KELSEY P.
29 JULY
Greetings from the HBN Pharos interns, Kelsey Poole and Sarah Lott. For the past eight weeks we have been working with HBN staff to expand the Pharos database. Kelsey recently graduated from American University with a BA in Environmental Studies. Sarah is a junior at James Madison University pursuing a degree in Biotechnology. As our internship draws to a close, the HBN staff has invited us to share our thoughts on the Pharos Project and our experience working on it.
Our work with Pharos has primarily been researching and entering new products into the database. We helped open categories for insulations, ceiling tiles and wood flooring. We also conducted foundational research for these and other upcoming categories. Our other project was finding contact information for the companies in the database so that HBN can request further information and invite the manufacturer’s participation. We certainly know a lot more about building products now than when we started!
While we accomplished a lot, most of our time was spent trying to overcome the many challenges facing Pharos. Transparency is a point that has been discussed many times in this blog, and we can attest that transparency is a key issue for the health and sustainability of the buildings we live in. There were many times when researching a product that we found little information or literature available from the manufacturer. Too often we found that the MSDS had no material content information, due to exemptions in the EPA Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone to effectively judge how safe and sustainable the product really is.
This is the problem that the people at HBN deal with every day and are constantly working to alleviate. By collaborating with manufacturers to disclose more information, Pharos helps consumers make better decisions about what goes into their buildings. The Pharos Project is not so much about the products it scores, but more about making information available about the materials with which we build. There is no guarantee that manufacturers will improve their practices and make safer building materials just because Pharos gives them a bad score—but they certainly won’t change if no one makes such an effort.
We’ve seen the database expand tremendously in the past weeks. Even though we’re leaving, Pharos will continue to grow. After working with the energetic staff of HBN, we believe this project can have a huge impact on green building and are excited to see where Pharos will go in the future.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
14 JULY
Think “transparency” is an established, maturing theme? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Trendwatching.com
The news this summer provides more insight into why the assortment of eco-labels and certifications that define green products today is a transitional stage, soon to be eclipsed by an unprecedented convergence of better information and better information technology known as radical transparency.
A new report by the World Resources Institute finds that after more than a decade of refinement, eco-labeling and third party product certifications are not working well. They have become “fragmented and often confusing to institutional buyers as well as individual consumers . . . due to competing claims on what makes a product ‘green,’ especially when there are two or more competing schemes for the same sector or product.”[1] The WRI report, The Global Ecolabel Monitor 2010, analyzes more than 300 eco-labels and third party eco-certifications, including virtually all of the iconic labels of the green building industry. The report identifies stubborn barriers to effective eco-labeling that are also likely to handicap ambitious new corporate sustainability and transparency standards announced this summer.[2] Among the barriers noted by WRI:
- It is difficult to define best practices for ecolabels or standards. (Value judgments are inherent in such standards.)
- Competing standards are inevitable. (Well-funded industry labels routinely compete with independent third party standards, confusing consumers.)
- Sustainability standards are rarely static. (Our Pharos Team recently found that most paints beat eco-label requirements by 50% or more.)
“What if finding out where and how our stuff was made was as easy as finding the lowest price or peer opinions?” asks The New York Times contributing writer Rob Walker in the June 27 installment of his weekly column, Consumed. Walker, an astute observer of consumer trends in the digital age, addresses the gap between the “transparency triumph” that has changed the paradigm of retail marketing completely (think NextTag, Tripadvisor, or Amazon Reviews), and the relative lack of transparency in the “brand/production relationship” which still more often than not “remains murky until bad news pushes it into the open.”
What’s changing, writes Walker, is that “knowing something” about a particular product “resonates with consumers more than an aggregate score or a big-picture summary.” His measured reaction to a lengthy sustainability report published by the Gap mirrors the reaction of many green building professionals to the proliferation of corporate sustainability reports in the building products industry: “On one level, it’s admirable that the company discloses, for instance, that as of 2008, 11.8 percent of its Southeast Asia factories received a “needs improvement” rating. But as a practical matter, how does that relate to your specific T-shirt or the khakis you’re considering?” Or the carpet you are specifying?
The overwhelming volume and complexity of supply chain information makes it unlikely that commercial buyers will base a multimillion dollar contract decision on a Yelp review of a vendor, or a YouTube video documenting chemical hazards of PVC. Walker sees a future, however, where the mere availability of such information is itself the catalyst for positive change. He concludes with a vision that describes the future of radical transparency in the green building industry: “Imagine an open-source effort emerging to make that brand/production relationship much less opaque than it is.” He writes, “I don’t expect that most consumers would actually turn every impulse buy into a research project, but I bet it would change the way brands scrutinize their supply chains if they knew that every thing we buy was really, truly transparent.” We’re betting on it too.
Footnotes
[1] The Global Ecolabel Monitor 2010, p. 3.
[2] Just before Memorial Day, Greenbiz and Underwriters Laboratories announced the creation of a LEED-like global sustainability standard for companies. In late June, Interface, the maker of modular carpet, expanded its program for providing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for its products.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
12 JULY
Missed one of our free webinars this summer? Or did you attend one and want to share with colleagues?
We will be posting the tutorial highlights of all of the webinars we are offering this summer.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
24 JUNE
The US Congress has approved legislation[1] to limit allowable emissions of formaldehyde from composite wood products, specifically hardwood plywood, particleboard and medium-density fiberboard sold in the United States. The new limits in are based on the levels established for the State of California in 2007 by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
This is good news for reducing the serious toll that this known carcinogen takes on human health through widespread exposures in homes, offices and schools from building materials. The legislation should serve as a strong wake up call to the industry and help increase availability of low-formaldehyde and formaldehyde-free materials for the green designer. It is, however, only one piece of the puzzle in getting formaldehyde out of our buildings.
Although the regulations list emissions standards that kick in as early as July of 2011 and 2012, the EPA has two and a half years – until January 2013 – to promulgate regulations to implement the standards and retailers will be allowed to “sell-through” their inventory even beyond that point. Exemptions abound, including hardboard, structural plywood, structural composite lumber, OSB, glue-lams and wood I-joists, finger-jointed lumber, wood packaging, plus some exceptions for windows, exterior and garage doors, vehicles, boats and aircraft. Other important areas of formaldehyde use in building products, such as insulation and textiles, are not addressed by the legislation.
Finally, the new federal legislation reduces formaldehyde emissions but does not eliminate them. The California Air Resources Board says bluntly that there is no known safe level for this carcinogen and avoidance is the best approach. There is a labeling option in the federal legislation for indicating “no-added formaldehyde-base binder,” but formaldehyde-based binders will still be widespread in products after this legislation goes into effect. So although this legislation will represent an important step for reducing the health impacts of formaldehyde in buildings, smart designers will continue to use Pharos to find and evaluate the increasing number of products available across categories that avoid all added formaldehyde.
------------
[1] S. 1660: Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
24 JUNE
Last week we described the major reductions in VOC content we are seeing in paints (Paint Industry Drives Toward Zero VOCs – Will Certifications Catch Up?). But does a low-VOC content number mean these paints are actually safe from the perspective of environmental health? Not necessarily.
As we described in an earlier blog (Sorting Out The VOCs), the total VOC (TVOC) criteria originally was established by the EPA to control product emissions of smog forming compounds into the environment, not to control direct indoor air health impacts. With the focus on smog formation, TVOC is a very incomplete measure of the potential health impact of chemicals of concern in a product. By official EPA definition, TVOC exempts some VOCs from measurement because they don’t contribute to smog formation even though they otherwise may be quite toxic. There is no “safe” level of VOCs, except where products contain absolutely no VOCs including the exempt compounds. Very few paint manufacturers indicate whether the VOC content levels of their products include the non-smog forming, exempt compounds. Setting the Pharos VOC filter at 7 screens out all but those few that have stated clearly that their product contains no VOCs, including exempted VOCs.
Looking only at a product’s VOC content does not tell the whole story of the product’s potential harm from VOCs. As paints cure, they can sometimes create and emit formaldehyde or other VOCs during the curing process. Both the GreenGuard & Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) programs now certify paints, by looking at the potential for long-term VOC emissions. The MPI Extreme Green program also requires emissions testing before certifying the products. The problem is that the standard upon which these programs are based (California 01350) is designed to identify and evaluate only long-term emissions, not the short-term blast of emissions that comes in the first few hours and days after the paint is applied to the wall.
Until good short-term testing protocols are developed for paints (and other wet-applied products), another measure of potential VOC harm for the indoor environment is to look at the VOC content. Pharos gives the highest VOC scores to products that both reduce VOC content to zero (including exempted compounds) and meet the long-term VOC tests embodied in the California 01350 standard. With the new California 01350 higher residential standard in effect, specifiers should require that paint products meet this more rigorous level that we wrote about last month (A New Voc Standard & New Tools From Pharos To Help You Get The VOCs Out).
Finally, VOCs (both content and emissions) are not the only potentially unhealthy chemicals associated with paint. Although lead has long been removed from paint, plenty of other non-volatile, but still toxic chemicals remain in paints. Most of the certification programs have some limits on other toxic content of the paints. The Green Seal chemical screen is by far the most extensive. Green Seal includes a list of 25 chemicals that cannot be in Green Seal-certified paint, but also references authoritative lists of carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxins, hazardous air pollutants or ozone-depleting compounds similar to the Pharos Chemical and Material Library lists that we use to create the User Toxicity scores. Click here to see those products that meet the new, rigorous Green Seal Standard. [http://www.greenseal.org/findaproduct/paints_coatings.cfm] Very few paints are certified under the new Green Seal program, but we hope to see more upcoming.
Want healthy paints? You can find them in Pharos. Start with the wide selection of paints now available with VOC content levels at 25 g/l or below (those that score 6 or higher in VOC). Better yet, go for paint containing zero VOCs and ask manufacturers if that zero includes exempt compounds (there are at least 3 in Pharos that meet that high standard). And finally, for the best paints available, don’t stop at VOC content. Look for those that avoid all toxic content by seeking Green Seal certification or a high Pharos User Toxicity score.*
------------
* Note that the Green Seal paint certification program was updated in 2008 and certifications under the previous version are no longer valid. Several paint companies that certified to the previous version, however, have not recertified to the new updated version, yet still claim to "meet Green Seal" or even to be "Green Seal certified." Always confirm that a paint is still certified before accepting a manufacturer Green Seal claim.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
21 JUNE
Anyone who finds themselves in a hospital, as a visitor or patient, has plenty of idle time sitting or reclining, looking around – as “islandtime” writes on a poetry discussion board - “thinking about the patient, where the ceiling tiles came from, how hospital sounds can mimic outdoor sounds, the way the techs and nurses are all dressed the same.”
For those who wonder about, and those who specify, ceiling tiles, the Pharos Project is exploring “where the ceiling tiles came from.” This week, our Building Product Library published the first diverse set of ceiling tile evaluations.
Our research into acoustical ceiling tiles indicates a very complex category. The contents and additives in ceiling tiles vary greatly. The primary core materials for acoustical ceiling tiles are mineral wool, fiberglass, or gypsum. Specialty tiles and panels may be made of wood, metal, recycled glass, and even jute. Facing materials range from paper to vinyl to antimicrobial paints. Within each type of tile, the amount of recycled and renewable content differs significantly from product to product.
Moreover, we have identified issues that may concern Pharos users: the widespread use of biocides, flame retardants, and formaldehyde-based binders, some of which are not disclosed in company literature. We have found carcinogenic flame retardants and biocides being released from ceiling tile plants – with no corresponding information about these chemicals on manufacturers’ websites.
Pharos Project subscribers will find several ceiling tiles in the system that use urea phenol formaldehyde and biocides. Some use a lot of recycled material. You will find further information about these and other ingredients in the Chemical and Material Library section of Pharos. We will also detail these and other concerns – as well as the positive attributes – of products in upcoming Signal blogs.
Many of our users, who specify millions of square feet of health care and other facilities per year, understand the importance of any decision on specifying ceiling tiles. Ceilings represent one of the largest surface areas in any interior. Suspended ceiling tiles and panels lie at the intersection of building ventilation systems and occupied space. They are receptors and sources of Volatile Organic Compounds and other toxicants.
Our research and evaluations of ceiling tiles should help users identify which panels use and emit the fewest toxicants and incorporate the most renewable materials. Then, when patients and visitors are staring up at some hospital room ceiling, the view will be healthy.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
14 JUNE
Low-VOC labels and certifications abound on the paint shelves today. What do they all mean? Not necessarily what you think.
First, let’s look at the certifications. Green Seal, EcoLogo, CRGI GreenWise and MPI Green Performance all base their certifications on VOC content – and 50 grams/liter (g/l) is the magic number. Almost every single one of the certifications sets 50 g/l as the maximum VOC content for flat sheen paints. (Flat sheens are primarily for ceilings and walls, with a matte look and are the least scrubbable of the sheens).
The consensus goes out the window for other sheens, such as semi-gloss, gloss, satin or eggshell (each preferable for different areas/parts of a building, depending on need for moisture resistance, scrubbability, and/or shine). MPI holds its threshold to 50 g/l for all sheens, while GreenSeal and CRGI allow up to 100 g/l for the non-flat sheens. EcoLogo has a more complex set of criteria, limiting interior non-flat paints to 100 g/l, 125 g/l for exterior non-flat sheens and 150 g/l for gloss sheens.
Some of the relevant government standards are running ahead of the third party certification programs. Since 2008, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has mandated a standard maximum VOC content of 50 g/l for flat and non-flat paints/coatings used in buildings in Southern California. The SCAQMD standard is used by the LEED certification system as the standard for credits in its certification program.
Meanwhile, in many cases, the paint industry is ahead of both the certifications and standards. All of the 23 semi-gloss paints (non-flat) Pharos evaluated as of June 8, 2010 have VOC content less than 50 g/l – and hence meet the lowest current standard. But they don’t stop there. Almost three quarters of those paints (17) have less than half the allowed VOC content (that is less than 25 g/l). More than half (13) are close to or at zero VOC content (with 5 g/l or less). Clearly the 50 g/l and higher thresholds of the standards and certifications are needlessly high and the discerning specifier can hold out for much better paint specifications.
You can do better than the certifications and standards by using the Pharos scoring filter to find paint products with lower VOC content in the Pharos Building Products Library. Setting the filter to a minimum VOC score of 6 will only display those products with VOC content of 25 g/l or less. A minimum VOC score of 7 will limit the display to those paints with true zero VOCs.* Despite standards and certification programs, there is no need to accept paint with VOC content even close to 50 g/l anymore.
__________
*“True zero VOCs” here refers to the fact that most VOC disclosures by manufacturers only include the VOCs that contribute to smog formation. Other VOCs are exempt even though they may have health effects. To get a VOC score of 7 a product must be known to have no VOC including these exempt VOCs, See Sorting Out The VOCs for more about this issue.
There are 3 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
10 JUNE
Antimicrobial use in building materials, including paints and coatings, has grown rapidly in recent years and is coming under increasing scrutiny as concerns about health impacts and effectiveness rise.
There is a wide range of antimicrobial use in paints and coatings. Most manufacturers, with some exceptions (e.g. epoxy-based paints and coatings), use “in-can preservatives” to prevent mold and fungal growth in the can and keep the paint from spoiling. They claim that because latex is made from starch, it is a good food source for bacteria.[1] Other manufacturers add what they call “biocides” or mildewcides to exterior coatings to prevent algae and mold growth. Additionally, some manufacturers add antimicrobials to their products explicitly to claim antimicrobial protection on the surface of the coating once it has cured, even for interior applications.
Aggressively marketed for enhanced infection control, antimicrobials are used in paint to inhibit mold (as well as in other interior finish products, including carpet, privacy curtains and upholstery fabric, wallcovering, wall protection, and door hardware/handles). In some products, metals, such as silver, are impregnated into the product to provide the antimicrobial properties. In others, products such as Microban are used as antimicrobials, made from the chemical Triclosan, a chemical of concern because of its acute toxicity.
Research indicates that environmental concerns exist from the manufacturing processes associated with antimicrobials (e.g. metals may be released into our water, soil, and air—the same metals that ironically may contribute to antibiotic resistance). Silver, in particular, has been linked with bacterial resistance.[2] Antimicrobials can also lead to what is known as “cross-resistance,” whereby through an intricate process, bacteria become resistant to the antimicrobial itself, as well as to a whole host of other antibiotics.
At the same time, serious questions are being raised as to whether added antimicrobials even serve a measurably useful function in interior finishes. The efficacy of antimicrobials has been called into question by several independent studies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded a 2003 comprehensive study of infection control practice with the statement that “No evidence is available to suggest that use of these [antimicrobial] products will make consumers and patients healthier or prevent disease. No data support the use of these items as part of a sound infection-control strategy.”[3] Kaiser Permanente similarly concluded in a December 2006 position statement that “[w]e do not recommend environmental surface finishes or fabrics that contain antimicrobials for the purpose of greater infection control and the subsequent prevention of hospital acquired infections.” KP states that there is “no evidence that environmental surface finishes or fabrics containing antimicrobials assist in preventing infections.” Rather, the organization recommends strict hand hygiene and environmental surface cleaning and disinfection.[4]
Meanwhile, more and more products are being introduced with added antimicrobials. Just this week, the Pharos Team received an e-mail announcing a new product from Jamestown Coating Technologies, SurfaGuard.™ The e-mail claims that SurfaGuard™ antimicrobial paints and coatings are designed to “provide an extra defensive shield against bacteria, molds, and fungi. The new product…incorporates silver ions via a new nanotechnology, SmartSilver™ that are proven to work against microbes.”
In light of the fact that the growing market for such added antimicrobials seems to be at odds with the science, Pharos would like to remind our subscribers that when they get claims from manufacturers about added antimicrobials in products, that the experts at the CDC have said, “No evidence is available to suggest that use of these [antimicrobial] products will make consumers and patients healthier or prevent disease. No data support the use of these items as part of a sound infection-control strategy.”[5] The whole added antimicrobial discussion reminds me of my parental role every time my kids come to me after seeing an advertisement for the newest pair of jeans or the most up-to-date PlayStation game - just because the advertiser says you need something, that doesn’t mean you really do!
-------------
[1] Only a very few acrylic paint manufacturers do not add some type of preservative in the can. In the past, mercury was added to paint, which acted both as an in-can preservative and as an antimicrobial additive. For some time in the 1990’s, formaldehyde replaced mercury and was used to provide these protections. In the 21st century, chemical compounds such as benzisothiazolin-3-one (BIT) or methylisothiazolin (MIT) are used as in-can preservatives. Further study beyond the scope of this blog is needed to learn more about these different applications and the chemical compounds associated with them. When manufacturers disclose in-can biocides, we have included them in the product evaluation.
[2] “Antimicrobial Chemicals in Buildings: Hygiene or Harm” Environmental Building News, Volume 16, Number 8. August 2007 p 13.
[3] Centers for Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities Recommendations of CDC and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/guidelines/Enviro_guide_03.pdf).
[4] Kaiser Permanente,” Evaluation of Antimicrobial Property Claims in Finishes and Fabrics," December 1, 2006. (http://www.healthybuilding.net/healthcare/KP_Antimicrobial_Position_Paper.pdf)
[5] CDC. Op. cit.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
03 JUNE
Leukemia and other cancers of the lymph nodes, blood, bone marrow and spleen… neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity and immunotoxicity… respiratory tract pathology, asthma, and increased allergic sensitization. A major EPA review of the science on formaldehyde, released in draft form this week,* affirms that the science is conclusive that formaldehyde is linked to all of these health effects in humans. This report further legitimizes longstanding concerns about formaldehyde within the building industry.
The good news is that it is getting easier to avoid formaldehyde in products such as composite wood and batt insulation. Manufacturers are responding to the growing awareness that formaldehyde-based binders can release hazardous quantities of carcinogenic formaldehyde into occupied spaces– even through drywall. For example, the Pharos database now lists five batt insulation products claiming no formaldehyde in their binders. Three of them are fiberglass-based, one uses plastic fibers and one uses cotton fibers.
Are the alternatives less hazardous? None of the batt insulation manufacturers have been particularly forthcoming about the chemical content of their alternative binders. Through patent research, however, the Pharos team has been able to learn enough about the formulas to evaluate some of them and determine that several of the alternatives are less hazardous.
A few of the Johns Manville products use an Aquaset binder from Rohm & Hass, which achieved the best VOC and User Toxicity scores in Pharos, with SCS Indoor Advantage Plus Formaldehyde Free certification confirming their low-VOC emissions and formaldehyde-free claims. Pharos patent research confirmed that none of the chemicals in the Aquaset binder raise as high a level of concern as formaldehyde – all of them receive orange or lower flags in the Pharos Chemical and Material Library.
The Knauf EcoBatt products use the Ecose binder, for which we only found orange flagged or better chemicals in the patents. They are, however, reportedly making the insulation on the same machines as their other formaldehyde-based products and so Knauf acknowledges that Ecose products may have trace amounts of urea phenol formaldehyde binder. This should result in far less formaldehyde releases than a UPF-bound product, but it means the products can’t pass the Pharos formaldehyde-free filter until they complete the transition. Not only is the binder formaldehyde-free, but it is also partially plant-based, However, since the binder makes up 17% or less of the overall product content and the plant component is only 20% of the binder, the total bio-based content (about 3%) is too small to affect renewable material scoring.
The third fully characterized and scored product is Dow’s SafeTouch product. Dow replaced the itchy fiberglass with a non-itch PET fiber – good news for anyone who has handled fiberglass. However, with no VOC certifications and Pharos patent research revealing two red-flagged carcinogenic chemicals in the binder, this product scores very poorly in Pharos’ VOC, User Toxicity and Manufacturer and Community Toxicity categories. Also disappointing is the lack of any recycled content. Given the high amount of PET bottles being recycled these days, Dow appears to be ignoring a good opportunity for high recycled content.
The final fiberglass product that is advertised as formaldehyde-free is CertainTeed’s Sustainable Insulation line. Certified for low-VOC emissions to Greenguard Children & Schools, and with higher post-consumer recycled glass content pushing its renewable material score above the other fiberglass products, this could be an appealing option. The Canadian version claims 65-70% post consumer glass - more than any other fiberglass product. The manufacturer, however, has not revealed any substantive information about the binder, claiming only that it is “similar to sugar.” Pharos has not yet found a patent corresponding to the product registered in the U.S. Since we have yet to learn the contents of the alternative plant-based binder, the User Toxicity score is low and the product won’t yet make it through the Pharos formaldehyde-free filter. (No product can pass a Pharos chemical filter unless the manufacturer has fully disclosed the product’s contents or we have found them through patent research.) Encourage your CertainTeed sales reps to disclose the contents of this product in Pharos to get fully rated.
Bonded Logic’s entrant in the formaldehyde-free race is Ultra Touch, a cotton batt with a polyolefin binder using recycled material from the clothing industry. The renewable material score is only half what it could be due to their use of post-industrial rather than post-consumer material content (send your old jeans to Ultra Touch!), but still places near the top of the batt insulations for use of renewable material. Unfortunately, while this product has been tested for low VOC emissions, Bonded Logic has not yet disclosed any details of their polyolefin binder, lowering Ultra Touch’s User Toxicity score. While we have no reason to question the formaldehyde-free claim, the product also won’t show up in the formaldehyde-free filter until the company discloses the chemicals they use in the binder.
Cotton is not the only bio-based solution making it into the market. We are currently evaluating several insulation products made from sheep’s wool. They appear not to use any binder at all, but may require fumigants to avoid moth infestations. Watch Pharos for more information about these products in the future.
In an increasing number of product categories, like batt insulation, innovative manufacturers are developing products that avoid the concerns raised in the new EPA report on formaldehyde and we can send a message to accelerate this change through careful product selection. As we have seen with batt insulation, however, finding out what is inside is challenging. When we do learn what’s inside we discover that some of the alternatives represent real improvements with lower toxicity while others continue the use of red flagged hazardous chemicals. Pharos users should insist that all of these manufacturers be more transparent and forthcoming about the chemicals used to make their alternative binders and reward those that are formulating with less hazardous chemicals.
----
* The US Environmental Protection Agency released its “Draft Toxicological Review of Formaldehyde in Support of Summary Information on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)” on June 2, 2010 for a public comment period ending August 31, 2010.
There are 3 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
02 JUNE
There are thousands of paint products on the market today. For interior paint products, manufacturers offer a variety of sheens: flat, eggshell, gloss, semi-gloss. And, for each sheen, the product is offered in a whole host of base tint options: neutral, white tint, pastel tint, dark tint, etc.
In Pharos, we started the standard paint category with information on a subset of glosses and tints – focusing on semi-gloss paints with a white or light tint base. Marketing materials from paint manufacturers, however, don’t necessarily tell users that there may be health hazard differences associated with the various sheens or base tints. In our research looking at the technical documents behind the marketing claims, however, we have discovered that the sheen and tint base can matter when it comes to buying paint and our health.
For example, Glidden Professional, Akzo Nobel’s commercial product line, offers an interior/exterior product known as Lifemaster Oil Int./Ext. paint, available in eggshell, semi-gloss and gloss. The product is marketed as “sustainable,” and listed on the company’s “Think Impact” website. The Think Impact product lines are advertised by Akzo Nobel as: "[P]roducts with specific characteristics that offer environmental benefits for your projects. We're working toward lowering our environmental impact at every step of the product lifecycle, while keeping in mind current regulations and anticipating future requirements."
Think Impact products strive for sustainability in reducing the carbon footprint, waste, energy and promoting water conservation – all laudable goals that Akzo Nobel should be commended for.
But what of the health hazards associated with the products?
The product line offers paint that meets Green Seal and SCAQMD requirements – <50 g/L, but just barely.
- The eggshell has the highest VOC content – ranging from 48-50 g/L (depending on tint base).
- The semi-gloss has similar VOC content between 47 and 49 g/L.
- The gloss, however, has significantly lower VOC content, with a wide range depending on tint base – from 31 g/L (white tint base) to 45 g/L (deep tint base).
The company’s marketing materials don’t tell you that the eggshell and semi-gloss have higher VOC content than the gloss. The advertising simply tells you that the product line is < 50g/L because that is what is required to meet Green Seal and SCAQMD. But is that all that really matters?
A careful side-by-side comparison of the material safety data sheets (MSDS) for these products reveals that not only do eggshell and semi-gloss have higher VOC content, but it is probably at least in part due to the presence of xylene - a volatile organic compound known to be neurotoxic in humans. In contrast, xylene is not listed as a material ingredient in the gloss formula, which has the lower VOC content.
Another chemical that appears in some, but not all of, the sheens and tint bases for Lifemaster Oil Int./Ext. is a cobalt compound, cobalt neodecanoate. Cobalt compounds are listed as carcinogens by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In Lifemaster Oil, you find cobalt in all the semi-gloss dark base tints, but not in the white base tint. In the eggshell and gloss versions, cobalt is in all of the tints, even the white tint base.
The Pharos team unearthed the chemical content information by looking specifically at the MSDS for the gloss product. To be able to advertise that they are truly sustainable, shouldn’t manufacturers be transparent in their marketing materials as well, letting you know that their products may contain chemicals that could be harmful to human health? Shouldn’t manufacturers tell you that their gloss paint does not contain xylene, or that some of their paint mixtures contain an OSHA carcinogen?
Architects, designers and other specifiers of paint should not be expected to dig deep into technical documents and cross reference chemical ID numbers (CAS #s), in order to determine whether a product is safe to put on the walls of a building. Pharos can help – but ultimately, it should be the manufacturer’s obligation to be transparent and let users know what really is in their products.
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
02 JUNE
As I spend my days within a world of data, certifications, lunch and learns, and labels, I often remind myself why I do this for a living. I think of people living on the front lines of industrial production that I hope will one day benefit from my work. People that I have met in communities struggling for the basic right to clean air and uncontaminated water. Communities like Mossville, Louisiana.
Tonight at 8pm eastern on CNN, viewers will have an opportunity to get a sense of the day-to-day reality of life in a community that produces many of the chemical building blocks of our petro-chemical-based economy. “
Toxic Towns,” an hour-long investigative story hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, looks at Mossville, a small Louisiana community near Lake Charles, that hosts 14 industrial facilities and is in an area known as the “vinyl capital of the world.”
Mossville residents suffer from a variety of serious health impacts related to the disproportionate concentration of industrial facilities in their community. Their struggle was first brought to national attention by the 2002 HBO documentary, Blue Vinyl. In March of this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) ruled in favor of admitting a human rights complaint filed on behalf of the residents of Mossville. It is the first time the commission has taken jurisdiction over an environmental racism case in the United States.
What brought on this unprecedented intervention? Take an hour tonight to take a look at what it really means to live on the fenceline -downwind of the factories that make the plastics with which we build. It may not be the easiest program to watch but if you are like me, it will make you feel better about what you are trying to do.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
26 MAY
Today, we introduce a new product category to the Pharos
Project,
interior paints (CSI 09 91
23). Interior paints are ubiquitous in
our commercial and residential buildings.
Often the paint product we use at home is the same product used in a
medical office building or in our children’s schools.
There are hundreds of paint products on the market
today. In early spring, we sent a
request to the leading paint manufacturers, asking them to provide information
about their paint products, with a focus on the products that they consider to
be the most “green.” Many of those
products you will see displayed in Pharos in the upcoming weeks.
In order to keep the list manageable and provide a
consistent comparison across products, we list only the semi-gloss version of
each product. In subsequent blogs, we
will discuss some of the toxicity differences associated with sheens and tints,
to help specifiers identify potential issues related to the variety of
offerings from paint manufacturers.
When you view the products, you will see a range of high and
low scores, depending on the impact category.
Some products score high in the VOC (volatile organic compound) impact
category, with zero VOC content; while other products scored poorly in
Manufacturing Toxicity (MfrTox), because manufacturers chose not to disclose
fully the material contents of those materials.
One of the many things we learned undertaking the research
for both high performance coatings (HPCs) and interior paints is that there is
a wide range of disclosure from paint manufacturers. Some report a long list of chemicals and materials
that are included in a product’s ingredients, while others report merely one or
two chemicals/materials, sometimes accounting for only 5-10% of what is
actually in the product. Not only does
this remind us how limited Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) can be, but
should inspire Pharos Project users to urge manufacturers to disclose fully the
chemicals and other ingredients in their products.
We’ve learned several things about interior paints that we
will be discussing further in upcoming blog posts:
- Interior paints avoid some of the most toxic
chemicals used in HPCs because interior paints do not require the durability
expected of HPCs. For example, our
research and manufacturer disclosure indicate that the endocrine disruptor
bisphenol A (BPA) found in many HPCs is not included in interior paints.
- Added tints and different sheen types sometimes
come with additional VOCs or other changes in the toxic content of
interior
paint products. Some manufacturers have
invested resources in developing zero- or low-VOC tints, which is a
welcome
innovation.
- Some manufacturers are adding antimicrobials to
paints, with questionable efficacy. In
addition, most paints have biocides added to the can to prevent mold and
sour
smells before opening.
- Current certification programs and low VOC regulatory
standards for paints – even GreenSeal and SCAQMD – are generally lagging
well
behind the market today. Many paint
companies have offered low- (<25 g/L) or zero-VOC paint for several
years
now, while the standards and certifications mostly allow anything under
50 g/L
as “low VOC”. It is time for the
standards to catch up to what industry can deliver.
- There is still much controversy about how to
measure short-term VOC emissions from wet applied products. As a result, interior paints (unlike carpets,
resilient flooring and other non-wet interior finish products) are
currently
evaluated on the actual content of
VOCs in the product, rather than their emissions.
There are some strong products on the market that contain
zero- or low-VOCs. However, because of
chemical exclusions from VOC measurements and the potential presence of
hazardous non-VOCs, full disclosure of material content is required to really
understand what products can release into our homes, our offices, our schools,
and our hospitals. Very few of the
manufacturers who entered data about their products chose to fully disclose
100% of their contents. We are confident
that engaging in the Pharos Project can transform the market so that paint
manufacturers begin to be more forthright in sharing what their products
contain.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
20 MAY
Foam board insulation presents one of the tougher challenges for green building. With excellent performance characteristics and high R values - from 4 to 5 per inch or beyond – foam boards have been very popular for insulating foundations, walls and roofs in high performance designs. As we’ve reviewed the chemistry of these foams for the Pharos Project, however, we’ve learned that the chemistry that goes into making the most popular foams - polyisocyanate, such as
Thermax, expanded polystyrene (EPS) such as
Falcon Foam and extruded polystyrene (XPS) such as
Styrofoam – is highly problematic for human health and the environment.
The manufacturing processes for both polyisocyanate and polystyrene are based upon highly toxic chemicals that receive
red flags in Pharos as materials of very high concern. The
toluene diisocyanate (TDI) building block for polyisocyanate is a known carcinogen and the styrene component of polystyrene is connected with a range of hazards from asthma to endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity and cancer. That, however, is just the beginning of the problems.
These plastics work their thermal magic thanks to the foaming process that creates countless tiny insulating pockets in the board. The CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) chemicals originally used to do this foaming were among the most potent ozone destroying chemicals. The Montreal Protocol, the international agreement to protect the earth’s ozone layer, has slowly forced the industry to phase out the worst ozone depleting agents and find alternatives. Some manufacturers are converting to HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) while others are finally getting away from halogenated compounds entirely, converting to pentane-based foaming agents with little or no ozone destructive potential.
Avoiding damage to the ozone layer, however, has come at a cost. Some of these blowing agents, such as the
HFC-134A used in Styrofoam are even more potent global warming gases than the CFCs they replaced, leading to serious questions about the basic efficacy of this insulation to fight global warming, an issue that warrants further attention. Furthermore, the hydrocarbon blowing agents being used instead of the HCFCs are adding to the flammability of these plastics. While manufacturers rarely disclose their fire retardant on a product’s Material Safety and Data Sheet (the MSDS), our research indicates that halogenated fire retardants are used in virtually all US production – usually
TCPP (tris(chloropropyl) phosphate) in polyisocyanates and
HBCD (hexabromocyclododecane) in the polystyrenes.
The HBCD fire retardant in polystyrenes is now the target of high concern globally. This persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemical is associated with hormone disruption and reproductive disorders and is one of the top sixteen chemicals being studied for elimination on the European Commission’s “
Substances of Very High Concern" list. According to the
Green Science Policy Institute (GSP), “It has been widely detected in household dust, sewage sludge, breast milk and body fluids as well as wildlife and the global environment. HBCD is also used with fabrics and plastic;
however 85% is used with polystyrene insulation, which is likely the primary source of the global contamination.”
The TCPP in polyisocyanates is not yet as well studied as HBCD, but indications are that it may not be any better. This neurotoxic chemical is a close relative of
tris, the carcinogenic compound that was banned as a fire retardant in baby pajamas in the late 70s.
So what is a green designer or builder to do?
* Speak up and push for disclosure - Let your foam insulation sales reps know that you don’t like the choices currently available on the market, and push them to disclose what they are using and explore alternatives. European firms are beginning to employ safer non-halogenated fire retardants like
triethyl phosphate (TEP).
* Ask for versions without fire retardants for below grade - As
Environmental Building News noted in an excellent article on the topic, a significant percentage of insulation applications are below grade and hence have zero fire risk and have no need for retardants. Ask your insulation reps to provide a well-marked retardant-free option for these applications.
* Avoid the toxic foam boards entirely - Use a blanket or batt insulation that does not require halogenated flame retardants where possible. Where a board insulation is needed, check out the fiberglass and mineral fiber-based boards. We’ll discuss the options for formaldehyde-free binders and bio-based fibers in these blankets and boards as well as aerogel technology in blogs in the near future.
Some very creative alternatives are on the horizon, including
Ecovative Design’s board made from agricultural byproducts woven together by the mycelium roots of mushrooms. Sounds implausible, but they’ve already demonstrated a class 1 fire rating and passed a battery of ASTM tests for mold growth, water sorption, and vapor transmission. It’s only available as a packaging material this year, but we’ll be watching them and rooting for their success.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
11 MAY
“Imagine a future where what we build is another part of nature,” neatly sums up the regenerative aspirations of many at the Living Future UnConference last week in Seattle. This annual gathering of building professionals exploring the Living Building Challenge ranged widely over the leading edge of green building design, technologies and activism.
Citing the tremendous purchasing power now wielded by the green building movement, Cascadia ED, Jason McLennan, opened the conference with a strong challenge to the audience to be bold and flex that power for transformation in the industry by taking a united step together on all projects, not just their Living Building Challenge projects. As a first step he called on all firms to just say ‘no’ to specifying PVC backing in carpet anywhere.
The Pharos Project was there joining session topics ranging from water treatment using biomimicry to the role of green building in ending homelessness. Robin Guenther, a principal at Perkins + Will, and I engaged in a lively discussion with the audience on radical transparency and how to use tools like the Pharos Project and the Perkins+Will Precautionary List of chemicals to get carcinogens and reproductive toxicants out of our buildings and our bodies.
Robin’s colleague at Perkins + Will, Amanda Sturgeon, raised the challenge to move from toxic materials to those that actually restore the environment, describing a project in Sudbury, Ontario that used limestone surfacing elements to help reverse the acidification of a lake that had been devastated by nickel mining.
Can we transform our industry so that what we build becomes a regenerative part of nature that heals instead of a source of cancer to be cured? With tools like the Pharos Project working hand-in-hand with the Living Building Challenge, we think we can.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
SARAH G.
07 MAY
The writing is on the wall for manufacturers of products and processes that use known and suspected carcinogens. Or at least it’s in the President’s inbox. The President’s Cancer Panel, an elite group of experts that has been dubbed “
the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream” by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, released a report yesterday titled “
Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk.” The report is a call to action for a more rigorous and precautionary approach to chemical regulation, drawing particular attention to the need to reduce environmental and occupation exposure. A big theme in their recommendations is transparency: “Workers, other populations with known exposures, and the general public require full disclosure of knowledge about environmental cancer risks.”
I came upon this report fresh out of the
Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference in Washington, DC, where I had been tabling for the
Healthy Building Network and the Pharos Project earlier this week. I met a number of people who had experience working in construction and manufacturing or were otherwise concerned about worker safety. They told me stories of times when their eyes watered and their lips went numb working with a particular adhesive, or of a relative who had cancer or other serious health problems after working in a chemical factory for many years. As the President’s Cancer Panel states, and these workers have experienced, currently “the public bears the burden of proving that a given environmental exposure is harmful.” As we progress toward a green economy, it is our responsibility to demand that a green job is a healthy job, and to encourage a healthy workplace by transforming the market for building materials toward healthier products.
Around midday on Wednesday, a large group of local high school students came through the exposition. Many knew nothing of the kinds of environmental health problems that have been linked to building materials, so I took it back to the basics. Here’s a sample conversation:
Student: Why healthy building materials? Are the building materials we use unhealthy?
Me: Well, have you ever been in a building while it is under renovation? Or when they’ve just put in a new carpet, or a new coat of paint?
Student: Yea! Like when they redid part of the school and we couldn’t go in there for weeks ‘cause it smelled like fumes and stuff.
Me: Exactly. That smell can come from toxic stuff in paints, adhesives, and other chemicals that they add to building materials to make them flexible, or strong, or fire-resistant. We want people to know what’s in the building products they buy or work with and the potential hazards so that they can be healthier in their homes and schools and workplaces.
Student: Wow, that’s really good that you guys are doing that. This is important to know about. We shouldn’t be getting sick from buildings!
So, friends in the building materials industry, hear this: from high school students to construction workers and all the way on up to the elite medical experts, the nation’s call for transparency is getting ever louder, and it’s reaching the ears of our President. Be a part of the solution by getting involved in the Pharos Project.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
04 MAY
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.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
04 MAY
There is good news from the VOC standard-setting world addressing a big toxic problem in homes. And, the Pharos team has just rolled out new tools to help you take advantage of this development to make all of your buildings healthier.
The problem: VOCs - the volatile organic compounds that offgas from paints, new carpets, wallboard, insulation and many other products - are responsible for a variety of health problems, ranging from asthma to cancer. Readers of HBN News may recall that during our research into
formaldehyde insulation binders a couple of years ago, we identified problems with the way VOC standards were being applied in homes. The 01350 Specification standard, which guides the leading VOC certification programs (including CHPS, FloorScore, Indoor Advantage Gold, GreenLabel Plus, Greenguard Children and Schools, and others), determines if any measured VOC emissions from a product are at safe levels. This determination is based on whether the ventilation system dilutes emissions enough to bring them below safe thresholds, as established by State of California scientists.
The problem is that homes - which generally don’t have ventilation systems - have much slower “air change rates.” Therefore, VOCs released in residences will not get diluted as much or as quickly as the Section 01350 standard anticipates. In fact, a
study of over 100 new homes in California found air change rates were just a fraction of those in offices, resulting in formaldehyde and other VOCs skyrocketing in these residential settings far beyond recommended levels.
The solution: Concerned that homebuilders and homeowners were getting a false sense of security from use of these 01350-based VOC labels on products, HBN alerted the designers of the 01350 Specification and worked with them to redesign the standard to be health protective in homes. Last month, the California Department of Public Health issued a
revised Version 1.1 Standard Method for use with the 01350 specification, with two important changes:
- A “residential scenario” that effectively addresses the lower air change rate problem for building products to be used in homes, and
- A new lower threshold for formaldehyde emissions for all building types that is optional now and mandatory starting in 2012.
Pharos tools put this solution to use: To help you understand the health impacts of the revised 01350 specification and other VOC standards applied to building products, the Pharos team established a new scoring category this week, which is solely based on the VOC content in products and VOC emissions from products. The higher the score, the healthier the product is in terms of VOCs. Under the new scoring protocol, products that meet the regular school & office 01350-based VOC standards receive a 7 (one point lower than in previous Pharos scoring). Products at this level can contribute to meeting LEED credits (such as NC EQ Credit 4.3 for flooring).
The scoring now helps you to evaluate products beyond current LEED standards. Any product that meets the new 01350 formaldehyde standard gets an 8, and those that meet the new residential standard receive a score of 9. A product with a full report from an independent laboratory showing no detection of any VOCs also gets a 9, and if that report is third party certified, the product attains the top score of 10.
We are now also providing you more information about the certifications to help you understand and use them more effectively. Check the
VOC Scoring Chart in the Pharos Framework to see how different certification programs score against the Pharos VOC criteria. Click through on any certification link to learn more about the certification criteria, who runs the program, whether it is third party or industry sponsored, why Pharos scores them the way we do and where to get more information.
Take action: Now we need to get the new 01350 standard in wide use. Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) is the first certifier to confirm they are
adding the new 01350 residential standard and the stricter formaldehyde standard to their
Indoor Advantage Gold program. They expect to announce the first products that have passed the new standards in the next few weeks.
Other programs such as FloorScore, GreenLabel Plus, and Greenguard Children and Schools, however, are taking a wait-and-see attitude, watching for market demand. This is where Pharos users come in. Your inquiries to your sales reps asking for products that meet the new 01350 residential standard will help create the buzz that pushes the manufacturers and the certifiers to get on board. Insist on products that meet the new residential standard and the new formaldehyde standard, regardless of building type.
VOCs aren’t enough: While all the attention has been on VOCs, other not-so-volatile chemicals, that are equally harmful to health, can migrate out of building materials and into you through contact, dust, your food or other pathways. That’s why Pharos has an “IAQ & other Toxic User Exposure” wedge that scores by combining VOC data with information about the toxicity of other product contents. We’ll be talking more about halogenated flame retardants and other toxics in products in the coming weeks.
You can rely on Pharos to continue working to give you the most complete picture of chemical toxicity in building materials and refine our system to make it easier for you to use this information in your work. We look forward to your feedback on these new tools.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
30 APRIL
Over the past six months, we’ve begun to see a new EPA – one that supports transparency and access to information about chemicals. We’re moving away from broad protections for industry non-disclosure, formerly protected by confidential business information (CBI) rules. Advocates and consumers can look to EPA to begin to take action on some of the
worst-in-class chemicals that can affect human health (including many found in building materials). And just yesterday, the EPA provided open access to its toxicity database, providing a new vehicle for researchers and industry leaders, and ready access to
scientific studies about chemicals.
The open access database isn’t for everyone. The information in the database is highly technical and scientific. It will help those of us at Pharos obtain up-to-date scientific information about chemicals and materials, making it easier for us to undertake our research into products’ material contents. It will help green business leaders who hope to make products that are healthier for humans, by giving them access to known research into alternative chemicals and materials.
But most importantly, it sends a signal that this government values transparency and access to information – information that, for too long, has been buried behind a wall.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
27 APRIL
“On a Saturday afternoon this past May, while pumping a two-part ‘GREEN’ soy-based foam into the attic ceiling of a Cape Cod home renovation, a fireball erupted, taking the hose man’s life.”
So begins a
harrowing account by health and safety consultant Richard Hughes, in which he explores how a polyurethane spray foam applicator in Falmouth, Massachusetts, died on the job last year.
Sprayed polyurethane foams (SPF), especially those that contain soy-based polyols, are commonly called “green” building materials. Some people like its ability to tightly seal hard-to-access areas; others recite industry literature that trumpets the use of bio-based ingredients (soy) in the chemistry and the absence of free formaldehyde in the product.
There are multiple variations on ingredients used in SPF, but the key ones are the same. These are two part systems. One part is an isocyanate. The other part is a mix of polyols, flame-retardants, blowing agents, and other additives. Foam insulation installers follow the same basic steps that occur in industrial polyurethane factories, but in a far more confined space, combining Parts A and B in peoples’ attics.
Before the foams arrive on the job site, there are upstream hazardous associations, including reactions with formaldehyde and chlorine. Like PVC, polyurethane uses significant quantities of chlorinated compounds in its manufacture leading to emissions of dioxins and furans. These persistent, bioaccumulative toxicants are highly potent carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.
The production of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), the most prevalent isocyanate used in SPF, requires a whole host of chemicals at various stages, including toluene, benzene, nitrobenzene, aniline, formaldehyde, methylene dianiline (MDA), and phosgene (produced from carbon monoxide and chlorine).
SPF installers combine the isocyanate (Part A) with a mixture of polyols, additives and catalysts (Part B).
Polyols are made from adipic acid, variously with ethylene glycol, propylene oxide or other chemicals. Sometimes the polyols are produced with soy, but this accounts for less than 10 percent of the final polyurethane product.
Additives include surfactants, blowing agents, and flame-retardants, some of which are known to contribute significantly to global warming and ozone depletion. (See box below for examples). Catalysts, which trigger the two-part reaction, can include problematic heavy metals. A common catalyst is lead naphthenate.
Federal agencies are starting to look much more closely at SPF. OSHA, the Consumer Products Safety Council, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), have formed a
Federal SPF Workgroup. The group aims to:
- “Improve availability of accurate and comprehensive hazard and risk information.” At a December 2009 Federal SPF Workgroup webinar, EPA official Mary Cushmac warned that do-it-yourself applicators are using two-component kits and “are often unaware of the hazards and the need to prevent skin, eye and inhalation exposures.” She raised a question that, disturbingly, remains unanswered: “When can occupants, residents, and school children safely re-enter the premises after SPF application?” The agencies said fundamental guidance is needed for "ventilation, exposure controls, clean-up, and re-entry time.”
- “Address inaccurate or misleading marketing claims.” The federal workgroup listed such claims as “No off-gassing”, “non-toxic”, “safe”, “green”, “environmentally friendly,” “is plant-based”, and “made from soy beans.” A slide warns that the Federal Trade Commission “prohibits deceptive representation in advertising, labeling... and sales presentations.”
- “Address exposure assessment and data gaps.” Janet Carter, an OSHA scientist, noted, “Only a few Material Safety Data Sheets mention the possible need for respiratory protection for ‘adjacent workers’… and do not mention the possible presence of MDI.”
“Worker exposures (are) not always considered in developing ‘green’ products and practices,” charged NIOSH scientist, Dr. Daniel Almaguer. “A truly comprehensive approach to sustainability and green practices needs to include occupational safety and health aspects.”
Drawing a lesson from the explosion on Cape Cod, Richard Hughes concludes, “Chemicals in the residential construction world are a far larger source for concern than we are presently acknowledging in manufacturers, distributors and our own independent safety literature.”
Even less understood than occupational hazards are long-term user exposures from chemicals released into the household from the spray application process, and from the installed foam.
The Pharos Project database now evaluates several SPF insulation products. We are adding more each week. Please take advantage of our
free trial, to take a comprehensive look at the volatile chemical mixtures that insulation applicators handle as they manufacture polyurethane, attic by attic.
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
16 APRIL
Pharos Project Senior Researcher Jim Vallette appeared on this week's edition of Earthbeat Radio to talk about his research into the toxic drywall crisis in Louisiana. The podcast is now available at Earthbeat's website.
A great primer on what drywall is, how it is made, and the issues that have arisen in the last year and as a result of our research.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
15 APRIL
While many consumers are increasingly worried about the safety of products from baby bottles to building materials, most are unaware that only a few hundred of the approximately 80,000 chemicals in commerce have been tested for safety.
With the declaration that "America's system for regulating industrial chemicals is broken," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced a bill today that would represent a sea change in the way chemicals are tested and managed.
If passed, the “Safe Chemicals Act” represents the first revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act since its passage more than three decades ago. Under the bill, U.S. EPA would be given broad new authorities to target chemicals of concern and to regulate new and existing chemicals.
While the “Safe Chemicals Act” has only been introduced, and passage in its current form will require it to weather a steady assault from chemical industry lobbyists; it is clear that things are going to change. On that much, environmental health advocates and chemical industry executives agree.
Both understand that no one is served by the current system that engenders consumer distrust and market uncertainty when, for example, a builder finds out that the LEED platinum building he finished yesterday is loaded with tomorrow’s hormone-disrupting chemical of concern.
Within this atmosphere of uncertainty, and grounded only in the knowledge that things are about to change, the need for the Pharos Project is even more apparent. Builders and architects may not be able to predict the future, but they can access the best information available today, including thousands of commonly-used chemicals referenced against dozens of authoritative lists compiled by national and international expert bodies. In fact, much of the same science and data that will be used to craft the next generation of chemicals regulations is already organized within the Pharos database. The EPA’s Chemicals of Concern are included and can be filtered to find building products that don’t contain them.
Obviously, the Pharos Project isn’t a crystal ball, but users will feel a lot better knowing they are not making their decisions based on a regulation that is rooted in the past.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
14 APRIL
By all accounts my debate on Tuesday night with the Vinyl Institute at the New Jersey Green Building Council was deemed a successful event for all who attended. The Vinyl Industry reps are good at what they do, and they were getting to speak first. I expected them to come out swinging, so I came prepared with Dr. Joe Thornton’s comprehensive analysis of
every study the Vinyl Institute usually cites in their presentations (starting at p. 15).
But, they surprised me with a rope-a-dope strategy. Time and again, they portrayed the multi-billion-dollar global vinyl industry as the underdog! I suppose the industry is sort of on-the-ropes given the beating they’ve taken recently: you can’t make flexible vinyl without the chemicals known as phthalates, which
EPA declared a “chemical of concern” last December. A new study released this month
links dioxin exposure to infertility, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States accepted a case filed on behalf of people living near vinyl manufacturing facilities in Mossville, Louisiana alleging that their condition constitutes a violation of their
human rights.
We did find some areas of agreement that I think surprised a few people. For example, we both agreed vinyl workers do a good job and deserve good jobs in the future. I digressed slightly wondering what ever happened to the good aluminum workers, who lost their well-paying jobs when vinyl displaced things like aluminum siding. But my larger point was this: by signaling now that vinyl is not a green material, we have plenty of time to transition our manufacturing base so that those jobs can be converted to green chemistry jobs. In fact, I noted, that’s exactly what
Forbo’s Sustain Brochure does in acknowledging that Forbo's own vinyl floorings do not have a future in a truly sustainable building industry as "the true environmental and health concerns about plasticized-PVC continue to penetrate the market."
Many, many folks – including product representatives from vinyl manufacturers – complimented the panel after the event, expressing the belief that the exchange of information and views is the life blood of the green building movement. I agree. So if you would like to bring the great vinyl debate to your firm or USGBC chapter, please contact my co-panelists
Allen Blakey or
Judith Nordgren to set something up. You can count on me to be there.
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
13 APRIL
Many insulation products do their thermal magic by weaving fibers together to create a multitude of tiny insulating air pockets akin to those in a sweater. A wide range of fibers are now used to create this heat trapping phenomenon. In recent weeks, the Pharos team has added more loose-fill and blown-in insulations to the batts previously displayed. In coming weeks, we’ll add sprayed insulations.
How do the fibers stack up in Pharos? This week we look at the two major players: fiberglass and cellulose. While their R-values per inch are fairly equivalent, recycled content varies widely between the fibers, and formaldehyde and other IAQ questions remain:
Fiberglass has been the standard for blanket batts and is also used in some board, loose-fill/blown and sprayed products. Recycled content is now common in fiberglass product, though mostly in the 20 to 30% range, keeping Pharos scores for Renewable Materials in the 2s and 3s. Anco’s TextraFine is an exception with very high recycled content of 85% - although being primarily post-industrial waste, it only gains the product a one-point bump in the Renewable Materials score to 4.
Most of the major fiberglass brands have received a certification for VOC emissions testing, but concerns identified by HBN research about
carcinogenic formaldehyde emitted from the binders used in batt blankets keep them from scoring more than a 5 in Pharos for IAQ. There is encouraging movement toward alternative formaldehyde-free batt binders, but manufacturers are not disclosing what they are using instead. We’ll talk more about that in a future blog.
The loose-fill/blown fiberglass products do not use formaldehyde binders that cause such trouble in the batts. They do, however, face the same scoring limit, often due to a lack of manufacturer disclosure about the additives they use to lubricate and lower dust in the blowing process. We do know that some manufacturers use carcinogenic, heavy paraffinic petroleum distillates for these additives, but don’t have information about the extent of any exposure issues for occupants to these chemicals.
Cellulose has been the biggest player in the loosefill/blown-in market and is also used for sprayed products. As a group, cellulose products are the best scoring in Renewable Materials, with high post-consumer, recycled paper content driving scores up to anywhere from 6 to 8 – the highest Renewable Materials scores we’ve seen in Pharos to date.
IAQ evaluation of cellulose products is uncertain. With no formaldehyde binders to generate controversy, the cellulose industry has not felt any pressure to get VOC testing and so has no IAQ scores. The basic loose-fill and blown products tend to be pretty simple and we don’t expect significant VOC problems with them. However, as the stabilized and sprayed products add adhesives with some problematic components, we’d sure like to see some testing to find out what comes off as they cure.
You can use the Pharos Building Product Library sort function to bring up the top performers in any impact category. For example when viewing the
Thermal insulation search results you can click on the
RnMTL sort button at the top of the Renewable Materials score column to bring the products scoring highest for renewable material content to the top of the list. You’ll see the celluloses all rise above the fiberglass products.
Fiberglass and cellulose are being challenged by a range of new fibers, including both bio-based and new petro plastics. In a future blog, we’ll look at these alternative fibers as well as the move to formaldehyde-free binders. Stay tuned.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
08 APRIL
A couple decades ago, I helped to organize a campaign to stop the export of hazardous waste from the industrialized North to the rest of the world. Ultimately, our work
resulted in a ban on many forms of such toxic trade.
It is shocking to see the same tricks that waste traders played on impoverished communities being reenacted in my home country.
The State of Louisiana’s suit names 23 defendants. Chief among them: Knauf International, the Germany-based building material giant. Knauf operates three wallboard plants in China that were the main sources of drywall imported into Gulf Coast states in 2006 and 2007.
"Seeking to profit from the desperation of Louisianans harmed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Knauf (USA) urged Interior Exterior [a local distributor] to purchase Chinese drywall from Knauf," the complaint states.
The Attorney General alleges specific actions by Knauf and a related major building material corporation, United States Gypsum (USG), to push toxic drywall from China into the U.S. marketplace. This complaint also describes the role of a Chinese government-run company, Beijing New Building Materials, which is the third largest wallboard company in the world.
But it is clear that a lot of responsibility lies within Western transnational corporate offices. At least 78 percent of the drywall imported from China in 2006 came from Knauf’s China operations, according to US Customs data.
The complaint states that Knauf’s international offices “exercised strict control” over the three plants in China, and coordinated shipments of the wallboard into the U.S. The shipments were imported by USG, in which Knauf “also held a substantial equity interest.
“In pursuit of profit, Defendants proactively pushed their defective Chinese drywall into Louisiana in massive quantities, knowing that domestic supplies were very low and that Louisiana desperately needed drywall to commence its rebuilding efforts. Defendants’ drywall is and was inherently defective and not suitable for its intended use. It is and was defective, noxious, and toxic, and will remain so for a long but unknown span of years.”
The AG alleges that under Knauf’s control, the Chinese wallboard plants produced drywall made with fly ash, from coal-fired power plants – a material which is not used in wallboard manufactured in North America. This is a much different chemical composition than Flue Gas Desulphurization waste, also called synthetic gypsum, which is a common substitute for natural (mined) gypsum in drywall.
“[T]he Defendants knew or should have known that their use of substandard materials and their shoddy manufacturing and inadequate or non-existent quality-control processes would result in defective, noxious, and toxic drywall which emits a variety of dangerous chemicals,” alleges the AG, including formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide and carbonyl sulfide.
The AG’s complaint also notes the presence of naphthalene sulfonate additives, which I discussed in last week’s Signal. “Drywall may consist of two other materials with sulfur content: alkyl ethoxy sulfates as foaming agents, and lignin or naphthalene sulfonates as dispersing agents,” it states.
For their parts, Knauf’s U.S. operations, and US Gypsum, have tried to distance themselves from this scandal.
Last March, Knauf Insulation North America issued an Orwellian press release, saying that it needed to
“set the record straight.” Knauf Insulation North America President Bob Claxton noted the spate of news reports about drywall used in Florida. “Unfortunately, many of the reports identify ‘Knauf’ rather than Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin as one of the sources of the products imported from China. This has led to confusion in the marketplace… Knauf Insulation is a business unit that operates independently from any other Knauf business, including Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin. Knauf Insulation in North America and our products are not associated with the drywall in question.”
However, Knauf Insulation GmbH and Knauf (USA) are now defendants in the State of Louisiana suit.
While these transnational corporations deny responsibility, they are leaving thousands of homeowners to deal with the health impacts and the huge costs of remediation.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission last week advised that “consumers remove all possible problem drywall from their homes, and replace electrical components and wiring, gas service piping, fire suppression sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms. Taking these steps should help eliminate both the source of the problem drywall and corrosion-damaged components that might cause a safety problem in the home.”
The scourge of hurricanes in the mid-2000s presaged a secondary disaster created by man, not nature. From toxic trailers, to toxic drywall, Gulf Coast residents have borne the brunt of commerce’s basest instincts.
As AG Caldwell’s complaint says, “those rebuilt homes are essentially worthless and uninhabitable unless they are remediated again.... the Defendants have been unjustly enriched." And, the homeowners have been unjustly sickened. Over 3,000 people have complained of health impacts ranging from asthma attacks to heart disease.
Our Pharos building materials evaluation system now includes drywall made in China. We hope this information will help users understand the unique hazards posed by these industrial waste byproducts.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
06 APRIL
US EPA proposed today to
add 16 chemicals to the Toxic Release Inventory list which identifies the chemicals that companies must report if they send them up their smokestacks, out their sewage lines or into landfills – the first such addition in over a decade. The 16 are chemicals that have been classified as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) in their Report on Carcinogens (RoC), including several that are persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic (PBT) chemicals, and hence are likely to remain in the environment for a very long time, are not readily destroyed, and may build up or accumulate in the body.
It includes chemicals used in building materials such as 2,2-bis(Bromomethyl)-1,3-propanediol, a chemical you probably have never heard of but may soon again in Pharos since it is used as a flame retardant for epoxy, polyester, & urethane foams.
Coming after EPA’s recent decisions to identify
chemicals of concern – adding
BPA just last week - and to stop letting manufacturers hide chemicals with bad health studies under confidential business information rules, we are starting to see a building pattern of the Agency favoring transparency.
Comment on the new rule are open for 60 days.
We like what we see.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
01 APRIL
The more The Pharos Team researches building materials, the more we understand how much of the built environment emits formaldehyde. Sources like insulation, laminates, and particleboard are well documented. But, few people realize that another potential source is one of the most prevalent building materials used in the United States: wallboards, also known as drywall, gypsum board or plaster board.
Last fall, drywall hit the news with mounting concerns about the health impacts of high levels of sulfur emissions from Chinese drywall (and some made in the United States) and its potential harmful synergies with formaldehyde in newly built homes. However, as the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) and US EPA officials studied this potentially toxic combination, their focus was on formaldehyde emissions from other building materials. .
EPA official Jim Woolford said, “The drywall is not a source, as far as we can determine, of the formaldehyde. Formaldehyde comes from pressed wood product, laminates and certain adhesives and other items like that.”
The ever-helpful Formaldehyde Council posted a blog article that same month titled “
Drywall: Not Made with Formaldehyde-Based Resins.” The Council followed that assertion with a press statement. “Formaldehyde is not associated with corrosion and is not a component of dry wall,” said Executive Director Betsy Natz.
Unfortunately, the EPA and Formaldehyde Council are overlooking studies by the State of California and the EPA itself that demonstrate the inconvenient truth that formaldehyde is coming from the drywall itself.
US EPA testing in 2009 detected formaldehyde in the core material of boards made by U.S. manufacturers.
Testing by the State of California in 2003 found that both of the standard gypsum boards they sampled emitted more formaldehyde than allowed under the Section 01350 testing protocol for offices.
These findings should not be a surprise to industry and the government investigators. Formaldehyde often is used in wallboard, as part of plasticizer formulations used as dispersants in gypsum slurry production. These dispersing agents are called sulfonated naphthalene-formaldehyde condensates. As the term implies, these formulations involve a combination of formaldehyde and naphthalene chemistry. (Naphthalene is an EPA-listed persistent bioaccumulative toxicant, and an OSHA-listed carcinogen.)
As a 2003 Lyondell Chemical Company presentation on gypsum wallboard dispersants makes clear, “[N]aphthalene sulfonate formaldehyde and sodium lignosulfonate are grades commonly
used commercially for wallboard production.”
An annual report by GEO Specialty Chemicals states, “GEO’s napthalane sulfonate condensates… are used to shorten the drying time and expedite the manufacture of plaster board…. Major customers include the four leading plaster board producers: United States Gypsum Company, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, National Gypsum and James Hardie.” [1]
GEO manufactures a dispersing agent called DAXAD that is mainly comprised of naphthalene sulfonic acid, formaldehyde, sodium salt copolymer (CAS No. 9084-06-4). DAXAD condensates are “used to disperse finely divided insoluble particles in water (and) are
used (in) gypsum wallboard.
So, dear Formaldehyde Council, the chemical you promote is a component of standard, US-made wallboards. We hope that public officials and investigators will factor this information into the on-going investigations of health hazards posed by wallboards, whether made in China, or here in the United States.
In order to help our users understand the frequent presence of naphthalene sulfonate formaldehyde and other additives in wallboard, the Pharos library of wallboard evaluations lists these as common ingredients. Further references are found in our record for Common Drywall Ingredients. We look forward to further clarification from manufacturers about whether additives to their products do, in fact, include formaldehyde chemistry.
[1] GEO Specialty Chemicals Annual Report (Form 10-K), filed April 15, 2003.
There are 3 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
25 MARCH
In the coming weeks, the Pharos Project will help you find warm and healthy materials, as we add a wide range of thermal insulation products to the database. Fiber and foam boards, loose-fills and blown-ins, sprayed and foamed-in insulation products will join the batt insulation products previously reviewed in the Pharos Project.
This week, the Pharos team highlights loose-fill and blown-in products. You will find some of the highest scores we’ve seen for renewable content among Pharos Project materials so far. (Click on the RnMTL column header on the Search Results page to bring the best scoring products to the top). This group of products also includes some with relatively good Manufacturing and Community Toxics scores, due to simple, relatively low toxic ingredient contents.
In future weeks, the Pharos team will explore a number of different issues presented by insulation products including:
- the toxicity of the many different binders added to hold stabilized, sprayed and fiber insulations together, including reviewing alternatives that are beginning to replace formaldehyde binders;
- the pros and cons of different mineral fibers and cellulose; and
- the chemistry of various foam products, including some very problematic flame retardant additives.
Finally, we will reveal how much “bio” is actually in the bio-based foam products.
The wide range of materials used in these products leads to some significant scoring spreads between different insulation product types and brands, revealing some distinct differences and tradeoffs. We look forward to your feedback as we explore this territory.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
23 MARCH
Last week, Plastics News reported on a phenomenon in which “low-E” or energy efficient windows installed on homes with vinyl siding were actually
causing the vinyl to melt when exposed to focused sunlight from the low-E windows.
It is perhaps not that surprising when you consider the fact that the vinyl industry has for the most part left consumers in the dark about the contents and true environmental health impacts of their products. Consider that of the more than ten vinyl flooring manufacturers contacted by the Pharos Project, only one (Lonseal) fully disclosed their product ingredients in the system. The rest either declined to participate altogether or chose to keep information about key chemical ingredients proprietary.
If there was any doubt as to whether the vinyl industry’s reluctance to participate in the Pharos Project was a calculated decision, the Pharos Project received an email on September 17, 2009 from a representative of a leading vinyl manufacturer that set the record straight. Regarding our request that they participate in the Pharos Project they responded:
“The Pharos Project Team has of course made similar requests of other flooring manufacturers and subsequently, this request was discussed at an ‘industry’ level and the decision was then made to not participate at this time based on the categorization of certain materials (namely PVC)."
The vinyl industry’s reticence to come into the light of transparency is easily explained by its track record of serious environmental contamination. This toxic trail starts in communities around chemical manufacturing facilities, continues in the buildings where users are exposed to toxic additives like phthalates, and ends with the dispersal of these contaminants after the product’s useful end of life.
So a little sunshine may not be doing your vinyl siding any good, but it sure would feel wonderful to consumers trying to make the best choice for the planet.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
23 MARCH
I recently received an email asking me to help stop the certified forestry practices pictured to the right.[1]
An investigative report by a local television station documented that among other things, few members of the certifying body had visited the site, and “none of them had any forestry education.” Asked on camera: “How is this protecting the forest,” a professional forester replies: “It’s not.” Here’s the catch – they are talking about the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Incidents like these appear to lend credence to the view that the USGBC should stop “quibbling over the relative merits” and recognize multiple forest certification systems.[2] So why is the Healthy Building Network urging you to
join a call to action and support the groups that are defending the FSC credit in LEED?
Because we agree with the Sierra Club’s position on the FSC:
- Currently, the FSC is the only credible forest certification system...
- Competing schemes lack the stringency and the checks and balances-and hence the credibility of the FSC.
- As supporters of FSC, the FSC and its certifiers need to be held accountable to ensure that the promise of credible forest certification is fulfilled. The FSC itself is not perfect and from time to time Club activists have challenged specific certifications performed by FSC-accredited certifiers.
One of the most maddening things about the 4-year assault on LEED’s FSC credit by the timber industry’s old guard is that so many voices of accountability have been muted out of fear that any criticism of FSC at this point will erode confidence in an organization under siege, and result in a lower standard. By adopting the
playbook of cigarette science and the climate skeptics, the big timber companies have manufactured a specious controversy: will systems they created and dominate theoretically produce healthier forests than the independent, multi-stakeholder FSC process?[3] No. Virtually all organizations dedicated to preserving forest ecosystems agree – as do many forest products companies -- that the USGBC should only amend its LEED credit to be “FSC or Better.” The USGBC proposals have not yet met that standard.
Since its founding in 1993, the FSC has received core
financial support from philanthropies like the Ford Foundation. Many forest products companies do participate in the FSC and believe its governance structure offers them ample opportunity to get a fair shake.
The largest North American companies with some of the worst logging practices resisted the FSC from the beginning, and within a year created the SFI, housed from 1994-2000 in their trade association, the American Forest and Paper Products Association (AFPA). Not surprisingly, this organized resistance has created the false scarcity of FSC-certified timber from North America, which is the basis of their top argument against the current LEED credit – that it “discriminates against North American forests.”[4]
The SFI and FSC do agree on one important fact. According to a March 1, 2010 statement by the SFI: "If the USGBC maintains the status quo and does not recognize the SFI Standard, many LEED builders who chase points will turn… to FSC wood."[5] That is exactly what we need to happen so that we all can turn our attention back to the real question: is the certification process improving the state of imperiled forest ecosystems?
Support of the USGBC membership is critical to this effort. Brendan Owens, vice-president for technical development at the USGBC has noted: "We are a membership-driven organization. If the USGBC membership says, 'This is the way we want USGBC to be,' then that is the way USGBC is going to be.”[6]
Please take a moment to read this
important action alert. There, you also will find information about the latest USGBC proposal, and critically, the USGBC balloting process, which requires that interested USGBC members affirmatively “opt-in” to the “consensus body” if they wish to vote on the final recommendations.
Please Opt-In Right Now! The opt-in deadline is March 24th.
Footnotes
[3] In
May 2006 the USGBC's Board justified these proposals as a "response to the escalating debate over wood and wood certification" in LEED. But One USGBC Board member offered a more candid explanation: "We needed to start the process because, like it or not, AFPA [timber industry trade association] efforts to undermine the adoption of LEED nationally are working and we need to take the 'LEED is anti-wood' arrow out of their quiver."
[4] “SFI’s Statement on the USGBC’s Third Draft Forest Certification Benchmarks
Updated – March 1, 2010”
[5] Ibid.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
18 MARCH
Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
ran tests on six drywall products, two from China, and four from the United States. These tests raise an alarm about an element that has been little discussed in the Chinese drywall scare: mercury.
The EPA tests identified mercury in four of these products. The two China-made wallboards contained mercury at 0.19 and 0.562 parts per million (ppm). Two U.S. wallboards also had mercury – one at a minute 0.0668 ppm, and one at a level much higher than any other (2.08 ppm).
The precautionary principle requires us to identify wallboard manufacturing practices that generate mercury. Using U.S. Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data, we have identified specific drywall products manufactured at plants that release mercury. Additional literature, including last year’s EPA test, convinced us that mercury not only is released in certain factories, but also is present in some wallboard products.
The precautionary principle led us to add mercury as a frequent trace (0.1%) ingredient of wallboard that is manufactured at plants that report mercury releases. For wallboard manufactured in countries that do not require TRI-like emissions reporting (which is most of the world), we list mercury as a trace ingredient of products that use synthetic gypsum generated by coal-fired power plants.
Mercury in synthetic gypsum
The wallboard with the highest concentration of mercury found in last year’s EPA study was made with synthetic gypsum. The vast majority of synthetic gypsum is generated from Flue Gas Desulfurization units of coal-fired power plants. Certainly, the use of FGD has decreased direct releases into the environment from modernized coal-fired power plants. The reuse of this captured material that would otherwise be stacked or landfilled is also a positive. The Pharos renewable/recycled content evaluation rewards products that contain post-industrial waste, including FGD-derived gypsum. But, specifiers should consider this positive evaluation in the context of the common presence of mercury in the synthetic gypsum production life cycle.
A review of 2008 Toxics Release Inventory data from U.S. wallboard manufacturers reveals a direct correlation between substantial mercury releases to the environment and the use of synthetic gypsum.
Gypsum wallboard plants reported a total of 472.8 pounds of mercury releases in 2008. The top five mercury releases all came from wallboard plants that use FGD-derived synthetic gypsum. Lafarge’s Palatka, Fla. and Silver Grove, Ky. plant led all releases with 143 and 124 pounds, respectively. Pharos subscribers may now examine our evaluations of products from these Lafarge facilities, which we released this week.
Other leading drywall manufacturing sources of mercury releases include two US Gypsum plants in Aliquippa, Pa. (58 pounds) and Gypsum, Ohio (25 lbs.), and, CertainTeed’s Proctor, W.V., (32 pounds). These five plants accounted for 82% of reported wallboard plant mercury releases in 2008.
These synthetic gypsum wallboard plants represent a secondary release point for coal-fired power plants’ mercury emissions. The FGD units capture mercury from coal. Wallboard production using synthetic gypsum then redistributes the mercury into the wider environment at the production site, and through the board itself. As a December
2009 US EPA study notes, “both fly ash and FGD residues have been identified as coal combustion residues with the potential to have increased mercury and/or other pollutant concentrations from the implementation of new air pollution technology.”
Mercury in natural (mined) gypsum
It also appears that natural (mined) gypsum also can contain mercury, albeit at lower levels. A
U.S. Dept. of Energy-funded study, conducted by U.S. Gypsum (which uses more synthetic gypsum than any other U.S. manufacturer), concludes, “the highest mercury concentration found in the natural gypsum was 0.03 μg/g compared to the lowest mercury concentration of synthetic gypsum of 0.10 μg/g.”
Some – but not most -- plants that do not use FGD-derived gypsum in wallboard production also reported mercury compound releases in 2008 (11 plants, 37.8 pounds total). (Toxics Release Inventory data) For product manufactured at these specific plants, we have added mercury as a trace contaminant in the product’s material contents.
Mercury-free wallboard
One wallboard manufacturer, Serious Materials, has obtained UL-Environment verification of its claim that its EcoRock is “mercury-free.” Serious Materials, unlike the vast majority of wallboard manufacturers, does not use gypsum in EcoRock. So, for this manufacturer at least, the issue of mercury contamination is an important market distinction.
We welcome similar verifications of any wallboard profiled by Pharos, particularly those that have reported mercury releases in the past three years. If a manufacturer provides us with third-party documentation that drywall made in these facilities is mercury-free, we will remove mercury compounds from the product material contents list.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pharos researcher Jim Vallette will be speaking at the Maine Indoor Air Quality 2010 Conference at the Augusta Civic Center, March 24.
Click here for more info.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
17 MARCH
The Pharos Project team is here in Washington, DC this week for a planning meeting. Besides being incredibly excited about finalizing timelines and plans the near future releases of research, products and functionality, I am especially enjoying the longer term visioning for what’s coming towards the end of 2010 and into 2011. As we look to our future impact areas to create evaluation criteria for, we want to hear from you.
What impact areas from the Pharos framework are you most interested in seeing? Global warming / climate change? Air or water quality? Embodied energy or water? Occupational health and safety? Community relations? Are we missing one? What are the challenges, in your view, products will need to solve in this area to be considered an ideal product?
Let us know what you think in the comments below or send an email to support [at] pharosproject.net and we will post our favorites. We would love to hear your thoughts on how together we can build a more environmentally-sound, healthy, socially-just and transparent building material market.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
12 MARCH
A study recently released in
Environmental Research shows high levels of brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) in 6-8 year-old girls from California. The study authors speculated that "the higher PBDE levels in girls from California may reflect differences in fire regulation and safety codes." Living and working in California, I have had the chance to partner with health care systems and architects and designers who are constantly coming up against the state’s stringent fire regulations and safety codes. At first blush, it appears California’s higher standards are there to protect our kids and patients and anyone else living or working in a building in the Golden State. Yet, a quick glance at PBDEs in the Pharos Chemical and Material Library shows that these brominated flame retardants are very high chemicals of concern. While it is only the authors' speculation, I will continue to encourage folks I consult with (both professionally and personally), to use the Pharos Project to avoid PBDEs when they purchase building products. After all, my own daughter is an eight-year-old California Girl!
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
12 MARCH
The science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick said, “the basic tool for manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.” This observation seems increasingly relevant as the corporate communications engine begins to rev up its use of the word “transparency” as a core value of all things “green” and “sustainable.”
Before transparency goes the way of “green” and loses its connection to reality and begins to cloud rather than illuminate the green building landscape, it seems necessary to establish a basic definition of the term as we apply it in the Pharos Project.
For our own part, the Pharos Project is not a “black box” certification system or a manufacturer-funded green label. All of the metrics and product data we use to evaluate building materials are completely transparent in our system for the user to view. Sources are provided for all data and the rationale behind our scoring is explained in detail in the system.
For manufacturers, Pharos defines transparency as a product manufacturer answering three basic questions about their product: What’s in it? How was it made? Where did it come from?
That may seem simple enough, but in an era of proprietary polymers, confidential business information and greenwash, it is often too high a bar for many manufacturers to reach. Still, the Pharos Project exists for those product manufacturers who are willing to supply such information and for those designers and specifiers who demand it. Ultimately, real progress towards reversing many of the most challenging environmental issues of our generation will depend upon all of us meeting that standard of transparency rather than redefining the term.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
09 MARCH
Wallboards, our newest addition to the Pharos Building Product Library, are now ready for users to explore. The first batch of products focuses on products from three leading manufacturers, Georgia-Pacific,National Gypsum, and Temple-Inland. Over the coming weeks, we will add many more companies and products.
Wallboard is any flat board used to cover walls and partitions. These building materials also are called drywall, gypsum board, or plasterboard.
Drywall is most commonly comprised of a gypsum core, with Kraft paper facings and additives. There are several types of modifications. The most common is Type-X, which is fire-resistant board. Other variations include moisture-resistant (MR, or “green”) board, acoustical board, insulating board, and fiberboard, which can include recycled newsprint fibers and perlite filler. Gypsum board is occasionally backed not with paper, but with vinyl or foil.
These are ubiquitous materials. Everyone specifies them. Over 95% of the walls used in the US and Canada are finished with gypsum board. This includes residential, commercial, and institutional buildings.
As this category is unveiled, Pharos users will encounter a surprisingly diverse range of content and scores. We will explain the significances of these variations in the product records and in Signal articles in the coming weeks.
Among the issues:
- Recycled content: There are great variations in recycled content, ranging from none to as high as 99% post-industrial material. Natural (mined) gypsum remains the predominant material used, but synthetic gypsum is capturing an increasing share of the market. Synthetic gypsum is primarily obtained from Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) units of recently retrofitted coal-fired power plants. We will explore some of the costs and benefits of using FGD-derived waste in building materials.
- Additives: Wallboard manufacturing uses additives, such as dispersants, accelerators, and set retarders. The most hazardous additive in gypsum board manufacturing is a naphthalene sulfonic acid / formaldehyde copolymer used as a dispersant. Lignosulfonates offer less hazardous, more bio-based, alternatives. These additives raise both manufacturing and indoor air quality concerns.
- IAQ: Some brands of gypsum board have been certified for Indoor Air Quality attributes, including passing California Section 01350 testing, but there are considerable indoor air quality issues. Testing by the state of California and the U.S. EPA has identified formaldehyde emissions from many new wallboard products.
- Made in China: Regulatory scrutiny of the wallboard industry has increased since homeowners began complaining of sickness and other effects from recently installed wallboard that was made in China. We will attempt to characterize what is known about China-made wallboard, and where it is in the U.S. marketplace.
Pharos’ ever-expanding library of building material evaluations now includes five product categories and over 200 products. We will be adding more categories later this month. Thank you for subscribing and supporting our non-profit efforts to shed light on the building material marketplace.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
04 MARCH
For more than ten years, CHW has been an environmental leader in the health care sector. As one of the largest nonprofit health care systems on the west coast, CHW has stated its commitment to the earth and its inhabitants and has been in the forefront of efforts to eliminate the use of mercury and PVC in medical devices, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, provide healthy and locally-sourced food to their patients, and build buildings that are more sustainable.
Their work in 2009 was no exception. Before Congress took up TSCA reform, CHW was developing chemical policies to promote a healthier planet. In 2009, the hospital system passed a Comprehensive Chemicals Policy in order to “create an environment for patients, employees and visitors free from the hazards posed by chemicals that are harmful to humans, animals and the environment.” The goal of the policy was to “develop strategies for promoting, developing and using chemicals that are environmentally preferable across their entire lifecycles.”
I had the privilege of working with CHW on their 2009 Chemicals Policy, specifically to help in the sourcing of environmentally preferable building products. During that year, HBN worked with CHW to review and update their design guidelines for buildings to identify ways in which their facilities could avoid some of the worst chemicals of concern found in building materials. (See pages 46 - 47 of the report to learn about the collaboration). [Moreover, CHW was one of 18 partners from the health care and design community to partner with HBN on our Pharos Pilot Project. Both efforts were aimed at helping implement CHW’s new Chemicals Policy and support sustainable buildings.]
We need more CHWs in the world -- private enterprises (whether nonprofit or for profit), willing to prioritize chemicals policy reform and to invest in forward-thinking actions that take those first steps toward a healthier planet. I recommend everyone read about the work of CHW, which should motivate small and large businesses to take responsibility for learning more about what’s in the products that they use and to turn in the direction of healthier and more sustainable practices.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
01 MARCH
With the release of this week’s final batch of Pharos staff-researched High Performance Coatings (HPCs), a total of sixty-five (65) products made by seventeen (17) companies are ready for viewing.
Here are some preliminary findings from the evaluations, pending further review and data entry by the companies themselves. Content disclosure is poor in this category. These products generally contain many seriously toxic chemicals. The HPC industry has a long way to go to create healthy products.
Manufacturer Disclosure of Product Ingredients
As in other Pharos building material categories – Resilient Flooring, Thermal Insulation and MDF-Particle Board-Wheatboard – users can readily identify HPC products that are transparent by sorting the MfrTox (Manufacturing and Community Toxics) column. We have evaluated any product scoring higher than a “1” in MfrTox as fully disclosed.
Only two companies’ public literature provided sufficient material content information to be considered full disclosure: Devoe High Performance Paints (DevFlex 4020-1000 and DevFloor 525) and ITW Resins (AS-150, AS-550, and AS-2500). Due to the overall lack of disclosure by manufacturers in their publically available literature, Pharos was unable to complete MfrTox evaluations for the other 60 products. We recommend that users encourage HPC manufacturers to fully disclose their product ingredients through participation in the Pharos Project.
Material Content
For each product for which there was inadequate disclosure, we associated generic compositions as material content. We developed the generic compositions from content lists of other similar products and from industry and government literature. Specifiers can use these generic ingredient lists to ask suppliers for clarity about chemical content in specific products. When viewed comparatively, the generics reveal some interesting differentiation in hazardous content by type.
In general, epoxies contained the most hazardous ingredients. Two of the most common – and troublesome – ingredients are
nonylphenol and
Bisphenol A, which the Pharos team profiled in previous Signal articles. Epichlorohydrin, a known carcinogen and suspected endocrine toxicant, is also integral to most epoxies. Another chemical that can be used in epoxies that receives a black flag in the Pharos Chemical and Material Library (CML) is naphthalene, an EPA-listed priority persistent, bio-accumulative toxicant (PBT).
Polyurethane/acrylic blends and alkyd coating were the next most hazardous types of HPCs. Alkyd coatings frequently contain red-flag hazards such as Stoddard solvent (which the European Commission states should be considered carcinogenic to humans), ethylene glycol (NIOSH’s NTP identifies it as a developmental toxicant), and phthalic anhydride, which is frequently prepared from naphthalene.
The production of polyurethane uses a wide variety of toxicants, which add to the hazards associated with acrylics in HPC copolymers. Other hazardous chemicals associated with acrylic coatings include ethylene glycol and known or likely carcinogens such as quartz (IARC Group 1), cristobalite (IARC Group 1), and styrene (OSHA carcinogen list).
Pharos users can learn more about material content hazards in the Pharos CML. By clicking on an ingredient name, you will find a wealth of data about any risks associated directly with the chemical and with chemicals used in the manufacturing of the ingredient.
Volatile Organic Content
All five Rust-oleum products that we examined list no Volatile Organic Content (VOC). Two of these are Green Seal-certified epoxies (S40 and S42), one is an acrylic (S30), and two are polyurethane/acrylic mixtures (S37 and S38).
Polyurethane/acrylic mixtures, as a group, have the lowest VOC content among the evaluated HPCs. VOC content ranges from zero to 100 grams per liter (g/L). Three Eco-Tuff brand polyurethane/acrylic coatings (Industrial Floor Coating, Rubberized Non Skid Safety Coating, and High Traffic Clear Coat) by Eco Safety Products report the absence of any VOC content, even including VOC compounds that are
exempt from smog regulation.
The Rust-oleum S30 product is the only acrylic that listed no VOC content, although Miller Paint’s Acro Pure Semi Gloss comes close, at a reported 1.19 g/L. Twenty of the 34 acrylic HPCs evaluated by Pharos report VOC levels of at least 90 g/L. The worst: Miller Paint’s Acrinamel Gloss-White, with 240.85 g/L VOC.
All three one-part epoxies in the Pharos Project contained high levels of VOCs, between 150 and 310 g/L. Two part epoxies had a wide range: from zero reported in the Rust-oleum products, two ITW American Safety products (AS-2500 and IMPAC 650), and Benjamin Moore’s M40 epoxy, to the product with the highest VOC of all HPCs evaluated, Armorseal 1000 HS (398 g/L).
Pharos Project users can readily identify the lowest VOC coatings from the product library by sorting the UseTox (IAQ and other Toxic User Exposure) column. The precise reported content is found just above the list of ingredients in individual product profiles.
As a group, High Performance Coatings fall far short of green building ideals. This is the current market reality. Within this reality, there are some clear differences in content and VOCs that a specifier can consider – by using the Pharos Project evaluative tools -- when she or he must choose HPCs.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
25 FEBRUARY
So, you picked a low- or no-VOC paint or high performance coating (HPC) and it still smells. What went wrong? It might be the tints.
Listings of the VOC level in product literature for paints and HPCs generally only account for the un-tinted base product. Each ounce of colorant added to tint your paint or HPC may contain anywhere between 5 and 20 grams of VOCs. For a subtle off-white tint, requiring an ounce or less of colorant, this may not significantly affect the overall VOC content of the coating. A rich or dark-tinted color, however, could require 5-10 ounces of colorant, and the impact could be significant, adding 100 or more grams of VOCs per liter of paint or HPC.
Furthermore, some manufacturers add substantially more VOCs to the base products designed for deep colors, effectively doubling the VOC content before tints are even added. In the Pharos Project, the net result could be to drop a product by up to four (4) points on the IAQ and other Toxic User Exposure (UseTox) scale.
What to do? If you are selecting a deep or dark tint, confirm that your base is still low- or no-VOC. Then, ask your distributor for VOC-free tinting. Several paint and HPC manufacturers now offer VOC-free colorant lines. Some examples are AFM Safecoat, Benjamin Moore, ICI Freshaire, and Mythic paints and International Building Products high performance coatings.
There are 4 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
21 FEBRUARY
Pharos Project users may have noticed that products that are advertised as no- or low-VOC, are not necessarily rated highly in Pharos. For most interior finish products, Pharos scores a product based on whether it passes a 14-day test for emissions of VOCs* such as FloorScore, GreenGuard or Indoor Advantage. The system then deducts points for content of chemicals of concern that are flagged in the Pharos Chemical and Material Library. This addresses the non-volatile, toxic chemicals that occupants are exposed to, but the VOC tests don’t measure. Pharos puts a higher weight on the most hazardous of the VOC chemicals.
Pharos evaluates wet applied products, such as the recently-added high performance coatings (including paints, caulks and adhesives) a bit differently; starting with a score based upon the content of VOCs instead of emissions tests. Some of the VOC emission testing programs do certify these products, but these wet products act differently from carpets and particle board, releasing a big blast of hazardous VOCs during the first hours and days of use that these long-term emissions tests aren’t able to tell us much about. At this point, there is lots of disagreement in the emissions lab world about how best to measure and evaluate these short-term VOC releases from wet products.
While the emissions world is working on this problem, Pharos is using the VOC content (sometimes called TVOC for total VOC) to compare products.
Several issues make TVOC a less than perfect protection for human health:
- The TVOC measure takes different chemical compounds, some of which may be much more potent than others, and combines them into one measure without differentiation. Pharos addresses this by requiring total avoidance of VOCs to reach the upper levels and deducting points for VOC content that is red-flagged, as a material of very high concern.
- The EPA and some other governmental agencies regulate VOC content to address outdoor smog formation, not indoor air quality. As a result, most manufacturers only report the VOCs that are reactive in the atmosphere and contribute to smog, ignoring those exempted from the EPA smog regulations, but that may still be toxic, such as methylene chloride, a probable carcinogen. Pharos gives higher scores to products which have zero VOCs including exempt compounds (like the Eco-Tuff line of coatings) over others that only claim zero EPA-regulated VOC content.
- VOC content does not reveal VOCs which may be created by chemical reactions during the curing process, such as methanol or formaldehyde. To reach the highest levels in Pharos, a product needs to have both zero VOC content to protect the user against the early short-term releases and pass a VOC emissions test to insure against the creation of VOCs during longer-term curing. No listed HPCs have done this yet.
- Occupants are exposed to other non-volatile contents that may be just as toxic as the VOCs, but are not included in either TVOC content or emissions testing. Pharos deducts points to address these low- or non-volatile, but still toxic, chemicals such as the nonyl-phenols found in many of the epoxies.
Pharos staff continues to support efforts to develop improved measures to evaluate both content and short-term emissions of VOCs, and will apply more advanced measures as they are developed.
*VOCs are the Volatile Organic Compounds that outgas from materials after they are made – creating that new carpet smell and releasing toxic gases into your air.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
16 FEBRUARY
Over the past half-century, epoxy paint manufacturers have used a chemical called nonylphenol to harden their products. In the built environment, the use of nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) is contributing to rising indoor exposures to endocrine disruptors (chemicals that affect the hormone system). (1) In aquatic ecosystems, NPEs degrade back to nonylphenol. NP bioaccumulates up the food chain and is highly toxic to fish and shellfish. (2)
In Europe, regulators and industry have taken action to eliminate NP and NPEs from consumer products. The OSPAR Commission, which governs toxic discharges into the northeast Atlantic Ocean, includes NP and NPEs on its list of 42 chemicals for priority action, due to their endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, and toxicological characteristics. (3) The European Commission has declared that all discharges of NP “to all water bodies should be stopped by 2015.” (4)
Danish and Swedish Governments and industries have moved aggressively to stop the use of NP and NPEs in consumer products over the past two decades. “The use of NPE is almost completely phased out in Denmark,” reports Miljøstyrelsen, the country’s environment ministry. “The Danish market for paints and lacquers is almost exclusively served by Danish producers and importers that according to voluntary agreements have refrained from using NPE as an additive since the mid-1990s.” (5)
But in the U.S., action has been slow. In 2007, a hotel workers’ union, a commercial fishing association, and environmental organizations petitioned the U.S. EPA to ban NPEs in detergents. (6) After initially denying this petition, a court mediation process led the EPA to announce in 2009 it would explore developing an aquatic and sedimentary testing program. New rules will not be drafted until late 2011.
Nonylphenols released from detergents pose a direct threat to the aquatic environment, and it is great to see this action. But these toxicants also threaten human health through indoor exposures from coatings and paints. This reality remains unchallenged in the U.S. market. Coating companies routinely use NP as a hardening agent, sometimes as a direct additive, and sometimes as a monomer in NPE polymers.
This week, the Pharos Project released its third batch of High Performance Coating (HPC) product evaluations. These include several epoxies that explicitly list NP and NPEs in their material safety data sheets. Almost all of the HPCs that we have evaluated provide only partial ingredient listings. Based upon standard industry practice and the precautionary principle, whenever an HPC epoxy product does not fully disclose its ingredients, we include nonylphenol in the Pharos evaluation.
If specifiers want to avoid using endocrine disruptors and bioaccumulative toxicants in their buildings, they should take a close look at our epoxy coating evaluations. Not only are NP and NPEs ubiquitous in these products, so too are the suspected endocrine disruptors, bisphenol A and epichlorohydrin.
Later this month, the Pharos blog, The Signal, will compare the hazards of epoxy coatings with the manufacturing and use toxicities of other types of HPC: acrylic, polyurethane, and alkyds. No HPC on the market is close to an ideal ecological performer, but as our evaluations reveal, some types are demonstrably more hazardous than others.
Footnotes
(1) Charles J. Weschler, “Changes in indoor pollutants since the 1950s,” Atmospheric Environment 43 (2009) 153–169
(2) Study on Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment, Not Regulated by the RoHS Directive, Öko-Institut e.V., April 28, 2008
(4) Reference Document on Best Available Techniques in the Production of Polymers, European Commission, August 2007, p. 125
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
11 FEBRUARY
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.
Ensuring users have access to the “how and why” of a Pharos Project score is the cornerstone of our system. We don’t resort to the thumbs up or thumbs down methodology of the first generation of certifications and labels that often left us wondering if existing eco-labels were reliable, consensus-based certifications or, instead, industry-sponsored greenwash.
Part of the challenge is to present the information we have gathered about products in an intuitive, yet credible, way that is completely transparent. Therefore, we have boiled each of our impact categories down to: an ideal (the ultimate material), a goal (what can realistically be achieved in the near future), the problem (what needs to be avoided in the current situation). We score each product against four impact categories and create a 1-10 color-coded score based on benchmarks that plot progress toward that category’s ideal. It’s both simple to read and easy to compare products.
We recognize that transparency mandates that we release all of the data we use to create these scores. So, we do. When
visiting a Pharos product profile, simply click on any of the impact category scores in the upper right hand corner (the grey, black or colored boxes with numbers inside of them) and you will be linked to what is
behind the score: the scoring methodology, the product data, and the documentation, meticulously sourced and verified. We understand that not everyone wants that level of detail, but the need for transparency demands it, and we are happy to lead by example.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
08 FEBRUARY
Bisphenol A (BPA) is the notorious chemical that water bottle manufacturers like Nalgene and SIGG have had to phase out because it leaches into liquids. The science is strong that BPA can affect the hormone and reproductive system. Yet, time and again when regulators or legislators try to propose legislation or establish regulations to limit the use of BPA in some products, the cry from industry is that there is little to no scientific evidence that BPA is harming humans. (Most of the scientific evidence comes from animal studies.) The one area in the scientific literature that does show the negative human effects of BPA on the reproductive system is when workers are exposed regularly to epoxy-based resin spray paint – the very types of products that HBN has recently evaluated for our new product category: High Performance Coatings.
Not many people realize that BPA is fundamental to epoxy-based resins used for high performance coatings and building adhesives (including carpet and flooring). In most cases, epoxy paints and adhesives are made from resins made from BPA. In the limited studies of workers’ regular exposure to epoxy spray paints, the epoxy resin is getting in the their bodies (through inhalation? skin contact?) and breaking down in their bodies to BPA. The reproductive systems of some of those men are showing that BPA is disrupting the secretion of sex hormones. (
Click here for more of the science on BPA)
In a recent study funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and implemented by researchers from Kaiser Permanente, workers in a BPA manufacturing facility in China were compared to workers in a Chinese facility that did not use BPA. The study found that, “the workers in the BPA facilities had quadruple the risk of erectile dysfunction, and
seven times more risk of ejaculation difficulty."
Perhaps people agree with the chemical industry – BPA is safe until proven, without a shadow of a doubt, that it is causing human harm. However, many of us don’t need absolute positive proof to avoid the chemical – if it can potentially affect our bodies and the bodies of our children, why would we want it on our walls, under our feet, or in our food? Perhaps people will use Pharos to look at the many products available on the market and signal to the building industry the desire to purchase products that won’t affect our ability to procreate.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
01 FEBRUARY
Today, we introduce a new product category to the Pharos Project,
High Performance Coatings (CSI MasterFormat 09 96 00). High Performance Coatings are durable paints, used in places like boiler or mechanical rooms, as well as in food prep areas and operating rooms, where chemicals and liquids abound.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be displaying the results of HBN-generated research about specific products, scored with a gray score to indicate that the research is preliminary. Simultaneously, we will send out an RFI to each of the product manufacturers, inviting them to engage in the Pharos Project and provide further information to our users. Those manufacturers who do so will obtain solid-colored scores.
As we display more High Performance Coating products, Pharos users will be able to explore different issues associated with the product category and we will be posting new blogs focusing on different aspects of High Performance Coatings.
For now, don’t be surprised by the low scores. One of the many things we learned undertaking this research is that there is a wide range of disclosure among High Performance Coating manufacturers. Some report a long list of chemicals and materials that are included in a product’s ingredients, while others report merely one or two chemicals/materials, sometimes accounting for only 5-10% of what is actually in the product. Not only does this remind us how limited material safety data sheets can be, but hopefully it inspires Pharos users to urge manufacturers to fully disclose the chemicals and other ingredients in their products. In the meantime, we have listed “generic” ingredient mixes for the products drawn from industry norms, which account for the chemicals frequently used in these products where disclosure by the manufacturer was minimal. We invite the manufacturers to tell us what is actually in their products.
Look for more complete coverage of the issues below in coming blog posts, but the bullet points below highlight some of the things we do know about High Performance Coatings:
- Many are made from bisphenol A. People don’t realize that many high performance coatings are made from bisphenol A, one of the chemicals under great scrutiny because of its effect on the hormonal and reproductive system. (The U.S. EPA recently identified it as a chemical of concern)
- It’s not just bisphenol A that is worrisome - High Performance Coatings can include a number of other chemicals of concern, including epichlorohydrin (listed as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer) and nonyl phenyl (an OSPAR Commission listed persistent bio-accumulative toxicant (PBT))
- There is still much controversy about how to measure short-term VOC emissions from wet applied products. As a result, high performance coatings, are currently evaluated on the actual content of VOCs in the product rather than their emissions.
Most of what you will see in these preliminary results focuses on the chemical and material content of the coatings. We expect when manufacturers engage, we will learn more about their use of renewable energy – and some of them may follow the call for transparency and identify more thoroughly what it is that they are using to make their products.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
29 JANUARY
As we populate the Pharos Project with building products and chemicals, we trust our users are becoming empowered with a better map to guide their green building decisions. To see this at work, take a look at one of the new product profiles we added this week. If you don’t have a subscription yet, please,
register for a free one-week trial and start digging.
Last week, in what Environmental Building News described as a “
surprising development,” MBDC awarded Dow Chemical’s extruded polystyrene insulation a Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) Silver certification. MBDC also awarded C2C Silver to a little-understood Dow batt insulation called
SafeTouch, which we just added to the Pharos system. As EBN explains, designers might interpret C2C Silver Certification to mean that the product is “free of hazards or that it is necessarily a “green product.’”
Dow sheds little light on the chemistry of SafeTouch. The company says what is absent from SafeTouch – “No formaldehyde binders, no acrylic binders, and no borates…” – but little about what is present. The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for SafeTouch lists three chemicals -- polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene, and a “trade secret Modified PET polymer.” Here’s what is lacking from the MSDS:
- Binders. For decades, formaldehyde - a carcinogen - has been the standard binder used to glue the fiberglass fibers together in batt insulation. If there is no formaldehyde in SafeTouch, as Dow states, then what is binding the fibers?
- Any idea of what is modifying the PET polymer, such as additives and copolymers. There are a wide variety of possible combinations, like stabilizers and cross-linking agents.
- Any idea of whether flame retardants, another common ingredient in batt insulation, are used in what reads like an otherwise combustible product.
It turns out that Dow holds a patent on a product that strongly resembles SafeTouch. We examined
U.S. Patent No. 5,407,739, “Ignition resistant meltbrown or spunbonded insulation material.”
From this patent, the Pharos team drew some preliminary conclusions about what might be accompanying the polyethylene and PET in SafeTouch including chemicals like vinyl acetate and ethyl acrylate (both of which are OSHA-listed carcinogens) and polyvinylidiene chloride. Common feedstocks for producing polyvinylidiene chloride include the Proposition 65-listed carcinogens, vinyl chloride and 1,1,2-trichloroethane.
Users may learn more about these ingredients, their hazards, and the chemicals that make them, in the Pharos Chemical and Material Library. This upstream information should be part of any product assessment, especially since so few chemicals have been studied and so many have been exempted from oversight.
While some certification programs may reward intentions, the Pharos Project evaluates practices.
You may also follow the chemical pathways for two other products the Pharos team released this week. One is a styrene-butadiene-rubber rolled flooring sold by VPI Corporation. Like Dow, VPI has not engaged with the Pharos Project, despite repeated requests from our charter members, but we welcome their participation at any time.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
28 JANUARY
Last week, the NYT ran an editorial on the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), which in closing advises “wise consumers try to avoid BPA.” HBN’s letter to the editor was declined. Other fine letters were printed – but none making our point: wise consumers must demand full transparency and disclosure of all product ingredients from manufacturers. Here it is in full.
To the Editor:
Your January 21 editorial, “Heightened Concern Over BPA,” advises “wise consumers [to] try to avoid BPA.” How am I supposed to do that?
BPA is never listed as a material ingredient in any product. Moreover, many consumers felt betrayed when they bought water bottles advertised as BPA-free only to find out that was not true.
And, where else is BPA in our lives?
Last July, our researchers identified epoxy resins (found in building materials) and high performance paints as significant sources of BPA exposure. In November, a study by Kaiser Permanente, found that levels of workplace exposure to BPA may increase the risk of reduced sexual function in men.
Product manufacturers know what chemicals are in their products. The rest of us have a right to know. A word to the wise: if you want to avoid chemical risks, demand that manufacturers disclose all chemical ingredients in their products.
William C. Walsh
Executive Director
Healthy Building Network
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
22 JANUARY
We’ve completed analysis on and released another five products for display in the Pharos Project today. Four of them are batt insulation products. Three are variations of Thermafiber's "slag wool" batt insulation, and the fourth insulation is a Roxul product. We have not previously contacted these manufacturers for their participation, so these data are preliminary, based upon publicly-available data. Products such as these, with no prior engagement with manufacturers, are listed with gray-colored scores. We look forward to working with Thermafiber and Roxul to augment and complete their Pharos evaluations.
The fifth is Stratica, a polyolefin resilient flooring product that has been one of the more popular alternatives for specifiers seeking to avoid PVC vinyl flooring. Amtico, Stratica's manufacturer, has declined to participate in Pharos to date. Their scores are therefore listed with black-colored evaluations. This flooring is likely no stranger to many Pharos subscribers and Heathy Building Network (HBN) followers. HBN’s
Resilient Flooring & Chemical Hazards report released last year reviewed vinyl and the major alternatives: synthetic rubber, Stratica and linoleum. The report made clear that PVC continues to earn its worst-in-class reputation due to serious toxic chemical problems throughout its life cycle. Likewise in Pharos, PVC flooring products earn the lowest Manufacturing & Community Toxics scores of the product group.
HBN research revealed, however, that there is still much need for improvement among the major commercial alternatives. For example, while avoiding the phthalate plasticizers that burden vinyl products, Stratica still contains a Prop 65 carcinogen – carbon black – that keeps its User Exposure scores from climbing higher than the best of the vinyls. It also still has many components with red-flagged chemicals in their manufacturing chemistry.
While no ideal “green” material currently exists for flooring options, the HBN report points the way to a range of alternative materials with lesser toxicity hazards than sheet and tile products made with PVC and more potential for improvement. Over the next few months, we will continue to add flooring alternatives to the Pharos database to help you map how they compare and where they are on the path to sustainability
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
21 JANUARY
Today, the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
www.saferchemicals.org campaign released a new report, “Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act,” that shows the high costs to our health care system associated with chemical exposure.
Pharos Project subscribers need to read this report. It provides a sobering realization that there is a great deal of peer-reviewed scientific evidence linking chemicals in building products to a number of chronic diseases and illnesses. It is timely as well. Congress is set to begin considering a reform of the more-than-three-decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in an effort to align our chemical policy with 21st century science. It will not be an easy task.
The chemicals highlighted in the report, such as phthalates and formaldehyde, are chemicals used in building products that have been on the radar of scientists for a long time, yet our current regulatory system continues to allow them on the market -- and the building industry continues to spend millions of dollars to produce and use them.
Drawing only from peer-reviewed scientific journals, the report reviews the state of the science for a number of chronic diseases including: certain forms of cancer, developmental disabilities, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, reduced reproductive health in both men and women, and asthma. The report demonstrates how Americans could improve their health and save money on health care costs by reducing exposures to toxic chemicals.
TSCA reform will take time. However, Pharos subscribers can immediately begin to use the Chemical and Material Library and Building Product Library to access data and determine if any of the reported chemicals are in the products that architects, designers and other building professionals specify daily.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
15 JANUARY
Today we released five new products for display in the Pharos Project. Unlike the many forward-thinking companies who provided information to the database upon request, these products’ manufacturers declined to participate in Pharos, which forced us to rely upon publicly available information.
Congoleum sells a commercial sheet flooring product with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), called Flor-Ever Plus. Their website description of the product fails to mention the word ‘vinyl’ (you have to dig deep into their commercial literature to see that). And it barely describes any of the other ingredients, including plasticizers and other chemicals in the flooring’s crucial backing material. Congoleum simply calls the backing “White Shield felt.”
A search of patent records uncovered ingredients of Congoleum’s vinyl sheet backing. As Pharos subscribers will see, “White Shield felt” backing is a
conglomeration of resin binders (usually styrene-butadiene latex) , PET, fillers and antioxidants, which may include Bisphenol-A.
Similarly Armstrong’s website touts the renewable ingredients of its' new Bio-Based Tile (BBT) but offers little more than generalizations about the ingredients of this resilient composition. But it revealed much more in
patent applications recently published by the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Armstrong's Bio-Based Tile patent contemplates up to 10 percent of recycled content (mainly post-industrial limestone, although post-consumer PET is a possibility) and up to 9 percent biobased material, such as corn and saw dust. Vital particulars about what Armstrong is currently selling, and what they plan to sell in the future, remain unknown. Its' renewable polyester flooring base layer potentially includes epoxies, fly ash, isocyanates, stabilizers, and even recycled urea formaldehyde.
We hope that the information we are sharing on Pharos will empower you, our users, to ask the right questions of these manufacturers. To this end, please have a look at the new products released today , which also include resilient flooring from LG Floors (NatureLife) and American ZBiltrite (Mirra), and CertainTeed’s CertaPro Commercial AcoustaTherm Batt insulation (Not a subscriber yet? Start your
free trial today.).
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
13 JANUARY
On December 30, 2009, the
US EPA initiated a process that could result in the regulation of health threats from four classes of chemicals that have been widely used in building materials. This action directs new attention to “green” building product standards that do not adequately account for health impacts, and underscores why transparency must be the cornerstone of future product standards and certifications, and the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System.
The classes of chemicals listed by EPA as “chemicals of concern,” include flame retardants, stain and water repellants, and phthalates (90% of which are used as softeners in flexible vinyl products such as floor and wall coverings). They are largely ignored by the certifications most widely used in the green building industry and recognized by LEED. As a result, LEED-rated projects – even LEED Platinum buildings – risk being cited as sources of exposure to EPA-listed “chemicals of concern” including endocrine disruptors and neurotoxins.
No one can say they didn’t see this coming. The USGBC was first informed of the health concerns about phthalates in vinyl building products ten years ago and acknowledged the phthalate hazard in its 2007
Technical and Science Advisory Committee report.1 In 2004, the
Environmental Building News called for a ban on chemical flame retardants that could not be proven safe. The
Green Guide for Health Care suggests best practices for avoiding persistent and bio-accumulative chemicals such as the flame retardants and stain repellents listed by the EPA last month. HBN’s own
newsletter archive contains a backlog of articles on these chemicals dating back to 2002.2
But most green product standards and certifications still lag far behind governmental actions taken in the face of emerging science and mounting evidence of health risks. Efforts to meaningfully address chemical hazards in green standards are slowed or blocked by manufacturer trade associations who are active in, and frequently control, the stakeholder process. As a result, too often green standards and certifications mute rather than broadcast important market signals, such as new chemical regulations at the state level, chemical phase-outs by market leaders, or even EPA’s newly-designated “chemicals of concern.” This undermines the efforts of manufacturers trying to distinguish products that legitimately represent the leading edge of environmental health protection. The manufacturers of less healthy products use green certifications and standards to aid and abet their greenwash campaigns. Consumers are left confused and increasingly cynical when every product seems to have some sort of green label.
Phthalates, the subject of a decade of mounting evidence suggesting environmental and health hazards, and now listed by EPA as “chemicals of concern,” are a classic illustration of this unfairness. When it comes to interior finishes such as flooring, carpeting or wall coverings, a green certification that does not make the easy distinction between products that contain phthalates and those that do not is fostering greenwash, plain and simple.
These will surely not be the last “chemicals of concern” that we find in products labeled “green.”
The Pharos Chemical and Material Library lists toxic hazard warnings for thousands of chemicals that are similar to the concerns that led to December’s EPA action. Furthermore, fewer than 5% of the chemicals in use today have been fully tested for human health impacts.
One thing that distinguishes a truly sustainable company is a commitment and ability to get ahead of the emerging science and innovate its products to new levels of environmental and health performance. What’s missing from current green standards and certification systems is the basic transparency that would allow buyers and specifiers to better identify those manufacturers. The threshold requirement for green product standards and certifications must be full disclosure of the product’s ingredients and a precautionary assessment of their hazard based on the weight of available evidence.
Footnotes
[1] Assessment of the Technical Basis for a PVC-Related Materials Credit for LEED, February 2007. See p.14 and p.81 Available at http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1633
[2] See e.g., "New Studies Raise Concerns About PVC Additives" (Summer, 2002); "Montreal, Kyoto now Stockholm: International Treaty Calls for Use of Alternative Materials" (March 22, 2004); "Building As If Breathing Mattered: PVC’s Contributions To Asthma" (August 11, 2004); "Two Independent Critiques of Vinyl Building Materials Link Flooring & Asthma, Reproductive Problems & PVC Combustion" (November 1, 2004); "As Good AS Mother’s Milk: The US Green Building Movement" (January 27, 2005); "New Study Finds Plasticizers a Major Contaminant In Household Dust" (March 22, 2005); "Bad News for Babies: Research Links PVC Plasticizer to Genital Deformities" (June 17, 2005); "PVC Softeners Used In Building Products Cited As Health Concern In Autos" (February 7, 2006); "The 'New Shower Curtain Smell' May Be Toxic To Your Health" ( July 1, 2008); "International Authorities Turn Up the Heat on Toxic Flame Retardants in Building Materials" (November 6, 2008); "Resilient Flooring and Chemical Hazards" (May 21, 2009); "Persistence of PFCs" (July 8, 2009). All are available in our Newsletter Archive. Also, use the search function at www.healthybuilding.net to locate fact sheets and white papers on these chemicals.
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
07 JANUARY
A summary of "
The Health and Well-Being of Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2007" was released by our government today. In addition to the stark reality that too many of American children continue to lack basic health care coverage, were two findings relevant to our work at Pharos - and just as relevant, to our work as parents:
Nearly one-third of U.S. children, ages 10 to 17, were overweight or obese.
Over 25 percent of American children under age 5 were at risk for developmental and behavioral problems or social delays.
Because of my work researching building products and chemicals for HBN, I've known for quite some time that some studies suggest there is a link between exposure to phthalates (chemicals used in PVC plastic found in flooring and wall coverings) and obesity or insulin resistance in humans.1 And, having worked on children's environmental issues in a previous work life, I am also acutely aware of the fact that some heavy metals (chemicals such as lead used as a stabilizer in PVC products and chromium found in furniture) are linked to neuro-developmental problems in kids.2
But, my children aren't obese and have not exhibited any developmental or behavioral issues (beyond the norm of my 11-year-old who is just entering that ever wondrous stage of puberty!). And yet, the increase in obesity and learning problems concerns me. While the statistics don't represent my immediate family, my kids' peers, the world's future, are represented by those statistics. And I see in my daily work that we as consumers of building products have the power to help reverse the tide and in even the smallest ways, take action to reduce kids' chemical exposures - simply by purchasing safer and healthier building products.
There is 1 comment about this post | Post a comment
JIM V.
04 JANUARY
In the process of identifying flame retardants in household dust and sewage sludge, Duke University environmental chemist Heather Stapleton identified four new compounds that raised public and environmental health concerns. Then she ran into a wall of industry secrecy. Many flame retardant manufacturers do not disclose their product's ingredients, so she could not cross-reference her findings with industry data.
Chemical companies routinely claim trade secrecy in matters pertaining to their products. An
article in yesterday's Washington Post highlights the intersection of chemical ingredient secrecy and public policy.
The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act allows companies like Chemtura to not disclose broadly-defined "confidential business information" (CBI). As the
Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported last month, companies have placed CBI claims on 13,596 new chemicals produced since 1976.
Chemtura's Flamemaster 550® is one of these new chemicals, introduced as an alternative to brominated diphenyl ethers, such as Penta- and Deca-BDE. The company's website says the new product's ingredients are proprietary. And they told the Washington Post that CBI is "essential for ensuring the long-term competitiveness of U.S. industry."
"Industry had good reason to conceal the ingredients in Firemaster 550," notes EWG. If EPA scientists knew "the identity of the chemicals in Firemaster 550, the product would have come under serious scrutiny within the agency."
Yet much about Flamemaster 550®'s composition is readily known by industry competitors. A 1995 patent filed by Great Lakes Chemical (now part of Chemtura) lays out the production process and chemistry of Flamemaster 550® in great details. The primary chemical is a tetrabromobenzoate, produced from phthlalic anhydrides and 2-ethylhexanol. (Richard Rose, et al., "Use of ring-brominated benzoate compounds as flame retardants and/or plasticizers," Great Lakes Chemical Corporation, filed April 11, 1995, U.S. Patent No. 5,728,760)
While the patent describes the chemistry for all to see, Dr. Stapleton reverse engineered the flame retardant in the lab, and saw that its profile matched her findings of new chemical exposures in the household.
Patent searches and laboratory testing are common methods of identifying the composition of products. Chemtura admits this in a 2008 filing with EPA, which claims that its products' chemistry is Confidential Business Information.
An
EPA form asks "whether a competitor could employ reverse engineering to identically recreate the substance." Chemtura concedes, "It is possible, but the competitor would have to have available the appropriate analytical equipment, the expertise and time."
It took me about five minutes, on-line, to find the basic process for making Flamemaster 550® via a patent search. And Dr. Stapleton's lab tests identified the product's ingredients with further precision, and without a chemical corporation's budget.
Here's the real bottom line: researchers will find out what is in problematic products, despite the TSCA CBI loophole. The sooner companies realize this, and provide full disclosure, the better it will be for their long-term positioning in the marketplace.
There are 2 comments about this post | Post a comment
SUSAN S.
22 DECEMBER
Healthy Building Network won't soon forget 2009; a year of tremendous challenges and accomplishments. Ranking highest, far and away, in both categories would be bringing the Pharos Project to market.
The culmination of three years' work, with the help and support of many, the Pharos Project brings an unprecedented and unsurpassed level of transparency to the building materials market. The Pharos Chemical and Material Library is a one-of-a-kind database that allows subscribers to find out the health impacts of chemicals in building materials in just seconds, by checking over 9,000 chemicals against 21 authoritative hazard lists. The Pharos Building Product Library offers comprehensive health and environmental information on over 100 products in three categories. There is no more transparent, comprehensive or easy-to-use source of this information available.
Like many not-for-profit organizations, 2009 presented HBN with the toughest financial challenges in our ten-year history. We all took pay cuts to keep the lights on and the Pharos Project going.
As 2010 nears, we are hopeful that subscriptions to the Pharos Project will begin to offset some of the costs associated with operating and expanding the system. Nevertheless, we fully expect that philanthropic donations and grants will continue to constitute the vast majority of HBN's budget.
It is for this reason that we ask you to subscribe to Pharos. If you have already subscribed or if now is not the time for you to subscribe but you want to support our work, consider making a tax-deductible donation to HBN, as part of your year-end charitable giving.
Your generous contributions permit HBN to remain financially independent of manufacturer funding or other types of strings-attached dollars - allowing us to take uncompromised stands, call things as we see them, and stand up to industry greenwash. Again, if this is something that you value in our work, please consider making a tax-deductible donation this year.
On behalf of all of my colleagues at HBN, thanks for your support - and have a happy holiday season.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
21 DECEMBER
In the coming weeks, we will publish our 2010 project development roadmap for the Pharos Project. The roadmap will outline what new product categories, impact categories, and functions will be coming online in the next 12 months.
We will steadily add products over the coming year. In fact, new products were added today (Subscribers can view products that have been added in the last week
here. Not a subscriber yet? Start your
free trial today.). Subscribers will be able to submit products they would like to see researched as we open new product categories. We will also feature new products to highlight what are the important signal issues within a product category, and demonstrate new functions so you know you are getting the most out of your subscription.
The Pharos product queue will give you the most up to date information about what stage the products you are watching are at in our research cycle. And, you can follow us via email, RSS,
Twitter or
Facebook to get real time updates as new products, categories, and functions become available.
The Pharos team would like to wish you a happy holiday season, and we look forward to working with you in 2010 to create a healthier, just, and environmentally sound building materials market.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
18 DECEMBER
The voluntary phase-out agreement announced yesterday between the EPA and major US manufacturers of a class of
brominated flame retardants (BFRs) is a significant step forward in efforts to protect the environment and public health from unhealthy chemicals.
Like most "voluntary" agreements between EPA and industry; "voluntary" doesn't seem the most precise adjective for the agreement. It's like calling going to the dentist voluntary; technically true, but the vast majority of us don't feel like we have much choice. Ditto, this agreement.
And yet, for those of us who help guide the purchase of millions of dollars of building materials every day, the voluntary decision provides some relief. If the companies stop making BFRs, it is one step closer to removing a class of nasty chemicals from our radar screens. It gets us one step closer to not having to worry about whether the waiting room upholstery we are about to source for the doctor's office or hospital is free from unhealthy flame retardants.
For years, industry controlled "citizens" groups, and the usual infantry of federal and state lobbyists have been armed with millions of dollars and industry sponsored "science" to actively oppose such a "voluntary" decision. At the same time, however, there has been a whole different set of volunteers that should be congratulated for this agreement. There are the hundreds of volunteers nationwide that have taken part in "bio-monitoring" studies to measure the amount of flame retardants and other persistent chemicals in their blood and breast milk. There are the volunteers who called and testified before state legislators across the country to encourage their representatives to take state action to restrict these chemicals in light of increasingly disturbing evidence. There are the committed academic scientists who focused their research on looking at the health effects of BFRs and shared their expertise with the broader community. And then there are the untold numbers of specifiers and consumers who voluntarily chose to purchase products that didn't contain these chemicals.
The voluntary agreement to phase-out deca is not without its omissions and exemptions, and much remains to be done. But today, those of us who work at HBN and the Pharos Project honor the real "volunteers" in this agreement.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
TOM L.
16 DECEMBER
It turns out that occupants of the infamous
FEMA Katrina trailers are not the only ones at risk from formaldehyde. A recent
report on formaldehyde in new homes from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) found that nearly all of the 108 homes they studied had formaldehyde concentrations that exceeded guidelines for cancer and chronic irritation and significant numbers of the homes exceeded guidelines on other VOCs as well. This came as no surprise to us at HBN. Our research in the past has observed that the low ventilation rates in homes made
current VOC standards inadequate to protect health and would likely lead to unsafe levels of formaldehyde and other VOC in homes.
The news of high home formaldehyde levels followed close on the heels of news that yet another official board - the expert panel for the US National Toxicology Program - unanimously voted last month to
designate formaldehyde a known human carcinogen echoing the International Agency for Research on Cancer's earlier designation.
The reality remains, however, that regulations always follow in the wake of overwhelming science and best practices. In fact, they often finish a distant third in the race to protect public health. These regulations will only reduce formaldehyde exposures from a limited number of products leaving
fiberglass batt insulation and other products still emitting this potent carcinogen.
Rather than wait for regulations to catch up, the best practice is to use Pharos now to specify products that are made without added formaldehyde. That's a decision that will place you much further along the path towards health, and let you breathe a little easier while you wait for regulations to catch up.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
LARRY K.
14 DECEMBER
Kaiser Permanente's push to eliminate PVC from its facilities nationwide was highlighted on yesterday's NYT's blog,
The Opinionator, as one of the health care provider's major innovations in its Total Health initiative.
In her blog, Allison Arieff specifically cites Kaiser's work to obtain PVC-free carpeting for its facilities, as PVC - a major source of dioxin (a known carcinogen) - is particularly out-of-step with healing environments and Kaiser's overall wellness agenda. Kaiser's successful campaign to spur a major manufacturer into creating PVC-free carpeting was conducted in
collaboration with Healthy Building Network - and epitomizes the kind of transformative power large buyers can have in moving markets toward healthier, greener building materials.
It is this type of market impact that HBN believes will be achieved through the Pharos Project. Through the Pharos Building Product Library, specifiers of building materials can identify greener products, as well as manufacturers who share their commitment to a healthier built environment; by using the Pharos Chemical and Material Library, specifiers can see whether a product they are considering contains dioxins or other harmful chemicals.
Check out the Pharos Project and start breathing a little easier.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
10 DECEMBER
One of the main sources of information used to evaluate the health and safety of building materials is the Material Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS. In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that MSDSes be available to employees so that they can be notified of potentially harmful substances they may come in contact with in the workplace. At the Pharos Project, the MSDS is often the starting point for our initial research on a product and its ingredients.
The first thing any researcher discovers is that MSDSes are often incomplete in their data and inconsistent in their format. Recently, the Pharos team has begun doing preliminary research into high performance coatings - specialty paints and coatings that are widely used in health care and other commercial settings. Some of the documents exemplify the MSDS conundrum.
For example, I found one manufacturer stating that their products contain no hazardous ingredients. But flipping later into the MSDS, the same manufacturer warns the user that, "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm." As a researcher, I'd like to know that the product contains carcinogens on the first page, not the last.
The reality is that manufacturers have great latitude to determine whether a chemical warrants listing on an MSDS and employers and employees have little or no other information available to them. Through Pharos, we're working to uncover the realities of what hazardous chemicals are actually in products as we build out our Building Product Library and add to our Chemical and Material Library of over 9,000 chemicals.
While we do that, it is wise to consider this about MSDSes: Many Simply Don't Say. There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
JULIE S.
07 DECEMBER
Until I read "
Cancer from the Kitchen," Nicholas Kristof's opinion piece in this Sunday's New York Times, I actually thought I would take an entire weekend for my family, putting work aside for two days. But, Kristof's article was a reminder that there is little that separates my home from my work these days.
Kristof posed the "What if..." question that we at
Healthy Building Network and Pharos confront daily. He asked, "What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air - or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens?" At home, I think "What if my daughter's respiratory problems have less to do with smog and more to do with the plasticizers coming off the floors (as well as the shower curtains, wall coverings, upholstery, and fabric) in her life?"
Like Kristof's advisors recommended, I have eliminated plastic from the microwave and the dishwasher. I don't let my kids bring home those cheap plastic party favors (and much to their chagrin, I make them throw them in the trash if they make it through our front door). I was the first in my parent group to switch to unlined stainless steel water bottles. But, my one-woman show certainly can't tip the scales to make the world free of chemicals that can harm my daughter and her friends.
It is my work that brings me comfort. It reminds me how ubiquitous the problem is and how those who have the greatest market power can change the "What if" question. I can get rid of all the plastic containers in our home, but on a larger scale, the best I can do for my family is work to provide consumers with better information about what is in the products that they buy. So, I spend more than my allotted 40 hours per week on Pharos, communicating to those who source millions of square feet of product for hotels, hospitals, libraries, schools, and office buildings, information about the chemicals in the billions of dollars of products they purchase. I am counting on them to make the "What if..." question irrelevant.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
03 DECEMBER
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!
The reports are in. There's gambling in Casablanca. Treehugger found the
usual suspects on the exhibition floor. GreenBiz too reported "
more than a little hype," bordering on "irrational corporate exuberance," but was relieved that at least the aisles were not "filled with greenwash. " We ourselves
blogged about Al Gore exhorting a cheering keynote crowd to "speak out against it" when they find it. A group called
Forest Ethics did speak out against the greenwash Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), but
Green Builder Media cast a critical eye on the messenger, not the message, questioning "how much of the protest has to do with legitimate environmental concerns and how much has to do with maintaining market share." Like gambling in Rick's Café Americain, greenwash is an integral part of the Greenbuild story. But it's not the whole story.
Amidst the labels, certifications, greenmarketing, greenhype and greenwash at Greenbuild 2009, a paradigm shift was on. New informational transactions were taking place, trading on
radical transparency - the convergence of information and information technology.
This is a major advance. By focusing our efforts on a goal that addresses a specific problem, we push the market towards good solutions, rather than less-bad products. And we know it will work. When brominated flame retardants were phased out of use in Europe, the concentrations in women's breast milk there declined.
In some cases, healthier alternatives are presently hard to come by. But as our own Pharos Project demonstrates, in other cases - resilient flooring, composite wood, or batt insulation - there are available mainstream products that can reduce the global footprint of persistent and bioaccumulative chemicals, without sacrificing price or performance.
When it comes to wood products, the banner hung at Greenbuild got the attention, but the nation's leading forest conservation groups have assembled an exhaustive website,
www.credibleforestcertification.org, that lays out the case - explaining why LEED should not reward certifications, including the SFI, that are less protective than the FSC standards that have been painstakingly negotiated with timber companies and other stakeholders. This information - available in any format you want, short fact sheets, long policy papers, bullet points, academic studies, legal complaints, provocative ads, you name it - makes it transparently clear that the debate over the LEED certified wood credit is not an intramural contest for market share among similarly motivated do-gooders. Many USGBC members who have studied the facts for themselves publicly support an "FSC or Better" standard, including chapters in California, Massachusetts, and the Pacific Northwest.
Greenwash aside, the current market saturation of green labels and certifications seems to elicit more questions than answers. With so many products qualified for LEED credits and third party certifications, does your choice make any difference? Increasingly, the new transparency in the marketplace is revealing the answer to that question to be, yes.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
01 DECEMBER
Global warming potential - like many health, environmental, and social issues - is hard to tag with a single number. That is why the Pharos Project is developing multi-attribute profiles for the products that go into our buildings everyday. To date, our research suggests that many factors must be addressed in combating the climate crisis, leaving the cap and trade framework's effectiveness questionable at either the company or national policy level.
Today, the folks that brought us the virally-popular The Story of Stuff have done it again with The Story of Cap & Trade, a 9-minute animated romp through the vagaries of proposals to allow companies to buy, sell, trade or bank the right to put C02 into the atmosphere. Such programs are the centerpiece of virtually every plan under discussion for addressing climate change. The conventional wisdom is that it's a no brainer. After all, it worked before to stop acid rain.
Not so fast.
For example, a June 2009 investigative news report examined numerous cap-and-trade approaches and found "no precedent showing that a cap-and-trade system would deliver in time the significant cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists say are critical to prevent catastrophic climate change." An EPA official and architect of the acid rain program says: "The PH [acidity] levels of lakes and steams improved, but they did not improve as much as we thought they would... It just did not go as far as the science had indicated it would back in the 1990s." Many streams and lakes remain unacceptably acidic. Now what?
Al Gore's new book "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis" also damns cap-and-trade with faint praise as an alternative chosen because "the US political system is incapable of making a bold and controversial decision" such as other countries who have instituted meaningful emissions regulations or a carbon tax. Why a second-rate solution to a first-rate problem? Because of the political clout exercised by oil, coal, auto and utility companies in efforts he labels "insidious," "unethical," "malignant," "disinformation" and "fraudulent."
The Story of Cap & Trade is an unconventional challenge to the conventional wisdom.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
23 NOVEMBER
I was standing in the coffee aisle of my
local co-op last Wednesday, the bustle around me signaling the start of the Thanksgiving rush. Sipping a complimentary decaf, handed to me by Dean Cycon, owner of
Dean's Beans coffee, one of the co-ops most popular brands, I couldn't stop thinking about the fate of the
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified wood credit in the
LEED rating system.
Dean had just explained to me how every pound of his coffee that we buy, and every cup that we drink, contributes directly to better environment, health and social welfare, in every place touched by his beans. But here's what got me thinking. For Indigenous coffee farmers, he said, fair trade practices were proving to be way more important than he had foreseen. Certified fair trade practices were a cultural lifeline, a vehicle for regaining a measure of autonomy in an export-oriented economy whose dynamics are contrary to the survival of Indigenous Peoples.1
That's when I thought of Doug Pierce2 and the LEED certified wood credit. We've featured Doug's analysis of the LEED certified wood credit twice in this newsletter.3 He had recently written me again to point out that the latest proposal to create a new USGBC benchmark for the certified wood credit, while much improved on key ecological criteria, still fails to maintain the standing that Indigenous communities currently enjoy in the FSC process, a standing that is essential to the protection of their often fragile land and tenure rights.
Sometimes it's easier to see the forest through the beans. As Dean had just pointed out to me about the coffee I was sipping, fair treatment of Indigenous communities that hold valuable commercial commodities - prime coffee growing lands are not infrequently natural forests - separates the green from the greenwash when it comes to sustainability labels.
Indeed, I recalled, back in 2006 I published a
point-counterpoint interview between leaders from the FSC and the industry-sponsored Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The most fundamental disagreements between the multi-stakeholder FSC and the timber-industry-dominated SFI concerned the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The SFI took the position that "[s]ome Indigenous Peoples invoke the FSC standard...because it strengthens their hand in land disputes...But forest certification should not be used as a tool to solve land disputes." The FSC said, "The FSC gives Indigenous Peoples a seat at the table, where they speak for themselves, we are an inclusive consensus-building membership organization...[I]t is difficult to practice responsible forestry in the context of a dispute over who owns the land."
Pierce calls the FSC values embodied in the current LEED credit “a cradle of modern sustainability,” translating the three values of sustainability - social equity, ecological economics and environmental protection – into 10 elegant principles, 56 criteria, along with additional on-the-ground indicators and a credible third-party assessment process. The new proposal for LEED, by rendering many of these optional, would strip indigenous communities of the already threadbare protections provided by LEED’s current embrace of the FSC standard. That’s why there is such a deep commitment among experienced green building professionals to a LEED standard that remains FSC or better.
It’s embarrassingly cliche to conclude this way, I know. But the truth is that Thanksgiving inevitably triggers reflections on the story of our country’s Indigenous Peoples. The LEED credit on certified wood is the chapter of that story that we in the green building movement will write. After your Thanksgiving meal, have a cup of coffee, think about this, and as Dean likes to say, “drink deep.”
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
18 NOVEMBER
Can we agree that if toxic chemicals from a building material are showing up in babies, then that is not a "green" building material?
The
Washington Toxics Coalition just released a new study in which they tested nine pregnant women, from Washington, Oregon, and California, for a range of toxic chemicals commonly found in building materials.
Specific findings of the study include:
Every woman tested was exposed to bisphenol A, the hormone disrupting chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic, the lining for food cans, and epoxy resins used in many high performance paints and coatings.
Each woman had at least two and as many as four perfluorinated compounds in her blood. These are chemicals used to create stain-protection products and non-stick cookware.
Every woman was exposed to at least four phthalates, the plasticizers and fragrance carriers found in consumer products and flexible vinyl products.
These chemicals are identified as hazardous on multiple levels by the 21 governmental lists scanned by the Pharos Chemical and Material Library (CML) -- the leading edge tool for green building professionals seeking to avoid some of the worst toxics in building products. (
Click here for the CML profile for Bisphenol A)
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
PAUL B.
16 NOVEMBER
If anyone doubted the need for a tool that cuts through the fog of labels, manufacturer claims and private certification schemes that dominate the building materials market, a short stroll through the aisles of the GreenBuild exhibition hall would erase that.
Perhaps it was the aftershock of a trip though the Greenbuild exhibition hall that prompted Al Gore to exhort Greenbuild attendees this way at Chase Field on Wednesday night: "I urge the green building movement to pay attention to keeping the environmental standards high, and when you find greenwashing going on, speak out against it. Don't put up with that because they undercut the legitimate folks who are here, who are doing the right thing."
Al is right. The trouble is, it's not always that easy. Greenwashing is by definition clever, sophisticated and disingenuous, making it difficult to distinguish from legitimate green marketing. The other limitation is that individual voices rarely break through the din of Greenwash. We know from experience how difficult this can be.
Pharos will accomplish more than just making it easier for
our subscribers to find materials that reflect their values; it will also amplify their individual voices into a chorus call for transparency and market transformation.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
BILL W.
06 NOVEMBER
Join us. Join with leading architecture and design firms, construction firms and health care systems that have already subscribed to Pharos. Use the system to research green building materials, and align your purchasing power with your values and your commitment to transparency. Support manufacturers who share that commitment.
Today's public opening of the Pharos system as an authoritative, affordable and user friendly materials evaluation tool is a major milestone in a project that began over three years ago. Following a long tradition of project development, it began with a drawing on a cocktail napkin. That's how Jason McLennan - then a principal at BNIM Architects, now CEO of the Cascadia Regional Green Building Council - first presented his vision of how to communicate a multi-attribute evaluation of building materials with in an elegant lens graphic. It seemed to us the perfect way to convey our best information and analysis to the green building community, and to accelerate market transformation. The napkin evolved into a whitepaper, the whitepaper into screen shots, and the fun began. As anyone who has tried to evaluate product sustainability will attest, it was more complicated then we could have imagined.
More than anything, we wanted Pharos to be a trustworthy tool for professionals who specify and buy building products. So the first thing you should know is that the Pharos Project is fully independent from product manufacturers. We do not charge manufacturers to have their products listed in Pharos and accept no financial contributions other than the normal subscription rate. We are funded by no-strings-attached philanthropic foundations [hotlink to foundation page], and a modest subscription fee.
We also wanted Pharos to provide unsurpassed depth and transparency of data and data sources. The Pharos system includes information about a product's impacts not only during use, but also upstream in manufacture and (coming soon) downstream at the end of a product's useful life. Whether the information comes from the manufacturer or our own research, we provide you with the both the source and a "Transparency Index" that lets you know the degree to which a manufacturer accepted or declined our request for product information.
And we walk our talk. Pharos provides you with all of the evaluation criteria that we use to generate the scores and graphics.
Pharos scores and elegant graphics offer users a fair assessment "at-a-glance" of the relative impacts of products. Rarely do these "at-a-glance" views suggest that one product is clearly superior to all others in all categories. More often than not, the Pharos scores reveal that products have different levels of impact in different impact categories. But the "at-a-glance" view will provide Pharos subscribers with an unprecedented amount of information that they can use to align their product choices with their own values. Pharos users can also set filters, conduct searches and create product libraries that effectively let them set their own priorities and preferences.
During our development process, we heard loud and clear that many green building professionals prefer to examine data for themselves in order to evaluate products. That is why we have prioritized development of the Chemical and Material Library, because it gives you the power to look up nearly 10,000 chemical ingredients commonly found in building products. That way, even if a product has not yet been entered into the Pharos Product Library, you can still get answers to your health related questions about product ingredients.
However you use Pharos, we don't determine what product best aligns with your values. You do. Pharos is a dynamic tool that connects you to a network of building professionals and manufacturers committed to transparency as a core value on the path to sustainability. We invite you to join and participate. Like it's namesake, the great lighthouse of ancient Alexandria, Pharos is a guide. You will set the future course to radical transparency.
Subscribe now and register for a free instructional webinar on how to get the most out of the system.
There are 0 comments about this post | Post a comment
top >>
