Material Selection
Selecting building materials can be complex. You have to take into account toxicity, performance, the environmental life cycle, cost, and other factors.
Understanding what makes a building product green is a long-term prospect. Green characteristics differ from product category to product category, and multi-attribute vetting is critical.
Material Selection
Deep Dives
Get up to speed on complex topics. You can also earn CEUs and download PDF Spotlight Reports.
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VOCs: Why They’re Still Here and What You Can Do About It
Feature Article
“Sick building syndrome” was one of the first problems the green building community tried to solve. We’ve come a long way, but we’re not done yet.
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Protect Your Spec: 14 Strategies
Feature Article
You’ve selected the ideal materials for your project: now get them into the building.
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The Great Eight: High-Impact Material Choices for Green Building
Feature Article
We’re at a tipping point in insulation, flooring, textiles, and other product categories. Here’s what to spec and what to avoid.
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What Makes the Building Envelope Green? BuildingGreen’s Guide to Thermal & Moisture Protection Products
Feature Article
From insulation to flashing tape to cladding, we look at the attributes of the greenest building envelope products.
Quick Takes
Jump straight to the essentials with these short explanations of green building concepts.
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Getting “Conflict Minerals” Out of Our Products
Explainer
While “blood diamonds” get attention, mining of metals like tin and tungsten helps finance civil wars. Here’s a look at the movement to change that.
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The Many Faces of Reclaimed Wood
Explainer
Some types of reclaimed wood count as "salvaged materials" that contribute to points in LEED and help comply with green building codes while others do not.
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Forest Products Certification: How It Works
Explainer
Many wood and paper products now come with an eco-label. But what happens behind the scenes before a product gets the seal of approval?
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Life-Cycle Assessment: Tracing a Product's Impacts
Explainer
Life-cycle assessment—accounting for all of the environmental impacts of a product from its manufacture to its disposal—is a simple concept, but using it to compare products in practice can be difficult.
Product Guidance
Unbiased information from our product experts helps you separate green from greenwash.
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New Blowing Agents Revolutionize XPS Industry
Product Review
Due to regulatory changes in Canada and certain U.S. states, manufacturers will be offering XPS with low global warming potential starting in 2021.
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A More Sustainable Fluorinated PVDF Metal Coating
Product Review
With the PVDF coating Fluropon Pure, “fluorinated” does not necessarily mean persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.
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A New Foam-Free Sub-Slab Insulation
Product Review
Foam glass aggregate made from post-consumer recycled glass bottles can replace both foam insulation and aggregate below grade.
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New PVC-Free Resilient Flooring Options
Product Review
Shaw is now offering biobased and recycled PET resilient flooring options for commercial and healthcare applications.
In The News
We break news down to the essentials and provide expert analysis.
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Grounding the AIA Materials Pledge in Data
News Analysis
With a Common Materials Framework, mindful Materials is mapping product labels to industry commitments.
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Forced Labor and the Building Material Supply Chain
News Analysis
Forced labor is used to create many building products, but changes are underway that are helping to address this serious issue.
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The Rise of Mass Timber in a Volatile Market
News Analysis
Demand for mass timber is going up, but there’s still lots of room to grow. Can that happen—sustainably—in today’s market?
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Green Seal’s LEED-Compliant GS-11 Paint Standard is Back
News Brief
Green Seal’s GS-11 Paint certification has been updated and can now be used to earn points in LEED v4.1.
Perspective
Thought-provoking opinions from the most trusted minds in sustainability.
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Pete’s Puzzle: Mold on Painted Clapboards is Food for Thought
Blog Post
There is mold on the factory-primed, latex top-coated wood clapboards on the south but not the north side of our house
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Combining Sheathing With a WRB and Air Barrier
Blog Post
How well do Zip and ForceField sheathing integrate a structural panel with bulk water and air management?
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Building Products Matter Even More Than We Thought
Op-Ed
Operational energy use is critical, but materials might be an even bigger part of the solution to climate change and other pressing environmental issues.
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FSC, LEED, and the Price of Perfectionism
Op-Ed
A hard line against industry-sponsored alternatives to FSC certification in the past may have unfortunate outcomes for the world’s forests.
Learning Resources
Syllabus supplements and CEU content, with automatic reporting for AIA and GBCI.
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Selecting Optimized Products for LEED Projects
Webcast
This pragmatic webinar walks you through the v4.1 version of the three Materials & Resources credits that encourage product-related disclosure and optimization.
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Getting Low-Carbon Concrete into Your Next Project: A Virtual Roundtable
Webcast
In this one-hour deep dive, we’ll speak with industry experts on current and potential low-carbon concrete technologies, how to track concrete’s embodied carbon, and how to specify viable low-carbon concrete.
Register here: https://www.buildinggreen.com/webcast/lc-concrete -
Finding Products for LEED v4 and v4.1
Feature Article
Finding and managing product information for LEED has changed—and v4.1 has added even more to think about.
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Using Low-Carbon Concrete in Your Next Project
Spotlight Report
Just For Fun
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