TORONTO, Canada — Construction Specialties (C/S), and leading design firm Perkins+Will, recently revealed the industry’s first building-product transparency label detailing the complete make-up of a product, highlighting critical lifecycle information and potential human health impacts. This intensive effort is a collaborative step toward market transformation through increased disclosure on the part of building product manufacturers.
C/S and Perkins+Will identified the industry need for such a product label based on the belief that chemicals generally harmful to humans, animals and the environment should be avoided in building products when there are reasonable alternatives. To that end, the team sought to create a means to allow people to make informed decisions when they fabricate, specify, install, use and dispose of building products.
Designed to make environmental and health disclosure easier for any manufacturer who chooses to adopt the template, the label offers a forthright declaration of the make-up of a product and its potential impacts in multiple formats. The label identifies general product information, product content, ecological benchmarks, packaging information, the design process that went into the product and information on the product’s recyclability.
“With this Building Product Transparency Project, in collaboration with Perkins+Will, we hope to expand the conversation about manufacturer behavior and material health, recognizing a building product’s associated impacts on people and the environment,” said C/S Marketing and Product Development Manager Curt Fessler, LEED AP BD+C. “At C/S we have made a conscious decision to re-examine the notion of what product information should be expected from a manufacturer, and we hope this effort helps to reset the limits of transparency.”
The Building Product Transparency Project is symbiotic with the “Precautionary List” developed by Perkins+Will in 2009, a list that highlights chemicals listed by government agencies as having negative health issues and the classes of building materials where they might commonly be found. The firm has made transparency about health information related to products (both known and suspected impacts on human health) a long-standing priority.
“Although at Perkins+Will we have been advocating for transparency to this degree for many years, the level of vulnerability required by a manufacturer in disclosing this information has made it challenging to find a partner willing to step forward,” said Peter Syrett, AIA, LEED AP and associate principal at Perkins+Will. “We commend C/S for this contribution. We hope that this project catalyzes more academic research on the topic of the human health impacts of products and addresses an industry-wide gap in our knowledge.”
