Today, IES employs the world’s largest LBC standards materials research team. Highly trained and dedicated, many with years of materials vetting experience, the group includes healthy building materials specialists, project managers and quality control coordinators. All research, project communication and data storage is performed using R2G, originally developed to fulfill the imperatives of the LBC Materials Petal and now supplied by subscription to project teams nationwide.
At the outset, researching a single product took six hours or more. Using R2G, the same task now requires approximately an hour, often less. Direct feeds of information into R2G from sustainability disclosure platforms such as Declare and HPDC also help reduce research time and ensure that the most transparent products are added quickly.
In addition to LBC projects, R2G is used by myriad owners and teams simply seeking healthier materials but not pursuing certification. Users can customize R2G’s sustainability criteria to select products that best meet their goals.
R2G has proven an invaluable resource for many successful projects including, notably, Harvard’s SEC, then the largest LBC project ever built. R2G’s database now contains more than 20,000 products from nearly 5,000 manufacturers, including all Declare products. IES researchers and R2G subscribers use the platform’s customized email templates for outreach, ensuring that manufacturers are fully informed about the LBC Red List of chemicals of concern, product disclosure requirements and the sustainability aims of the project seeking ingredient information.
At the audit stage for projects pursuing certification, stored results and documentation are immediately available to auditors through R2G. Using the platform, auditors can seamlessly follow up with the project team throughout the review, to quickly address any issues or questions.
