What is a Green Building Material?
The ideal building material would have no negative environmental impacts, and it might even have positive environmental impacts, including air, land, and water purification. Such a material would be infinitely reusable or recyclable.1 �Perfect� materials are rare, but in practice there are a growing array of green materials that reduce or eliminate negative impacts on people and the environment. As manufacturers, building professionals, and owners constantly strive for better buildings, we encourage others in the supply chain to join us in pursuit of a better world.
Incorporating green products into a project does not imply sacrifice in performance, or design, and does not necessarily entail higher cost. While one can spend considerably more for green materials, careful shoppers will find cost-competitive environmentally preferable options. For example, a joint US EPA/Army study of more than 2200 paints found environmentally preferable options to cost an average of $1.76 less per gallon.2
1 Inspired by language from GreenBlue, a non-profit promoting cradle-to-cradle design.
2 USEPA Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program (1999) Painting the Town Green � Aberdeen Proving Ground's Pilot Paint Project.
Essential Considerations:
This brochure/website suggests many specific considerations in selecting a wide array of construction materials, based upon two basic questions:
-
Is the material renewable and resource efficient in its manufacture, installation, use, and removal?
-
Does the material support the health and well being of occupants, construction personnel, the public, and the surrounding environment?
The most critical question is left to you:
Research is required to evaluate alternatives and select the best material for a project. Material selection ideally considers the impacts of a product throughout its life cycle, from raw material, to use, to reuse, recycling, or disposal. Areas of impact to consider at each stage in the life cycle of a material include:
-
Resources: Air and Water Pollution, Hazardous and Solid Waste
-
Energy required for:
-
Water: Efficiency in Manufacture and Use
-
Health:
-
Effect on Indoor Air Quality
-
Exposure of Occupant, Manufacturer, or Installer to Harmful Substances
-
Moisture and Mold Resistance
-
Maintenance
Green Material Criteria:
Choosing items with several attributes cited in this checklist will significantly reduce the impacts of material selection and use. The importance of each consideration varies with the environmental goals of a project.
Green Materials Are:
| Resource Efficient |
|
Healthy |
- Durable
- Salvaged for reuse, refurbished, remanufactured, or recycled
- Easily recyclable or reusable when no longer needed
- Manufactured from a waste material (such as straw or fly ash) or a waste-reducing process
- Sustainably harvested from a renewable resource
- Minimally packaged and/or wrapped with recyclable packaging
- Reduce or eliminate the need for another material (e.g., panel construction, or finished concrete flooring)
- Extracted and processed locally
- Energy efficient or conserving in use
- Use less energy in extraction, processing, and transport to the job site (Low in embodied energy)
- Renewable energy generating
- Water efficient or conserving
|
|
- Zero or low emissions of toxic or irritating chemicals
- Moisture and mold resistant
- Low maintenance and require no toxic cleansers
- Able to filter indoor pollutants
- Emit no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particularly indoors
- Able to monitor for indoor pollutants or poor ventilation (such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide detectors)
- Manufactured with a low-pollution process
- Free of toxic materials such as lead, mercury, and arsenic
- Manufactured with a low-pollution process and from non-toxic components
- Not ozone depleting
|
"
73°F