A Strategic Platform for Industry Transformation
mindful MATERIALS’ Forums
The built environment and its supply chain represent the most impactful industry in the world—essential not only to the global economy but to meeting one of our most fundamental human needs: shelter. While we’ve made progress in recognizing these impacts—through project-level certifications and code advancements pushing buildings beyond minimum standards—we’ve only begun to address the full picture.
As an industry, we’ve successfully developed ways to quantify and improve the operational impacts of buildings. However, buildings are made up of products, and every single product carries its own environmental, human, and social footprint. Despite best efforts, we’ve lacked a comprehensive framework to connect these impacts to financial valuation and risk—leaving investors, owners, and developers without the information needed to make informed, responsible decisions in real estate.
Enter mindful MATERIALS and the Forums.
The Forums are a curated network of industry leaders focused on accelerting the adoption of the Common Materials Framework (CMF), creating a common language for sustainable products, connecting certifications and verified data to real-world impacts in workflow.
The Opportunity
By embedding climate and human-related risk data into investment decisions, we’re not only safeguarding financial outcomes and increasing valuations but also accelerating the reduction of environmental and social impacts in one of the world’s most influential industries.
Key outcomes of this work include:
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Unlocking climate and human-related risk data at scale
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Quantifying the holistic impacts of products in projects
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Understanding what products meet organizational-level material requirements
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Scaling organized impact data into workflows
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Driving widespread CMF adoption throughout the built environment value chain
Together, we’re redefining how buildings are valued—by both their financial returns and their contributions to people and the planet.
Making Sustainability Work at Scale
Industry-wide change requires collaboration—no single organization can drive transformation alone. The Forums align leaders across the value chain to co-develop frameworks, strengthen resources, and scale the tools that make sustainability practical, measurable, and achievable.
As a Forum Member, you:
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Send a strong market signal that transparency and sustainability matter
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Support greater data accessibility to drive informed decision-making
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Unlock the industry's potential to scale impact faster
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Save time and money through strategic alignment and collaboration
As a Forum member, you gain:
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Valuable peer connections and co-creation opportunities
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Early access to tools and solutions
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Confidence to set and achieve public sustainability goals
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Recognition as a leader in a global movement on par with the creation of LEED
Empowering Stakeholders Across the Industry
Discover how Forum membership unlocks tailored benefits for stakeholders across the built environment. Click through each category below to see how participation supports your work and amplifies your impact.
Building Owners
Scaling sustainability in portfolios today requires clarity, data, and strategic frameworks — yet many owners still face gaps navigating supply chain risks and investor expectations. The Forums provide the alignment and tools owners need to simplify reporting, mitigate risk, and drive long-term resilience.
Through these solutions, building owners can:
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Evaluate durable cost savings with a clear framework that balances financial and environmental impact.
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Streamline reporting metrics to align with investor expectations and evolving regulatory requirements.
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Mitigate risk by proactively identifying and addressing supply chain vulnerabilities.
Architects, Designers & Engineers
Architects, designers, and engineers play a critical role in turning sustainability goals into project realities — but siloed frameworks have created inefficiencies and confusion across the industry. The Forums deliver shared tools and alignment to streamline workflows, elevate impact, and enhance collaboration across project teams.
By integrating these solutions into their daily practice, firms can:
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Easily align design and product specifications with green building standards and streamline compliance.
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Easily identify products that meet firm-specific materials and/or green-building certification requirements.
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Simplify reporting to initiatives like the AIA Materials Pledge.
Contractors
Contractors are tasked with delivering complex projects on time and on budget — but fragmented sustainability requirements create costly inefficiencies. The Forums simplify material assessment and compliance, helping contractors integrate sustainability into daily practice without disrupting timelines or margins.
By integrating these solutions, contractors can:
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Easily assess and compare sustainable materials that align with project requirements.
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Streamline compliance with various green building standards.
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Reduce costs and inefficiencies, improving project timelines and margins.
Manufacturers
Manufacturers face mounting demands for sustainability data — but fragmented requests and shifting targets make it hard to prioritize or measure ROI. The Forums help manufacturers move from reactive to strategic, focusing efforts where they matter most and connecting more meaningfully with market needs.
Through these initiatives, manufacturers can:
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Save time, energy, and resources by focusing on the highest-priority certifications and data.
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Gain clarity on how sustainability investments translate into measurable ROI.
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Build stronger customer relationships with organizations that integrate these tools and resources into their projects.
Technology Providers
Technology providers are critical to advancing material sustainability, but fragmented industry data has limited the impact of even the best platforms. The Forums offer a unified data schema and common signals, enabling tech partners to enhance interoperability, scale adoption, and support connected, streamlined workflows.
By engaging with the Forums, technology companies can:
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More easily access digitized sustainability data across the industry.
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Align with a unified approach rather than competing within a fragmented system.
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Enhance the adoption and impact of their solutions by integrating with a standardized framework.
Ecolabel & Standard Partners
High-quality third-party certifications are key to trusted sustainability data, but the industry lacks clear signals about which certifications matter most. The Forums create alignment around certification priorities and digitization pathways, helping ecolabels and standards organizations strengthen adoption and industry trust.
By engaging in the Forums, Ecolabel and Standards Organizations can:
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Increase demand for third-party validation by aligning with industry priorities.
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Ensure the data they verify is digitized and seamlessly integrated into decision-making processes.
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Streamline certification clarity, reducing confusion for manufacturers and project teams.
What It Really Takes to Build Better
Inside the 2025 Forums Strategic Plan
Designing better buildings isn’t just about energy modeling or healthy air—it starts with better materials. In 2025, mindful MATERIALS and the Forums are focused on the infrastructure needed to scale smarter material decisions across the built environment.
This work is about systems change—executed through collaboration and action.
In 2025, our goal is to:
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Clearly define sustainability across materials
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Seamlessly integrate responsible decision-making into project workflows
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Provide measurable, reportable outcomes
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Enable scalable action across the industry
Working Groups Leading This Effort:
CMF Adoption
A Clear Path for Sustainable Materials
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Establishing priority certifications and data points to drive consistency
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Providing decision-making clarity so stakeholders don’t have to start from scratch
Technology & Data
Enabling a Connected Ecosystem
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Benchmarking the current state of data digitization
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Developing a shared data schema for interoperability
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Supporting manufacturers in delivering high-quality data
Advocacy & Awareness
Scaling Knowledge and Engagement
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Aligning sustainability messaging across the industry
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Finalizing education programs for practitioners
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Showcasing real-world case studies to demonstrate impact
Current Forum Members
