mindful MATERIALS: Climate Health
Embodied carbon is an increasingly urgent consideration: massive emissions from manufacturing concrete, steel, foam, gypsum board, and other building products are happening right now. Some products save energy and carbon during building operation. Our resources help you minimize the use of the worst offenders and support climate health by preferring products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester more carbon than emitted.
mindful MATERIALS: Climate Health
Deep Dives
Get up to speed on complex topics. You can also earn CEUs and download PDF Spotlight Reports.
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What Makes a Product Green Today?
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Lots of manufacturers call their products "green," but are they? Here's our guide to the high-performance attributes that matter.
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Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability: A Guide for Architects
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A report providing architects guidance on how to design sustainable lighting that supports health and wellness while reducing energy use.
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Wood: What’s Good?
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Mass timber seems alluring because of its low carbon footprint, but not all wood is equally sustainable. We dig deep into the controversy over which types of timber are “climate smart.
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Can Commercial Kitchens Go Electric?
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An all-electric commercial kitchen offers potential energy and carbon savings over using natural gas, but making the switch can be complicated—and even controversial.
Quick Takes
Jump straight to the essentials with these short explanations of green building concepts.
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The 12 Product Rules
Infographic
These 12 product rules provide a simple approach to selecting better, healthier, and more environmentally responsible building products and materials.
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Hemp: A Durable, Low-Carbon Building Material
Explainer
This rapidly renewable material is excellent for textiles and non-structural concrete. (And no, it will not get you high.)
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Glazing Performance Metrics
Explainer
A few key metrics are important for understanding the thermal performance of glazing units used in curtainwalls and windows.
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Neutralizing the Downsides of Concrete
Explainer
Concrete is a durable and necessary building material, but its carbon footprint is huge. Here’s a rundown of concrete’s tradeoffs and some solutions.
Product Guidance
Unbiased information from our product experts helps you separate green from greenwash.
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Tile
Product Guide
Porcelain tiles that meet third-party environmental standards, and BPA-free adhesives
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Concrete
Product Guide
Producing cement, the primary ingredient in concrete, generates significant amounts of CO2, mercury, and other pollutants, so maximizing its performance and finding substitutes when possible can improve the environmental footprint of a building.
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Blanket and Batt Insulation
Product Guide
Batts and aerogel blankets with high recycled content, reduced air-quality concerns, or superior performance
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Blown Insulation
Product Guide
Blown-in products with high recycled content, superior energy performance, and low-toxicity ingredients
In The News
We break news down to the essentials and provide expert analysis.
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AIA Adopts Materials Pledge: Spec, and You Shall Receive
News Analysis
The AIA Materials Pledge, inspired by the 2030 commitment, looks at issues from carbon to social justice.
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Justice, Circularity Overhauled in Cradle to Cradle v4
News Analysis
The latest version of the Cradle to Cradle product standard also expands embodied carbon requirements and replaces the controversial “banned list” with a new approach.
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Tally LCA Software to Include Product-Specific Data
News Analysis
Product-level embodied carbon information will be available within BIM software in 2023.
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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?
Perspective
Thought-provoking opinions from the most trusted minds in sustainability.
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Net Zero Has Failed. We Need a Universal Carbon Standard for Buildings.
Op-Ed
The building sector’s current “net-zero” standards are not credible, not scalable, and don’t eliminate emissions. There’s a better way.
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This is the Universal Low-Carbon Building Standard We Need
Op-Ed
The building industry’s current net-zero-energy and net-zero-carbon standards got complicated for a reason, but they don’t have to stay that way.
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The Universal Low-Carbon Building Standard Does Six Things
Op-Ed
Here’s how we’re going to deconstruct “net zero” and rebuild it as a comprehensive standard that applies to every building.
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COP28: Noise and Progress
Op-Ed
The COP28 politics and protests were crucial, but behind the scenes, it was all about good-faith collaboration, community, and commitments.
Learning Resources
Syllabus supplements and CEU content, with automatic reporting for AIA and GBCI.
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Choosing Certifications & Ecolabels: From Projects to Products
Webcast
The presenters, Brent Ehrlich and Paula Melton, share what they learned about today’s certification landscape while writing BuildingGreen’s Guide to Building Product Certifications & Ecolabels, distilling some of the information available in that guide to help attendees start to make sense of it all.
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LEED and Life-Cycle Assessment in Buildings
Webcast
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a way of understanding the environmental impacts of something, starting with raw material extraction and ending at a landfill or recycling plant. You can use LCA to identify the hot spots—that is, the worst impacts of the thing you’re analyzing—so you can reduce or eliminate them.
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Using Low-Carbon Concrete in Your Next Project
Spotlight Report
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Construction Emissions: A Virtual Roundtable
Webcast
In this one-hour panel discussion, we will tap the leading experts on estimating and tracking construction emissions and talk about best practices for reducing this slice of a project’s carbon footprint.
