Information for Manufacturers

When an Integrated Eco Strategy (IES) Healthy Building Materials Specialist reaches out to a company about one of their products, it is generally because an IES client is considering using your product. These environmentally responsible architects, engineers, builders, and their clients are paying us to help determine whether the product is appropriate for their project. The work is performed and recorded on our proprietary materials management platform, Red2Green (R2G), by our in-house researchers and by other design teams nationwide who subscribe to R2G (which is why you may also be contacted for similar information by teams other than IES’).

We do not charge manufacturers and will not accept any form of payment. Our team does this work impartially, and we endeavor to provide you, the manufacturer, with ample opportunity to disclose product ingredient and manufacturing information.

Once our research is completed, we make the information available to current and future Red2Green clients. Ultimately, the client, not IES, decides whether or not to use a particular product based upon a variety of considerations, which they determine. The information you supply to the Healthy Building Materials Specialist is often a crucial factor, but may not be the only reason a product is chosen for purchase.

Please watch the video below for more details.

Advocacy for Better Products

One Manufacturer’s Perspective

For a manufacturer’s perspective on participating on a Living Building Challenge (LBC) project, see what high-performance construction products manufacturer Prosoco discovered in this short video.

Key Questions

Who is Integrated Eco Strategy?

Integrated Eco Strategy is a sustainability consultant. We operate collaboratively with, but independently from, the Living Building Challenge (LBC) and its sponsor, the International Living Future Institute. We wholeheartedly support the program but work directly for our clients, which include universities, architectural firms and private contractors.

Why did you contact our company?

Your product is being considered for a project that intends to build using healthier materials, and oftentimes is pursuing LBC certification. Our job to collect information about the ingredients used in building materials and, for LBC projects, to determine whether it complies with the Living Building Challenge rules for building materials.

LBC compliance is based on several factors:

Whether the manufacturer discloses ingredients
Whether the product contains Red List ingredients
Whether, when applicable, the product meets certain VOC limits, sourcing requirements and responsible industry standards

While we seek complete product transparency, no one factor—such as containing Red List ingredients—will necessarily preclude use of a product. Because similar products are often compared, the best approach is for a manufacturer to provide the highest level of disclosure possible for any given product.

What is the LBC Red List of materials?

The Red List

is what LBC calls the worst-in-class chemical families or least healthy prevalent in building materials. The Red List contains more than 800 chemicals harmful for human health and the environment. Ideally, an LBC project will not contain any Red List ingredients.

Why is ingredient X on the Red List?

The Iinternational Living Future Institute (ILFI) created a guide that gives a brief explanation of all the LBC Red List ingredients.

Are all products with any Red List ingredient content prohibited?

No. Some products with Red List ingredients can be used. While the elimination of Red List ingredients is a critical goal, the marketplace doesn’t always provide such products. Manufacturers’ level of disclosure and transparency, the location of final assembly, the end of life options and other unique, case-by-case factors, also have a bearing on whether a product is approved.

What is the end goal of contacting all of these manufacturers?

The end goal is to move the entire materials marketplace toward ingredient transparency and the use of benign ingredients, to promote healthy and sustainable building projects. Unhealthy ingredients impact not only building occupants, but also materials installers—and they can impact the health of your company’s workers and your community.

Has this been done before?

There are many certified Living Building Projects. Our firm is working on several in-progress as well as the recently certified Harvard University Science and Engineering Complex (one-half million square feet), R.W. Kern Center at Hampshire College and the Class of 1966 Environmental Center at Williams College. See this full list of LBC certified projects.

Why should a company provide this information? It’s not required by law.

Participation is voluntary so, in addition to being the right thing to do for human health and the environment, providing information is also a competitive issue. Owners, architects, and builders are building increasingly healthier buildings. They want to select products from manufacturers that provide essential information and greater transparency.

LBC is just one of the green building certifications programs (LEED and WELL are the two others) concerned about transparency and toxicity. Further, consumers (and occupants of buildings) have a right to know about the toxins they are exposed to on a daily basis and be able to choose products that will create healthier living and working environments.

VOCs, Documentation, Declare

How do we comply with California Department of Public Health standards?

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) established testing criteria to determine how much products off-gas. Here are two labs that will test your products to determine compliance with the standard: lab 1; lab2.

How much time do I have to disclose the information you request?

We try to allow up to three weeks to make a determination on LBC compliance on a product for our clients, but sometimes information is needed more quickly. We understand that sometimes this process can take time (if the product is very complex or if you need to obtain information from your suppliers), so we ask that you get us as much information as you can immediately, then forward us information as it trickles in. That way, when a decision must be made quickly we have all available information to that point. Our experienced researchers are happy to assist and will provide any information they can to facilitate your disclosure.

What documentation is needed?

We have created a simple disclosure form for you. If you’d like to submit something else, that’s fine as long as it covers all the same information.

Our information is confidential. Do we need to disclose everything?

Our goal is to get 100% ingredient transparency. However, if you cannot tell us the names of all ingredients but you know that they are not Red List ingredients a pathway may be available, provided other disclosure requirements are met. Our researcher will work with you in this case, to provide necessary guidance. Keep in mind that our preference will always be to use products where the manufacturer has been transparent about ingredient composition.

Who uses all of this information?

Through Red2Green, project teams using the platform will have access to any public information that you share with us. If you share documents with us that you don’t want anyone else to see, we will keep those documents and that information confidential.

Can ingredient information be kept confidential?

If you wish, information can remain confidential. In that case, in addition to our project team, ingredient information will only be made available to our LBC auditor, who checks our paperwork at the end of the project to ensure that we have complied with LBC requirements.

What will this cost me?

Working with us at Integrated Eco Strategy to research a product is free. Registering a product with Declare, which is administered by the non-profit International Living Future Institute, has a fee associated with it.

What is Declare and what does it cost?

Individual products can be registered with the International Living Future Institute Declare Label system and are a way for manufacturers to add their products to a library of healthy materials.This label is available to the public and states where the product is made, what it is made of, and where it needs to go at the end of its life. Registering your products with this system is different from just disclosing information to us, but we encourage it since we are required to have a portion of the products in our building be Declare products. More information, including the cost to “declare” a product can be found here.

Do I need to provide information about all these small parts?

Our goal is learn what all ingredients are, even if they are a small percentage of the whole. If your product is very complex and composed of many parts let us know, and we will work with you to figure out the best way to identify the necessary information.