Standards Available on Sustainability in Building

The Sustainability Subcommittee (E06.71) of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Committee E06 on Performance of Buildings has released two Standards documents and is preparing others. Under the leadership of subcommittee chair Dru Meadows, Standard E 2114-01, “Standard Terminology for Sustainability Relative to the Performance of Buildings” and E 2129-01 “Standard Practice for Data Collection for Sustainability Assessment of Building Products” are now available for purchase from the ASTM for $25 each. A third standard, on technologies for building with earth, is reportedly in the works.

The “Terminology” standard contains definitions for several dozen relevant terms, ranging from the very general (“toxicity”) to the more specific (“native species”). It does a great service in clarifying the distinction between the often-confused terms of life-cycle assessment (an environmental exercise) and life-cycle cost method (an economic exercise). Obviously, it addresses only a small fraction of the terms that could be considered relevant but serves a useful purpose nonetheless. (Now that this standard is out,

EBN may have to reevaluate the decision made nearly a decade ago to use “offgas” rather than “outgas” when describing chemical emissions from materials.)