By Lisa Carey Moore
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According to a 2020 AIA analysis of sustainability trends, 80% of architects would like to specify more sustainable materials. Yet, the study also showed that only one in three architects believe they are now meeting this responsibility. While there are many opportunities to succeed within architectural sections, specialty members of the design team can help achieve transformation goals too, including those involved in lab and commercial kitchen design, as well as with all major trades from landscaping to communications.
It’s important to recognize that beyond the architectural divisions, fewer manufacturers offer labeled products. So any comprehensive plan for using healthier materials requires a streamlined — and hence, affordable — way to obtain and assess information. Trade-specific training can help practitioners understand their roles in achieving healthier product chemistry, while leveraging their knowledge and relationships to greatly expand a project’s influence on segments of the materials marketplace that are behind in the ingredient transparency and reduced toxicity movement.
Training can include basics such as how to read that HPD or understand if the C2C Materials Health certificate addresses a specific chemical of concern, or it can help you learn more about your favorite products or new product innovations. In addition, advocating to this wider circle of manufacturers for increased transparency, reduced toxicity, or both, ensures impact beyond the boundaries of your project and creates compelling success stories that you can celebrate with your clients and peers.
Once you’ve identified preferential materials and members of the team have a sense of what healthier means in the context of your project, it’s time to make sure you have a collaborative process in place to ensure the right products get installed. This involves additional communication between the design team and subcontractors during construction to understand how your specifications are being translated into building assemblies — often via a product declaration or pre-submittal.
Finally, it’s necessary to document what got installed, what didn’t (and why), and reflect on and tweak your process so you’ll do better next time. Creating a replicable method, which can be used for a variety of project types and with different members of the design team, is just as important as setting the healthy material goals. Using this iterative process can dramatically boost results — project after project.
Lisa Carey Moore is Living Future’s Director of the Buildings Team, one of the three pillars of LF’s Impact Group.
