By The Materially Better Team
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3 min. 55 sec.
In the built environment, the path to healthier buildings isn’t paved with good intentions—it’s forged through strategic advocacy that transforms entire supply chains, one manufacturer conversation at a time.
Beyond Compliance: Creating Market Transformation
Our work spans far more than any single building certification. We guide teams toward healthier materials choices that align with project goals and deliver project– and portfolio-level reporting in the industry’s shared language—the Common Materials Framework. This approach shows not only where goals are met, but how results scale across entire portfolios. Whatever the project, our role is consistent: translating complex product data into actionable insights that keep client priorities front and center.
That focus becomes especially clear when we encounter building materials that fall short of rigorous transparency standards—like Living Future’s Living Building Challenge requirement for 100% ingredient disclosure at 100 ppm. At that point, we face a choice: settle for what’s available, or advocate for what should be.
The latter approach is reshaping the industry. By engaging directly with manufacturers and encouraging them to pursue Declare certification or publish comprehensive Health Product Declarations (HPDs), we’re not just solving for a single project. We’re catalyzing market-wide change that benefits every future building, occupant, and ecosystem.
Real Results: The Yale Divinity School Living Village
While many manufacturers voluntarily published new HPDs disclosing ingredients at 100 ppm, others used our moment of outreach to go further—disclosing ingredients across entire product lines. Recent advocacy successes demonstrate this ripple effect in action:
GCP responded to our outreach by embracing Declare labels for products including Bituthene 3000, making previously undisclosed ingredient information publicly accessible. Today, they offer 20 Red List Free products certified through Living Future’s Declare program.
Lumenwerx similarly embraced transparency following our design phase advocacy, publishing Declare labels for 8 different lighting products covering all mounting options. They now have 21 products certified by Declare.
The CM’s choice to source reclaimed cobblestone—rather than importing new granite from India—demonstrates how advocacy sparks dialogue, drives solutions, and advances circularity. Stone Farm rose to the challenge, supplying the requested material.
The Multiplication Effect
“Advocacy isn’t just about meeting a standard—it’s about creating a ripple effect. Each conversation with a manufacturer has the potential to expand transparency across the market, turning project-specific decisions into broader industry impact,” notes Charley Stevenson, Principal at Materially Better.
This is the true power of advocacy: every successful engagement doesn’t just deliver healthier materials for one project—it establishes precedent, builds manufacturer capacity, and expands options for the entire industry.
Building Tomorrow’s Supply Chain Today
The Living Village demonstrates that thoughtful advocacy, paired with rigorous materials research creates not only healthier buildings but also a more transparent, accountable supply chain. Each conversation, each certification, each disclosed ingredient list becomes infrastructure for a built environment that prioritizes human and planetary health.
The question isn’t whether we can afford to advocate for better materials. It’s whether we can afford not to.
Materially Better provides client-focused, context-driven sustainability—turning data into actionable, scalable decisions for all stakeholders.
