CMF REFERENCE GUIDE

A Common Language for Impact

The Common Materials Framework (CMF) is a shared language for product sustainability—built to bring clarity and alignment to a complex landscape.

It doesn’t replace existing certifications or standards. Instead, it provides a consistent structure that organizes material sustainability data around five core impact areas aligned with the AIA Materials Pledge: climate health, human health, ecosystem health, social health and equity, and circular economy. This allows any certification or dataset to be mapped into a common framework, making it easier to compare, communicate, and act on that information.

By using the CMF, we move beyond scattered efforts and one-off solutions. It allows manufacturers, designers, and project teams to work from the same playbook—cutting through confusion, reducing redundancy, and unlocking more meaningful progress across the value chain.

Right now, we are spinning our wheels—chasing shared goals with siloed tools, inconsistent language, and limited impact. The CMF changes that. It brings clarity to the chaos and gives us a shared structure to align efforts, drive progress, and make better decisions—together.

From an aerial view, the framework is deceptively simple, identifying certifications, standards, and ecolabels and data that support human health, climate health, ecosystem health, social health and equity, and circularity.

How We Got Here

Over the years, certifications and standards have emerged from different organizations—each aiming to verify specific claims, drive change, and spotlight leadership in materials sustainability.

But because they’ve developed independently, what they cover (and how they do it) varies widely. Some focus purely on transparency, requiring disclosure without judgment. Others demand measurable performance. Some target a single issue—like carbon or toxicity—while others aim to be comprehensive. Verification levels range from self-declared to rigorously third-party reviewed. Even what qualifies as “sustainable” differs across standards.

Now imagine you’re a designer or specifier. Trying to assess one product’s certifications is hard enough. Doing it across an entire project? Nearly impossible. And if you're a manufacturer, every customer likely has a slightly different sustainability ask—based on their own mix of goals, standards, and interpretations, resulting in hundreds - if not thousands - of bespoke, analog requests weekly.

The result? A lot of time, confusion, and duplicated effort—with little alignment and even less collective progress.

However, the framework actually provides context for over 150 of the most widely used product certifications, standards, and ecolabels, and organizes thousands of data points contained within them.

Originally developed by a cross-disciplinary group convened by mindful MATERIALS (mM) in 2021, and continuously informed by industry engagement through the Content Working Group, the CMF is the most comprehensive effort to date to align and accelerate sustainable product information and selection. Designed to be adopted, evolved, and improved—not duplicated—the CMF will move under a formal governance structure developed by the Forums, ensuring transparency, shared ownership, and long-term impact. Central coordination remains critical to maintaining alignment and reducing duplication across the industry.

The AIA Materials Pledge—and What Came Next

In 2019, the AIA and a coalition of architects put forth a bold vision: a unified, holistic approach to material sustainability that would move us beyond the fragmented, reactionary “whack-a-mole” demands of the past. The result was the AIA Materials Pledge—a call to prioritize materials that support Human Health, Climate Health, Ecosystem Health, Social Health & Equity, and a Circular Economy.

The pledge quickly gained traction, with hundreds of architecture and design firms of all sizes signing on. Other organizations followed with similar commitments, inspired by the same five impact categories. But while the momentum was real, something critical was missing: a shared definition of what “holistically sustainable materials” actually meant—and a roadmap to get there.

mM saw an opportunity to fill that gap.

We convened cross-disciplinary groups to build the CMF—a structure for organizing and interpreting sustainability data across the built environment. Completed in 2021, the CMF offers a common language to unify these pledges and accelerate aligned action.

Today, the CMF is formally recognized by the American Institute of Architects as the foundation of its A+D Materials Pledge, and the industry is following suit:

U.S. Green Building Council has incorporated the CMF into LEED v5, using it to guide the evolution of its material credits and align them with impact-driven performance.
Living Future is basing updates to its Living Building Challenge as well as product programs like Declare and Living Product Challenge on the CMF’s structure.
International Well Building Institute is doing the same within the WELL Building Standard—ensuring consistency and impact across health- and sustainability-focused building certifications.

Other organizations have integrated the CMF into their material decision-making requirements, with Gensler’s Product Sustainability Standards (GPS) being a great example.

A shared vision is powerful. But a shared framework? That’s how we scale real, measurable change.

Learn more about the CMF here: A Common Language

A Framework to Build On

Rather than acting as a new standard, the CMF supports and strengthens existing certifications and programs. It offers a structure to interpret them more easily, compare them more clearly, and apply them more consistently across platforms and projects.

It also helps identify critical gaps:

Does a standard deliver the impact it claims?
Is it missing key data points or impact categories?
Can it truly support your organization’s sustainability goals?
Are we creating unnecessary distance between entry-level and advanced certifications?

These questions are no longer theoretical. Leading organizations like the AIA, USGBC, ILFI, and IWBI have already begun mapping their materials programs to the CMF. Our collective goal? To understand their differences, justify them where needed, and align where possible.

This isn’t about flattening the field. It’s about providing the industry with the structure it needs to achieve clarity, consistency, and collective progress.

Overview of the Framework

A Holistic Approach to Material Impact

Sustainability impacts don’t happen in silos—and neither should our decisions.

That’s the premise behind a holistic approach to material impact: recognizing that every product and material we specify carries a full spectrum of consequences across its life cycle, from raw material extraction and processing to use and eventual disposal or reuse.

We’ve seen what’s possible when the industry rallies around a shared metric. Thanks to the leadership of nonprofits like the Carbon Leadership Forum and the Building Transparency team behind EC3, we’ve made tremendous progress in measuring and reducing embodied carbon—a critical and measurable component of climate impact.

But carbon is just one piece of the picture.

What about the impacts to human health from toxic chemicals, or the ecosystem degradation caused by irresponsible sourcing? What about the social inequities embedded in global supply chains, or the growing need to design for circularity rather than waste?

These impacts are just as urgent—and often invisible, unmeasured, or misunderstood.

That’s where the CMF comes in. It structures and connects five key impact areas so they can be seen, shared, and acted upon:

Human Health
Climate Health
Ecosystem Health
Social Health & Equity
Circular Economy

Rather than treating these categories as isolated checkboxes, the CMF helps us understand how materials perform across all five impact areas simultaneously—giving us a more complete picture of a product’s true footprint.

Because the type of material, how it’s made, and how it moves through the supply chain doesn’t just affect one thing. It can touch all five.

mM’s Forums are actively working to:

Capture, structure, and contextualize these holistic impacts using the CMF
Make them visible and actionable through trusted data and shared standards
Enable smarter decisions through tools and platforms aligned to the CMF

This is the foundation of our shared vision: a connected data ecosystem where designers, contractors, owners, and manufacturers alike can access clear, consistent, and holistic data—and make better material choices, every time.

Because when we can see the full picture, we’re better equipped to build a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable future.

Curious to learn more about the Forums? Click here to meet the members and review the 2025 Strategic Plan

A Hierarchical Structure

The CMF helps unpack complex material impacts by providing a flexible, hierarchical structure that shows how every data point fits into the bigger picture. This structure isn’t just for clarity—it’s also designed for functionality. As more tools integrate the CMF, and more certifications are referenced, it will enable powerful filtering and navigation at any level of detail, across any combination of impact areas.

Provides Context for Certifications

Comparing certifications and standards today is complicated. It often requires deep expertise or navigating inconsistent interpretations across different product databases. As a result, it’s difficult to know which certifications support which sustainability goals—or how to leverage those certifications to make consistent, informed decisions.

The CMF changes that.

By organizing all relevant data points across 150 certifications and mapping them to the impact areas they support, the CMF brings much-needed structure and transparency to the certification landscape. It allows you to:

See exactly which certifications and standards align with the impact areas you care about
Better understand whether a certification or disclosure simply provides transparency or represents optimization in a given area
Find all certifications that contain a specific data point—without having to decode every PDF or become an expert on every label

For manufacturers, this means clearer asks. For designers and specifiers, it means more confident decisions. And for everyone, it means moving faster—with fewer bottlenecks and greater alignment.

Why It Matters

Sustainability shouldn’t be this confusing.

Right now, the industry is fragmented. Every firm, certifier, platform, and database speaks a slightly different language when it comes to materials. The result?

Disparate requests with no shared definition of what makes a material “sustainable”
Market confusion driven by too many standards and too little alignment
Disconnected data that can’t be benchmarked or compared
Missed opportunities for holistic impact analysis on projects
It’s not just frustrating—it’s preventing progress.

That’s where the CMF comes in. It’s more than just shared language. It’s a connective tissue linking conversations, certifications, and systems—so we can finally align around impact, not interpretation.

Today, how you “see” sustainability depends on where you’re looking: One tool shows carbon, another shows toxicity, a third focuses on transparency—and none of them speak to each other. But the data is the data. So why shouldn’t we be able to see it consistently across platforms?

With a shared structure like the CMF, here’s what becomes possible:

A clear market signal—and confidence from manufacturers investing in sustainability
Connected data that can move across systems and standards
Fewer spreadsheets, duplicative requests, and wasted time
One framework to interpret any certification or standard
A more holistic view of product impact
Real savings in time, money, and energy across the value chain

It’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about raising our ability to act.

From First Factors to Priority Factors: Moving Toward Implementation

The CMF is robust—composed of over 650 distinct factors and thousands of individual metrics. But to bring it to life in the industry, we knew we had to start small and smart. That’s why we introduced the First Factors: a focused set of ~50 high-impact data points pulled from existing product-level ecolabels and standards, prioritized based on what matters most at the project level.

The First Factors answered a critical early question: “What data would be most helpful to align around today?”

We grounded this selection in the needs and requirements of our Owner and AEC Forum members, as well as leading frameworks like LEED, WELL, and the Living Building Challenge. The result? A starting point that captures the majority of commonly used sustainability criteria—and gives manufacturers, AEC teams, and owners a place to begin, using data that is often already available, just unstandardized.

But alignment is just the beginning.

As we prepared to move into implementation and piloting, we needed more precision. That’s where the CMF Prioritization v1.0 comes in.

Led by the Forum’s CMF Prioritization Task Force, we took a deeper dive:

Reviewed the First Factors with a fine-tooth comb
Included certifications as they relate to the five impact areas and their respective sub-buckets
Prioritized factors, metrics, and certifications that are actionable both now and three years from now - setting an intention for the future while honoring and rewarding progress that has been made along the way.
Connected common industry material information requests to relevant CMF sections

CMF Prioritization v1.0 is the bridge supporting common materials language & practice to move from theory to action. This prioritization reflects what is ready, what is needed, and what is possible—right now—for streamlining sustainability data across the value chain.

Criteria that AEC/O may be currently requesting or requiring when considering product selection
Criteria that reflect investments manufacturers are currently making toward optimization & natural resource stewardship that may not otherwise be recognized
Certifications as they relate to the five impact areas and sub-buckets, to help provide guidance for manufacturers on where to invest time/resources

Where and How You Can Use the Common Materials Framework Today

The CMF gives the building industry something we’ve never had before: a shared, structured language for understanding the holistic impacts of materials. But structure alone isn’t enough. To drive real progress, we also need consistent, high-quality data.

If the data is incomplete, inconsistently categorized, or disconnected across platforms, it becomes difficult—if not impossible—to evaluate a product’s true impact. That’s why the CMF isn’t just a framework—it’s a foundation for alignment across tools, standards, and decisions.

Since 2023, a portion of the CMF has been digitized in the mindful MATERIALS Product Portal, developed by ecomedes. This free tool allowed users to search for products by impact areas aligned to the CMF, with filters down to sub-bucket levels (and in a few instances even the TACO level). It brought in data from trusted sources like 3E Exchange, HPDC, and EC3 to enable granular, impact-driven product evaluation.

While the Portal served as an important proof of concept for a digitized, impact-oriented product search experience, it was never the final destination. It laid the foundation for what’s coming next.

On August 4, 2025, the Portal will sunset as we enter a new chapter—the CMF everywhere.

Our goal is to embed the CMF directly into the tools and workflows where material decisions are made every day, ensuring it’s not just available in one place, but integrated across many. As more platforms align to the CMF, we unlock new capabilities: better comparisons, deeper insights, and clearer pathways to impact.

You can already explore CMF-aligned tools through our growing network of mM Technology Partners, each applying the framework in ways that match their platform’s capabilities:

Acelab
Building Ease
Ecomedes
Material Bank
Materially Better
Sustainable Minds

TO BE CLEAR: This is not asking anyone to tackle all of these priorities overnight. What we’re asking is this: Start where you are—but use the same structure.

Whether you're an owner requiring a single factor on every project, or a manufacturer reporting ten, aligning with the CMF ensures consistency, clarity, and collective momentum.

Ready to explore the Priority Factors?

Explore the CMF

Certification-Agnostic

The CMF enables certifications and standards to be mapped to impact—from basic transparency to advanced, aspirational achievements. It captures the full spectrum of product progress, recognizing everything from simple disclosures to measurable optimization.

When the CMF was first developed in 2021, Working Groups reviewed and organized data from over 150 of the most commonly referenced certifications and standards in the building products industry. But the work didn’t stop there.

As the industry evolves, so will the CMF.

Going forward, the Forums—made up of cross-disciplinary industry leaders—will play a central role in governing, maintaining, and updating the CMF. They’ll ensure the framework reflects the latest data, standards, and best practices, while maintaining alignment across the ecosystem. This governance ensures the CMF remains a living tool—adaptable, responsive, and grounded in collective industry insight.