Once again, the U.S. Green Building Council is driving change in the construction industry with its LEED rating system. One of the dramatic shifts LEED v4 is likely to spark is greater demand for transparency from building product manufacturers. In short, Building Teams want to see an ingredients list for the products they specify.
More than two dozen architecture firms, including SmithGroupJJR and Perkins+Will, already require transparency from their product suppliers, but LEED v4 will greatly increase demand. Under the new Building Product Disclosure and Optimization credit, LEED v4 awards points for construction projects that use at least 20 building products that have issued Environmental Product Declarations or Health Product Declarations.
In response, manufacturers are racing to offer EPDs and HPDs for their product lines. Several people highly involved in the EPD and HPD verification process told us that they are overwhelmed by the number of requests from manufacturers.
At Greenbuild, a number of companies announced EPDs and HPDs. They include:
- CalStar - all brick products (officially released an EPD last year)
- CertainTeed - fiberglass blowing wool insulation lines (including InsulSafe SP, InsulSafe XC, TrueComfort, UltraComfort, and OPTIMA); fiberglass Sustainable Insulation batts; and acoustical ceiling products (including Cashmere and Fine Fissured High NRC, Protectone Products, Gyptone, VinylShield, Vinylrock, VOC Compliant Symphony f, and Symphony m).
- GAF - EverGuard TPO and EverGuard Extreme roofing products
- InPro Corp. - door and wall protection products (including IPC Door and Wall Protection Systems)
- Kingspan Insulated Panels - insulated metal panel products
- Knauf Insulation North America - EcoBatt Kraft Faced Insulation with ECOSE Technology; EcoBatt Unfaced Insulation with ECOSE Technology; Jet Stream Ultra Blowing Wool Insulation
- Owens Corning - EcoTouch Insulation (Unfaced and Kraft-Faced); Unbonded Loosefill insulation; FOAMULAR Extruded Polystyrene (XPS) Insulation
- TOTO - high-efficiency toilets
- USG - acoustical ceiling panels
We'll update this list periodically as more manufacturers announce EPDs/HPDs for their product lines.
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