Bringing Order to Innovation: How AI and CSI MasterFormat Are Shaping Red2Green’s Future

When I first took a deep dive into the Red2Green product library as part of the Materially Better team tasked with updating products and product types categorization, I saw a tool with enormous potential—but also a pressing need for clarity and consistency. The database of products started as a crowd-sourcing effort and over time categories began to sprawl driven by users’ project roles and data interpretation. Duplication, vague labels, and unsystematic entries crept in.

We realized it was time to realign with an industry gold standard: the CSI MasterFormat. This framework is familiar to designers, builders, and specifiers across the architecture and construction world. It gives us a common language—one that streamlines project planning, procurement, and communication at every scale. But while CSI Masterformat serves as the backbone, with Red2Green we are free to innovate where needed to give space for modern materials and innovative technologies that simply didn’t exist when CSI was first introduced.

That’s where AI comes in.

A Smarter Backend for a Smoother User Experience

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to rebuild the Red2Green categorization system, not just by hand—but with the help of machine learning. We’re using AI to automate and enhance how we identify, classify, and tag products in our database. This backend support means new entries are mapped more accurately and quickly, minimizing the chance for misplacement or redundancy.

By training our AI on both our existing custom framework and current CSI Masterformat, it’s now capable of suggesting the most appropriate placement for a product—especially those tricky new products that don’t comfortably fit under existing categories or that need multiple labels. We’ve taught it to recognize the nuances in materials, applications, and even emerging product categories like mushroom-based insulation or bio-based binders, giving these game-changers a proper place in our evolving library.

Bridging the Past and the Future

We’re not throwing out the progress that’s been made. Our work honors the contributions from the earlier system while offering a bridge to something more standardized and scalable. This isn’t just a formatting preference—it’s about making searches easier, filtering faster, and results more relevant.

Why It Matters for You

If you’re a designer, builder, consultant, or anyone trying to make healthier material choices, our improvements mean you can navigate our library with greater ease and confidence. You’ll find all product categories—organized in a structure you already understand—making it easy to navigate everything from flooring and insulation to lighting, HVAC, finishes, and beyond. So, you’ll spend less time searching and more time specifying products that meet your sustainability goals.

Thanks to our ongoing development efforts and robust data-sharing partnerships, Red2Green is a truly intuitive, intelligent, and industry-aligned tool. By continually expanding our database with up-to-date, high-quality information, we’re putting the power to make healthier materials choices directly into your hands—for projects of any type, scale, or ambition.

As always, thank you for building better with us.