The USGBC and HPDC have announced new resources for increasing the practice of transparent material health in the construction industry. These new resources include education modules and information tools to make product transparency easier for project teams and manufacturers to earn LEED v4.1 material transparency and optimization credits. The first education module will educate design professionals how HPDs contribute to LEED v4.1.
Resources from all Material Ingredients credit partners including the HPDC, ILFI, Cradle to Cradle and more are included in the new program. A project team working on a LEED v4.1 project can now find the how-to resources they need to contribute the LEED Material Ingredients credit for all programs that participate in the credit.
“Manufacturers are expanding the number of disclosed products on almost a daily basis. The new tools we are announcing make it even easier for architects and designers to use the Material Ingredients credit in LEED v4.1 to recognize their healthier product selection efforts”
-Wendy Vittori, Executive Director, HPDC
The new resources will include education modules that make achieving the LEED v4.1 Material Ingredients credit easy and straightforward. Whether you’re a LEED consultant working on projects every day, or new to this arena and trying to locate compliant products, the Material Health Education Roadmap will bring you up to speed.
Furthermore, educational “badges” can be earned on the USGBC Education Platform that enable LEED professionals to earn an industry-recognized credential in Material Health competency. Other resources include documentation integration between the HPD Public Repository and LEED Online that achieves a streamlined workflow that will launch in early 2020.
“The streamlining of the Material Ingredients credit language introduced in LEED v4.1 has resulted in a much greater level of utilization of this credit. We are also introducing other resources, such as the Better Materials initiative, which is focused on making Material Resources credits very attainable for every LEED project,” said Wes Sullens, Director, LEED, USGBC.
The product transparency movement saw significant strides in 2019 with the launch of the HPD Open Standard Version 2.2. The updated standard launches a new feature – the Supplier HPD, which enables standard-based ingredient reporting and transparency throughout the building product supply chain. If a Supplier HPD has been utilized to describe a component of a product, for example, the pigments in a paint, the optional Part Inventory Display will enable the manufacturer to display part information in the Product HPD report.
HPDs have become the most popular way to achieve the LEED v4 MR Credit: Building product disclosure and optimization – material ingredients. With thousands of HPDs already published, the HPD has become the default and most favored way to achieve the Materials Ingredients credit. With the launch of LEED v4.1 most likely in 2020, HPDs will continue to increase in abundance and importance for product specification.
Design professionals wanting to learn more about HPDs and how they contribute to LEED v4.1 are encouraged to visit the HPDC website. In addition, design professionals, manufacturers, and suppliers can find informative videos here. If you’re a design professional, have you used HPDs for your LEED certified projects? If you are a building product manufacturer, have you been asked to supply HPDs for jobs? ▪