A More Transparent Shade of Green: PCRs Drive Restrooms to the Lead in Green Design

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Sponsored by Excel Dryer, Inc.
By Amanda C Voss, MPP
This test is no longer available for credit

Using Transparency To Create Greener Restrooms

Let’s face it—restrooms are challenging spaces to turn green. They’re zones of energy intensity, with high water usage and waste generation. However, careful product selection and planning can turn water, energy, and dollar-hungry real estate into a high-efficiency, cost-conscious space.

A variety of low-flow, water-conscious plumbing fixtures exist to aid in creating more efficient restrooms, with low-flow toilets and automatic, low-flow sinks ranking among the most widespread solutions. However, there is an often-overlooked area of energy consumption in restrooms that remains: how a user dries his or her hands after washing them.

Creating More Efficient and Green Hand-Drying Solutions

Today, the two choices for hand drying in commercial restrooms are either paper towels, made from virgin or recycled content, or electric hand dryers, both traditional and high-speed. Paper towels consume resources and generate waste. Electric dryers use energy. How can a buyer or specifier best sort through and compare these very different products and their environmental impacts?

Environmental Building News (EBN) commissioned a group of life-cycle analysis experts to perform a comparison of the four common methods of hand drying: 1) virgin paper towels, 2) recycled paper towels, 3) traditional electric hand dryers, and 4) high-speed, energy-efficient (HSEE) hand dryers.

The results of the EBN study overwhelmingly support HSEE hand dryers as a best solution for both total cost and efficiency. The EBN study concluded that HSEE hand dryers consume less energy than paper towels, with an 80 percent reduction of energy used per hand drying versus both virgin paper and recycled paper towels. For cost of use, the study showed that converting to a high-speed, energy-efficient hand dryer results in a 90 percent to 95 percent savings versus paper towel costs. With the cost savings from HSEE, a typical facility experiences payback on its investment in less than one year. In addition, the cost of ordering, storing, replenishing, collecting, and disposing of the paper towels is also eliminated, as well the resultant waste.

Quantis, an international life-cycle assessment research firm, undertook a complete beginning-to-end life-cycle assessment (LCA) in 2009 to compare the environmental performance of paper towels, 100 percent recycled paper towels, standard hand dryers, and HSEE hand dryers. The study was peer reviewed by an independent panel of LCA experts via ISO 14040 standards. The Quantis assessment accounts for the total climate change impacts, or global warming potential, over the entire life cycle of each system. It also measures the carbon footprint of each system in kilograms of equivalent carbon dioxide (Kg CO2 eq). Of the four types evaluated, HSEE hand dryers had a carbon footprint one-third to one-fourth the magnitude of the other choices.

Pictured is the Grand Central Terminal restroom renovation in New York City.

Using Transparency to Create Sustainable Restroom Product Solutions

High-speed, energy-efficient (HSEE) hand dryers were developed to enhance a restroom user’s experience and to create a more sustainable product. In the U.S., the first HSEE was introduced to the industry in 2001 under patented technology. Traditional electric hand dryers typically take 30 to 45 seconds to dry hands versus the 8 to 10 seconds needed with paper towels. Because of the dramatic amount of time needed and the user congestion resulting from waiting for an available dryer, traditional hand dryers are an unpopular application and found in only 10 percent of restrooms. In response, HSEE was developed. HSEE dryers use a focused, high-velocity airstream that eliminates water droplets in 3 to 4 seconds and an additional stream of heated air to blow off any excess water film, completely drying hands in 8 seconds as tested to PCR guidelines. Using 80 percent less energy than conventional hand dryers and reducing a facility’s hand-drying carbon footprint by 50 to 75 percent, HSEE dryers can generate a huge environmental win for facilities and businesses. However, the hand dryer market, like so many others, has its own share of knockoff products and manufacturers making unsupported claims. Architects and specifiers may approve ‘or equal’ products that are not true equivalents or units that are not as reliable.

The development and publication of standards like environmental product declarations and life-cycle analyses reflect a manufacturer’s commitment to transparency and encourage other manufacturers to follow suit, allowing decision-makers a clear path when specifying products.

Building on Transparency to Obtain Certifications

Manufacturers committed to transparency and cognizant of the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts of the products they create offer the best allies to help facilities qualify for LEED, Green Globes, and other program credits, and to satisfy corporate and government sustainability goals.

Using EPDs, PCRs, and LCAs, an architect is equipped to accurately forecast the energy use, reduction in energy consumption, cost savings, and comparative environmental impact of a product. Held to third-party verification and international standards, an architect can place his or her confidence in the veracity of this information. The PCRs standardized evaluation guidelines and reporting allow for the specifying community and buyers to conduct a more apples-to-apples comparison of hand dryers and ultimately make a more informed decision based on credible, third-party testing.

For example, a leading HSEE manufacturer publishes independent, third-party-verified data that has been tested via a PCR, demonstrating energy use per hand dry, cost savings, and carbon footprint reduction. The product reports more than an 80 percent reduction of energy use versus recycled paper towels; a 98 percent cost savings per 1,000 uses versus paper towels; and a 75 percent reduction in carbon footprint versus recycled paper towels. The architect may confidently propose HSEE as an environmentally superior solution, in comparison to paper towels, as the combined environmental impact of producing the paper towels and associated materials far exceed the impact from the use of the HSEE dryer.

Given the verifiable product performance data, the architect also equips the project to easily qualify for environmental program credits. Under this example, when pursing LEED v4 certification, the HSEE could earn:

  • Energy and Atmosphere (EA) Credit Optimize Energy Performance
  • Materials and Resources (MR) Credits for Building Product Disclosure and Optimization
  • Environmental Product Declarations for Sourcing of Raw Materials
  • Materials and Resources (MR) Credit for Solid Waste Management – Ongoing (LEED O+M projects only)
  • Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) Credit for Green Cleaning – Custodial Effectiveness Assessment (LEED O+M projects only)

The following certifications increasingly require products with demonstrable sustainability and third-party certifications:

Rating Systems

  • LEED: In March 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council formally released the LEED Green Building Rating System. Today, nearly 10,000 public and private building projects in the United States and abroad have used LEED as their certification standard.
  • Green Globes: Green Globes, a product of the Green Building Initiative (GBI), is a green management tool for the building design and construction industry. Adapted from a Canadian protocol, Green Globes was introduced into the United States in 2004. Since that time, 450 buildings across the United States have successfully achieved Green Globes certification. Green Globes incorporates a whole-building design to calculate an energy performance value, as well as prescriptive criteria for individual labeled efficiencies.

Product Guides

  • BuildingGreen Approved – Environmental Building News: A leading newsletter on environmentally responsible design and construction since 1992, EBN is independently published and advertisement free. The research and reporting is uncompromised by corporate or industry sponsorships.
  • The GREEN CATALOG, Green Hotels Association: The Green Hotels Association researched environmentally friendly, energy, and water-saving products and lists recommendations of best products in this catalog for the lodging industry.

Voluntary Green Programs & Memberships

  • Architecture 2030 for Products: Issued by Architecture 2030 in response to the climate change crisis, the Challenge seeks creative leaders from the global architecture and building community to adopt, design, and manufacture green and low-carbon products that reduce their carbon footprint by 30 percent below the product average by 2014 and then incrementally improve that reduction to 50 percent by the year 2030.
  • U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC): USGBC’s mission is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built, and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.
  • Green Building Initiative: The mission of the Green Building Initiative is to accelerate the adoption of building practices that result in energy-efficient, healthier, and environmentally sustainable buildings by promoting credible and practical green building approaches for residential and commercial construction.

 

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Originally published in Architectural Record
Originally published in September 2018

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