Material Transparency
Material transparency allows building professionals to research hidden product impacts like embodied carbon, toxic ingredients or byproducts, and social responsibility in the supply chain.
Manufacturers may release many types of documents in order to facilitate transparency. These include:
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Environmental product declarations (EPDs), which show the environmental impacts of producing and disposing of a product
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Health product declarations (HPDs), which disclose ingredients and their toxicity profiles
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Corporate sustainability reports, which look at the overall environmental impacts of a whole company
Material Transparency
Deep Dives
Get up to speed on complex topics. You can also earn CEUs and download PDF Spotlight Reports.
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Cool Products from the Latest Greenbuild Expo
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We scoured the Greenbuild expo floor for the best new products and the most interesting updates. Then we whittled it down to these standouts.
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EPDs Are the Future of the Building Industry, Whether You Like It or Not
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Environmental product declarations are taking off, but can they actually fly? Experts share the ups and downs of this promising but imperfect transparency tool.
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Why Chemical Transparency Matters
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You can’t manage what you don’t measure—especially if you don’t know it exists in the first place.
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Finding Products for LEED v4 and v4.1
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Finding and managing product information for LEED has changed—and v4.1 has added even more to think about.
Quick Takes
Jump straight to the essentials with these short explanations of green building concepts.
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Product Guidance
Unbiased information from our product experts helps you separate green from greenwash.
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In The News
We break news down to the essentials and provide expert analysis.
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California Law Uses Environmental Product Declarations to Drive Low-Carbon Procurement
News Analysis
Buy Clean California is the first law in the nation to address embodied carbon in construction materials.
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Concrete Pours through Loophole in New Carbon Law
News Analysis
Buy Clean California requires contractors to specify lower-carbon products, but industry pressure quashed the law’s potential.
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Manufacturers to Architects: Buy Greener Products or They May Go Away
News Analysis
Designers asked for transparency and got it. Now they need to follow through with specs, say producers.
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Trust, but Verify: How to Get the Most from Transparency Docs
News Analysis
Third-party verification of HPDs and Declare labels is a growing trend. Is it growing fast enough?
Perspective
Thought-provoking opinions from the most trusted minds in sustainability.
Learning Resources
Syllabus supplements and CEU content, with automatic reporting for AIA and GBCI.
- Check if your spelling is correct, or try removing filters.
- Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: "blue drop" will match less than blue drop.
- You can require or exclude terms using + and -: big +blue drop will require a match on blue while big blue -drop will exclude results that contain drop.
