Green Product Certifications and Product Transparency

The growing availability and use of LCAs and EPDs as a means to assess and compare different materials and products for green buildings has led to their growing recognition and use in different green building and product certifications. These certifications set a performance standard and act as a benchmark for what acceptable or preferred levels should be sought in regards to environmental impacts. A summary of those certifications follows below:

 

SMaRT Sustainable Product Certification

Beyond conducting LCAs solely according to the ISO standard, a more stringent product certification program has been developed in this country known as the Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMaRT©) Consensus Sustainable Product Standard©. This ANSI standard acts as a PCR to define a category of exemplary certified sustainable products. It was developed by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) and uses environmental, social, & economic criteria applied to manufactured products. (http://mts.sustainableproducts.com)  To achieve SMaRT© certification, an ISO-compliant life cycle analysis is performed but some impact categories above and beyond those required by ISO must also be included, mostly related to human health and toxicity of materials used. Once complete, the LCA results are used together with other rating criteria to generate a LEED-style certification that is based on earning points in 6 categories:

• Safe for Public Health & Environment (PHE)
• Renewable Energy & Energy Reduction (RE&ER)
• Biobased or Recycled Materials (MATLS)
• Facility or Company Based MFG)
• Reclamation, Sustainable Reuse & End of Life Management (EOL)
• Innovation in Manufacturing (IM)

Depending on the number of points received out of the 173 total that are possible, a product can be certified as follows:

Sustainable:	28-40 points
Sustainable Silver:	41-60 points
Sustainable Gold:	61-89 points
Sustainable Platinum:	90-173 points

Note that this is a consensus-based certification that has been developed by industry experts and thought leaders. It requires environmental excellence in a variety of impact categories that go beyond those required by ISO. For example, no Stockholm Chemical Persistent Organic Pollutants are allowed (CFCs, pesticides, etc.). In addition to a full LCA, it also requires an energy inventory, manufacturer social indicator reporting, and indications on product durability.

Under the SMaRT program, EPDs alone are not a statement of environmental superiority. Instead they are statements of transparency that show quantification of the environmental impacts of a product. SMaRT Certification is, however, recognized as a statement of environmental superiority due to its extremely rigorous and comprehensive requirements. In serving as a general-purpose PCR, it also defines how products can be classified and reported under an EPD:

• Type I: Environmentally preferable product—product environmental superiority
• Type III: ISO-compliant LCA EPD—product transparency

LEED 2009

The concept of using LCAs and EPDs has already been a part of the LEED® rating system as developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). In the current version of LEED 2009 in the Materials and Resources (MR) category, pilot credits have been available for use of an EPD in at least 20 permanently installed products in a building. This pilot credit has required at least a partial LCA (cradle-to-gate) scope and allows the use of product-specific or industry-wide (generic) declarations. It also requires that the 20 products be sourced from at least five different manufacturers.

In addition to this pilot MR credit, Innovation in Design (ID) credits have been made available for using products with a SMaRT Certification. A Credit Interpretation Request (CIR) has been issued in regards to the SMaRT Certification, and the determination has been made by USGBC that since the certification “encourages innovation through product improvement” it is acceptable for an innovation credit provided proper documentation is provided in the LEED application. That documentation needs to show that the percentage of SMaRT certified materials must equal at least 2.5 percent of the total materials cost. The contribution to the cost analysis depends on the level of certification, with Platinum projects counting double, silver half and gold 100 percent.

LEED® v4

The fourth version of LEED® has been in development for several years and is anticipated to be released sometime during 2013. The Materials and Resources (MR) section is proposed to have substantial revisions such that points previously available for regional materials and recycled content are being rolled into the points available for LCAs and EPDs. Happily, the USGBC is not asking project design teams to conduct LCAs or to become LCA experts. Instead, the project team will be able to request an EPD (or perhaps another approved form of reporting) that discloses the required LCA-based information. In essence, LEED® version 4 will ask product manufacturers to gather the life cycle information on their products and to disclose relevant portions of that information in the standard EPD format. This affects four out of the five MR credits beyond the prerequisites and can earn up to 11 points in the process. In addition to earning points in this revamped MR section of LEED v. 4, an Innovation in Design credit remains available for use of products with SMaRT Certification.