INFORMED PRODUCT SELECTION

Responsible product selection in today’s market requires consideration of the impacts product content have on people and planet throughout its life cycle. Green building certification programs, including the Living Building Challenge, the WELL Building Standard and LEED v4, are each rewarding various levels of disclosure and optimization. While designers cannot be responsible for fully analyzing this disclosed information, just the fact that it is being disclosed can help inform product selection.

THE CHALLENGE

How do manufacturers share product content information, in a standard format, effectively and efficiently across the building industry?

THE SOLUTION

mindful MATERIALS is an initiative developed within the design industry to provide a common way for manufacturers to clearly communicate transparency and optimization information for their building products.

Through mindful MATERIALS, manufacturers enter product information directly into an online database, indicating which disclosure documents and certifications apply to each product. This database, provided by GIGA, gives designers a single place to search for product information. The database further serves to inform a labeling system for products physically represented in resource libraries, placing this material attribute information at designers’ fingertips.

“Many certifications and transparency declarations reference multiple products. mindful MATERIALS makes it feasible to use these declarations in practice by linking HPDs, Declare labels, C2C certifications, and other documents to specific products.”

– Nadav Malin, BuildingGreen