SAN ANTONIO April 13, 2016 —Today, a first-of-its-kind consortium in the green-building industry convened 15 manufacturers and industry representatives from around the world to hear their needs for enhancing product transparency and stewardship through effective product category rules (PCRs), life cycle assessment reports (LCAs), environmental product declarations (EPDs), and next generation product transparency solutions including Sustainable Minds Transparency Reports™.
Donovan Hardenbrook, Director, Health Product Declaration® Collaborative Tara Blank, Ph.D., Principal, Elixir Environmental Terry Swack, CEO, Sustainable Minds
Reporting product material health is becoming increasingly essential to AEC professionals. If your company isn’t ready, your products may not get specified or even considered for projects.
LEED v4 encourages manufacturers to disclose the material contents and related health hazards of their products. The Health Product Declaration (HPD) can be used to earn LEED points. However, manufacturers are challenged to produce these disclosures and AEC professionals are challenged to understand what the information means.
On this webcast: Don will provide an organizational update on the HPD Collaborative and share the latest info on the HPD Open Standard, Builder 2.0 Library and Builder API.
Tara will explain each section of the HPD version 2.0 report and then provide specification strategies to help your company succeed in the marketplace.
On March 16th, we held the eleventh in a series of webcasts featuring educators from leading colleges and universities demonstrating how Sustainable Minds is being used in education at different learning levels. Understanding product life cycle concepts has fundamental value to students in a broad spectrum of disciplines beyond design and engineering. Learn from expert lifecycle assessment educators how they are working with students to convey life cycle thinking and ecodesign concepts through hands-on product life cycle modeling. They will share how they use Sustainable Minds to engage students in essential conversations about modeling, innovating, measuring and interpreting results.
Recorded Feb 12, 2016 - Part 2 of a 2-part webcast series: Modular product transparency – have it your way. From ‘disclosure’ to brand value: Integrating product transparency into product marketing. Watch part 1 >
ECOS Paints first in coatings industry to create SM Material Health Overviews™ (MHO) combining Health Product Declaration (HPDs) AND Declare label data to credibly tell safer and healthier products stories.
“Architects, specifiers and owners are increasingly demanding sustainable building materials with full ingredient transparency. As the first in the coatings industry to fulfill this need by publishing Declare labels and HPDs, and we are proud to be the first to produce MHOs. They present material health information in a standardized format which allows users to easily find the information they need." – Julian Crawford, ECOS Paints CEO
Recorded Feb 10, 2016 - Part 1 of a 2-part webcast series: Modular product transparency – have it your way. From ‘disclosure’ to brand value: Integrating product transparency into product marketing. Watch part 2 >
Introducing the first SM Transparency Report™ (EPD) compliant with BOTH UL Environment Parts A & B for Sanitary Ceramics and USGBC Enhanced EPD: Requirements for Product Category Rules
Modular product transparency means easily assembling an SM Transparency Report™ to include all the information you want to provide
Environmental performance (LCA)
Water footprint
Carbon footprint
Material evaluation
Compliant with ANY international standard, PCR or guidance document; using data and results from material evaluation programs
Sustainable Minds was featured as a provider of voluntary product stewardship solutions (vs. compliance-based solutions) along with 7 other companies including industry staples PRé Sustainability, Quantis International and thinkstep.
Verdantix defines a product stewardship solution as: “Software and services that enable firms to identify, report, manage and minimize the negative environmental, health and safety impacts associated with the manufacture, composition, distribution, use and disposal of a physical product for the purpose of meeting compliance requirements and supporting voluntary action.”
They further define voluntary product stewardship as focusing mainly on LCA and ecodesign, which are necessary to long-term global sustainability. Verdantix finds the solutions in this space tackle challenges including:
Company Dramatically Raises the Bar for Health Material Evaluation and Product Transparency with 19 New Declare Labels and Eight New Sustainable Minds Material Health Overviews, Helping Building Industry Professionals Achieve the Highest Standards for Healthy, Environmentally-Responsible Designs
MORROW, Ga., Nov. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- TOTO, the largest plumbing manufacturer in the world with $5.1 billion in annual sales, announced today that its high-efficiency commercial wall-hung toilet, two ultra high-efficiency urinals, and wall-hung commercial lavatory have no Red List ingredients and are listed in the International Living Future Institute's (IFLI) Declare Products Database as "Red List Free."
WASHINGTON, November 17, 2015 — On Wednesday, four key green-building stakeholder organizations (ASTM International, ICC Evaluation Service, NSF International and Sustainable Minds) will launch the first Program Operator Consortium in the industry. The signing will take place at Greenbuild 2015 at the ASTM International booth (#3313) at 10:30 a.m.
The consortium will serve as an expert resource and advocate for creating product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment (LCA) reports, and verifying and publishing environmental product declarations (EPDs). The consortium members will pool resources, leverage existing relationships, jointly conduct outreach, marketing, education and communications, and promote the overall use of PCRs, LCAs and EPDs in the marketplace.
Manufacturers, design professionals and others will begin to see co-branded, verified EPDs from the consortium members, providing value to decision makers when specifying materials and products while helping manufacturers gain greater visibility for their product transparency work.
Liberating manufacturers from having only one EPD option: a technical disclosure
Our compatibility process enables manufacturers to create SM Transparency Reports, our brand of EPD, using any PCR in any industry ensuring the LCA rules are the same, only the Type III environmental declaration is different.
SM Transparency Reports are strategic marketing tools that showcase both functional and environmental performance in a concise, easy to understand format for decision-makers to make informed greener purchase decisions.
They describe what manufacturers are actually doing to make products greener.
Add material assessment results & interpretation for comprehensive reporting.
They're in the cloud, freely available and in one click, connect buyers and sellers.
Leverage your investments in product transparency and help your customers earn LEED v4 credits by making LCA, environmental performance & material health information understandable and meaningful.
Partner Webcast Series, Fourth of 4
Recorded Tues, Oct 13 | 2pm ET/11am PT
Join Terry Swack, Sustainable Minds Founder & CEO, Annie Bevan, Certification & Operations Manager at Green Circle and Mark Rossi, Interim Executive Director at Clean Production Action to learn about the differences and benefits of the material health evaluation programs and how the Manufacturer Inventory and Green Circle Certified LEED v4 compliant certification can help manufacturers meet their material transparency needs.
Learn about each program's differences and benefits and how assessment results can:
Help make better PRODUCT design decisions
Help make better PROJECT design decisions
Be used to create an MHO to transform disclosure into brand value by integrating product transparency into product marketing and value by integrating product transparency into product marketing
