The Pharos Project is a project of the Healthy Building Network. HBN is:

In Vermont:
Melissa Coffin, Bill Walsh

In California:
Tom Lent

In Washington, DC:
Larry Kilroy, Sarah Gilberg, Sarah Pickell, Susan Sabella

In Maine:
Jim Vallette

PHAROS ADDS LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE RED LIST TO SUITE OF FILTERS

Have you taken the Living Building Challenge (LBC)?

Launched by our partners at the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, LBC is a set of design criteria for high performance buildings – kind of a LEED Plus – that takes buildings a further step toward truly sustainable design. It shares with the Pharos Project a concern about the toxic properties of the chemicals currently used to make many of our building materials and addresses it in a Red List of chemicals that must be excluded from LBC buildings.

For this reason, Pharos has added the LBC Red List to its suite of filtering options – making life easier for designers and contractors who’ve taken the Living Building Challenge to exclude products containing red-listed chemicals, as well as for anyone trying to eliminate some of the worst carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals from their buildings.

This month, we are rolling out seven new filters. Two of the filters represent action lists from the LBC and the EPA:

Living Building Challenge Red List – LBC designers need to exclude products from their buildings that contain materials from a Red List that comprises 14 groups of chemicals chosen for their health and environmental impact. This is a tough set of criteria – so don’t be surprised at how few products make the cut. View the Living Building Challenge Red List in Pharos for a full description of the list and how it is applied.

EPA Chemicals of Concern – In December 2009, the US EPA announced a series of action plans to address five chemical classes that the agency has classified as Chemicals of Concern that warrant priority action to protect human health and the environment.

The other filters selectively exclude specific classes of chemicals that the LBC and the EPA have identified, one at a time:

Bisphenol A (BPA) – This chemical may damage developmental reproductive health and has gained infamy in polycarbonate water bottles and baby’s sippy cups. It is also a building block for the epoxies in many high performance coatings, caulks and composite materials.

Formaldehyde – A very potent carcinogen, with no safe level of exposure, that has been commonly used as a binder in composite wood and insulation.

Phthalates – Primarily used in building materials to make PVC flexible, chemicals in this group are endocrine disruptors and have been associated with asthma, cancer, obesity and reproductive/developmental problems.

Halogenated Flame Retardants (HFRs) – Used in polyurethane foams and other plastics, these highly persistent and bio-accumulative chemicals are similar to DDT and other banned pesticides, and are associated with developmental damage to the brain, thyroid and reproductive systems, as well as endocrine disruption and cancer.

Perfluorocompounds (PFCs) – Another set of highly persistent and bio-accumulative developmental toxicants used to make water and stain resistant materials and frictionless surfaces.

To use the new Pharos Project filters, select a product class from the Building Product Library, and then click the check boxes in the filter column on the right hand side for each chemical group desired. Click on “Apply Filters” and the list of products will be redrawn to exclude any products that contain the chemicals selected – including not only the content listing, but additives, monomers and catalysts from the manufacturing process that may still be found in trace amounts in the final product. Only products that have full disclosure of their material contents will appear in these lists.

Try out the filters. Learn more about what is hiding in the materials with which we build, and join the movement to rid our buildings of toxic chemicals.

Unfamiliar with the Living Building Challenge (LBC)? You can find out more about the LBC on line here or at Cascadia’s excellent annual Living Future Unconference in May or at a road show in a city near you this spring.

Tom Lent is a researcher with the Pharos Project and the policy director of the Healthy Building Network.

Comments

There are 0 comments.

Add a comment: