12.07.06
pharoswiki is open

11.14.06
pharos introduced at greenbuild 2006

11.13.06
new pharos factsheet

Health & Pollution

Water Quality

Intent

Effluent streams from across the life-cycle of a product are often released to local and regional watersheds, oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water impacting the water quality and its ability to support life. Discharged content including high organic content, suspended solids, biological contamination, phosphates, heavy metals andother compounds are harmful to aquatic ecosystems and the human activity they support. This category evaluates and rewards products and product systems that minimize or eliminate harmful discharges to local watersheds across the life-cycle of the product.

Ideal

There is no meaningful discharge to watersheds resulting from the extraction and processing of feedstocks, manufacturing of products, installation, use, and disposal of the product except that which is purified or treated to a level equivalent to the existing water quality in the higher of the source or the receiving body of water.

Key Metrics