CSI and ICC Evaluation Service agree to reference GreenFormat in ICC-ES Environmental Reports?

The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) and ICC Evaluation Service, LLC (ICC-ES), today announced they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen the relationship between CSI’s GreenFormat and the ICC-ES Environmental program.

ICC-ES currently references CSI’s MasterFormat and other formats in all of its evaluation reports. The MOU will add GreenFormat references.

“CSI’s GreenFormat identifies and organizes the sustainable attributes of building products,” said CSI Executive Director and CEO Walter Marlowe, P.E., CSI, CAE. “By collaborating with ICC-ES, it will help increase awareness and use of GreenFormat, particularly with products compliant to the 2012 International Green Construction Code (IgCC), so that professionals who select building products can make informed choices.”

“This MOU recognizes the complementary nature of ICC-ES and CSI’s GreenFormat in the sustainable building sector and demonstrates added value to environmental reports,” said Rob Brooks, Director of ICC-ES Environmental Programs. “While CSI provides a uniform structure for manufacturers to report the sustainable characteristics of their products through GreenFormat, ICC-ES provides evidence that products meet requirements of codes and green building standards.”

Among the agreements included in the MOU:

• ICC-ES will add GreenFormat’s numbering scheme within new and existing ICC-ES Environmental Evaluation reports (Verification of Attributes Reports™ and Plumbing, Mechanical and Fuel Gas Listings) for environmental attributes.

• ICC-ES and CSI will work together to maintain the relationship between GreenFormat categories and the questions in the ICC-ES Environmental Evaluation reports as both are updated and add references to new reports.

• CSI will present ICC-ES Criteria to the GreenFormat task team for consideration as appropriate product evaluation tests within GreenFormat.

In addition, CSI and ICC-ES intend to participate in each other’s technical committees, where applicable.

GreenFormat provides a uniform structure for manufacturers to report the sustainable properties of their products. It helps industry professionals evaluate the green characteristics of building products they are considering for their projects.

The ICC-ES Sustainable Attributes Verification and Evaluation (SAVE) program provides manufacturers with independent verification that their products meet specific sustainability targets defined by today’s codes, standards and green rating systems. The ICC-ES SAVE and PMG Listing programs both evaluate the compliance of products to a subset of GreenFormat attributes. BD+C