Pharos F.A.Q.
Overview
Q: What is the Pharos Project?
A: The Pharos Project, at its core, is a campaign for transparency in the building materials market. What we are creating is the ultimate campaign tool: a tool for users to locate the best materials to meet their current needs and enduring values; a tool to help cut through the prolific greenwashing; a space where users can discuss what makes a product truly green; and, most importantly, a platform from which to show manufacturers what constitutes a market in support of the best environmental, health and social equity practices.
Q: What will I find on the Pharos site?
A: The main parts of the Pharos online tool are the Building Product Library (BPL) and the Chemical and Material Library (CML), both of which are available by subscription. Each product in the BPL is scored on several environmental and health impact categories. Detailed product profiles include chemical and material ingredients, which are linked to their respective entries in the CML. The CML sources health hazard information from over 25 authoritative national and international bodies and includes over 10,000 chemicals and materials.
Subscription Access
Q: What are the details of the Pharos subscription?
A: An individual subscription to Pharos is $180 per year, or $17 per month, which includes access to the Building Product Library and the Chemical and Material Library. Subscriptions are available at our signup page. Team and firm pricing and student discounts are also available - email support [at] pharosproject [dot] net for details.
Q: Will training videos or other media be included in the subscription?
A: Some basic tutorials are currently available here. For our team and firm subscribers, we would be happy to set up custom trainings and webinars upon request.
Q: How can I find out more about Pharos's partnership with GreenSpec, and how I can sign up for both?
A: As part of the Healthy Building Networks new partnership with BuildingGreen, LLC, we are working to link Pharos with BuildingGreen's GreenSpec building product directory. For more information on this partnership, visit GreenSpecPharos.com. Subscription details and further FAQs can be found here.
Comparison to other systems
Q: What is the difference between Pharos and GreenSpec?
A: GreenSpec includes guidance on what green attributes are important for each product category and provides a vetted list of green products, based on an overall life-cycle approach and the best judgment of BuildingGreen's expert team. These selections take into account operational performance, such as a product's impact on energy use, water use, and building durability. Pharos provides data and a transparent scoring system focused on each product's make-up, especially as it relates to toxicity and health hazards. It contains a wealth of data on products in each category covered, not only the greenest products. And the Chemical and Material Library provides a way to research toxicity and ecological concerns about ingredients from any product.
Q: What differentiates Pharos from existing certifications and LCA tools?
A: Pharos does not compete with existing third party product certifications but rather helps you understand how to make best use of them in product selection. Different certifications address different aspects of the health and environmental impact of products. Pharos helps you bring it all together to get a comprehensive view. The Pharos framework scores different certifications by the rigor of their standards and the independence of the certifying process and provides comparisons between the systems. Pharos step-by-step scoring descriptions lay out how different certifications impact a product's scores.
LCA tools hold significant promise for providing insight into some impacts of products, such as energy use and climate change, but practitioners have struggled to find robust ways to address human health in LCA tools. Pharos addresses the human health impact of both the material contents of the product and the chemicals used upstream in manufacture, using a robust framework based upon hazard assessment protocols also used by the Green Screen for Safer Chemicals and the EPA's Design for the Environment program. The assessment is more transparent than any other certification system available today with all data and scoring protocols fully disclosed. The Chemical and Material Library in Pharos provides manufacturers and end users alike with tools to assess and compare the hazards of chemical choices outside of the Pharos Product Library as well. Pharos also assesses the certifications for the sourcing of renewable materials, such as sustainably harvested wood, that LCA does not address.
System Features
Q: Can I go straight to the manufacturer's spec from Pharos?
A: Pharos provides direct links to the manufacturer's technical data sheets, specs, MSDS, and other product literature where available. These links can primarily be found as data sources within the detailed product scoring.
Q: Are there pre-canned filters to find products meeting the Living Building Challenge Red List or specific LEED credits?
A: Pharos has a number of filters including for materials that pass the Living Building Challenge Red List or LEED's new Pilot Credit 11 on persistent bioaccumulative toxicants and for materials that do not contain EPA Chemicals of Concern. More filters may be added over time - let us know what you'd most like to see!
Q: For those of us who aren't chemists is there a "cheat sheet" that can help us with prioritization of "harm"?
A: The Pharos Chemical and Materials Library provides a suggested prioritization of chemicals of concern through its use of color-coded flags - black flag for the most urgent priority persistent bioaccumulative toxicants, red flag for high priority chemicals that are known to cause cancer and other priority health problems, orange or yellow flags for lower risk chemicals. Ultimately, however, priorities may differ by project - if building a home for a person with asthma, asthmagens may be more important than most other possible concerns, while for another project it may be a lesser concern. Pharos, with authoritative lists of carcinogens, reproductive toxicants, asthmagens and more, helps you screen for the issues that matter most to your project.
Q: How can I submit new feature requests to Pharos?
A: We welcome your comments and ideas to improve Pharos. Click on the "Comment" link in the upper right hand corner of any Pharos page to share your thoughts with us on what will make Pharos the most productive tool for your office.
System Coverage
Q: What product categories are currently included in the Building Product Library?
A: The Building Product Library currently includes thermal insulation, standard paints, resilient flooring, wallboard, ceilings, high performance coatings, MDF/particleboard/wheatboard and carpet.
Q: What product categories will Pharos expand to include in the future?
A: We will be introducing more product categories in the months to come. Categories planned for opening this spring/summer include laminates, adhesives, and wood flooring.
Q: How does Pharos select the range of products in a building product category to review?
A: The Pharos team aims to select a representative range of widely available products for commercial construction. The Building Product Library is not intended to be a directory of the "greenest" or most sustainable products.
Q: Are the products listed in Pharos only available in the US or also in the rest of the world?
A: Pharos focuses on products available in the US and Canada.
Q: I am a manufacturer of building products. How do I get my products evaluated and listed by the Pharos Project, and is there a fee for doing so?
A: There are no fees charged to manufacturers for their participation in the Pharos Project. If a product category for your products is already open in the Building Product Library, please contact the Pharos team at support [at] pharosproject [dot] net. We will generate an RFI for the products that you would like evaluated and assist you in entering your product data. However, we cannot make any commitment as to if/when the product will be reviewed and published in the system.
We prioritize evaluating products that are of interest to our customers - and to date, have sought their input when selecting product categories to open, as well as when identifying individual products to evaluate.
If you manufacture a product for which a product category is not yet open in the Building Product Library, please check back with us in the future, or contact us to be included on an e-mail list for future updates.
Product Scoring and Evaluation
Q: Is there an overall score or rating for products?
A: Pharos uses a multi-attribute scoring system to enable subscribers to make informed decisions about a product based on their values and criteria for specification. There is no overall score for a product. We recognize that some issues are more important to some users than to others. For example, one user may be most concerned about toxic content and emissions, while another is most concerned about renewable and biobased material content. This multi-attribute system also gives both users and manufacturers a more complete picture of what areas are strengths that distinguish a product and what areas have room for improvement.
Q: Where can I find details on the scoring protocol for an impact category?
A: Detailed scoring protocols are available in the Framework section of the website. Pharos currently scores products in five impact areas: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), User Toxics, Manufacturing and Community Toxics, Renewable Materials Use, and Renewable Energy.
More Information and Support
Q: Where can I go if I have further questions or need technical support?
A: For further support, you can contact us by e-mail at support [at] pharosproject [dot] net. For general comments or feature requests, you can also click on the "comment" button at the top of any page when you are logged in.
