Foreword

In 2014, the AIA adopted the Materials and the Built Environment position statement:

“The AIA recognizes that building materials impact the environment and human health before, during, and after their use. Knowledge of the life cycle impacts of building materials is integral to improving the craft, science, and art of architecture. The AIA encourages architects to promote transparency in materials’ contents and in their environmental and human health impacts.” – AIA 2014 Annual Report Materials matter, and this document offers project teams a protocol to put these words into action. The protocol guides owners, design professionals, contractors, and facilities managers toward best practices for choosing and installing products that are healthier over their full life cycle for humans and the environment. Unlike chemical avoidance list approaches, which have their place, this guide does not declare any bans on specific materials or product content. Instead, we seek to: • outline a framework for designing and building with healthier materials on projects • identify useful resources to aid project teams in the selection of safer alternatives • educate readers about the harms of certain types of substances found in building products Building materials matter Over the last decade, a growing body of environmental health research has shown that commercially available products, including building materials, commonly contain chemicals known or suspected to be hazardous to human health. Given that most people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors 1 , and that many of these chemicals now appear regularly in urine and blood samples 2 , there is growing belief that our buildings are exposing us to hazardous chemicals. In addition to impacts on building occupants, hazardous materials can pose impacts on people and natural systems across materials’ life cycles, during extraction, manufacturing, installation, and disposal. How can the design and construction industry address these concerns?

Several chemical avoidance lists, which identify chemicals to be avoided in building products, have been developed as one response to this development. As another response, greater transparency has become a motto for a growing materials health movement, and manufacturers are increasingly asked to disclose product chemical content beyond what regulations require. However, these lists and disclosure documents have been challenging to implement because of limited understanding of where these chemicals occur in products, how best to avoid them (e.g., whether to identify safer alternatives or forego them altogether), and how to prioritize such directives among other materials and product selection criteria.

1 Klepeis, et al. (2001). The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS). Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 11: 231-252.

The Need for a Roadmap to Healthier Materials The authors of this document have found that “reduced toxicity” and “healthier materials” are not easily specified by building owners, and approaches for tracking and documenting compliance with these objectives are not yet codified. The nearest precedent to bridge this gap was a guide for the United Kingdom, authored by Ove Arup & Partners, published in 1997 and then reissued in its 2nd edition in 2011. The Good Practice Guide to the Selection of Materials in Building Construction became a guidance document that changed the approach design teams took to selecting materials on building projects. As quoted from the British Council for Offices:

“This document was designed to encourage a change in emphasis, from the exclusion of materials to ensuring good practice in their selection. This objective was achieved, as consequently contract specifications referred to that document rather than the materials exclusion list.” While relevant in concept, the existing UK guide is not appropriate for use in the United States for several reasons. Unlike in the US, the European Union has put in place several regulations since the guide was published, such as the REACH program and Consumer Product Labeling requirements. These regulations have helped address many EU marketplace concerns related to chemical hazard identification in construction products. In contrast, the lack of such regulation in the US has led to a vast array of tools for project teams and design firms that are primarily targeted towards American practitioners. Also, the project delivery process in the UK and EU is more often design-build and less risk-averse. Shaping materials health outcomes This protocol seeks to produce a navigational guide that is appropriate to the American design and construction industry. It provides: • detail on the science and policy context for healthier materials • an approach owners and project teams can take to turn the vast array of chemical substances, certifications, and chemical avoidance lists into a manageable set of shared references • examples of how to turn values around health and transparency into clearly-written goals and scope of work, approachable targets, and clear roles and responsibilities for a project • an overview of approaches to implementing healthier materials—from favoring disclosure to prioritizing avoidance of selected substances • an introduction to common disclosure and optimization tools to guide your project team • common barriers in implementing healthier materials into projects—and how to address them • examples from practice that demonstrate different approaches to prioritizing healthier materials in a variety of project types While this protocol is written from a design perspective, it is intended for everyone working in this field. Designers are key players in evaluating and selecting building materials but designers are far from the only ones who shape the material health outcomes for our projects or our planet.