize, reformulate and even innovate to get to the goal of a product that poses no risks to humans or the environment,” Glass continues.
www.c2ccertified.org/material-health-certificate
Declare
An initiative of the Portland, Ore.-based International Living Future Institute, the Declare label is considered the ingredients label for building products. The Declare label is for manufacturers who have voluntarily disclosed their ingredients, source and manufacturing locations. It also offers project teams pursuing the Living Building Challenge a guide for product specifications. The label is valid for a 12-month period, after which manufacturers can buy a renewal and confirm the information contained within the Product Declaration Form hasn’t changed or submitting a new form. Declare is also part of the upcoming Living Product Challenge, which will be released at ILFI’s Living Future Conference in April. A product database of Declare products can be found at www.declareproducts.com/product-database and on www.greenwizard.com.