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This Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating an incredible leader in the green chemistry and healthy materials space: our very own Teresa McGrath! Teresa is Habitable’s Chief Research Officer, leading our research strategies.
Prior to working at Habitable, Teresa led the Chemical Management Program for Sherwin-Williams, the largest paints and coatings company in the world, where she focused on hazards reduction and transparency and assisted business units in meeting sustainability and green chemistry goals. She also spent nine years as the Senior Managing Toxicologist at NSF International’s Green Chemistry Programs, and two years at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Design for the Environment (DfE) Branch of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT).
We caught up with Teresa to learn why she’s a champion for safer chemicals and healthier products and to get her perspective on the industry today.
HABITABLE:
What got you interested in working in sustainable products and clean chemistry?
TERESA MCGRATH:
It all starts with my family. Specifically my father – who would never identify as an environmentalist – but through his actions taught me to care for those who are most vulnerable and to take care of our planet. For example, more than once I witnessed my dad giving CPR to an injured animal that one of our dogs had mangled. In grade school I disgusted my friends by pulling carrots out of a peanut butter and jelly coated baggie my father had reused (this was before reusable bags were a thing!).
In college I did a research project on how to remove pesticides from drinking water using a biocatalytic filter method. It took me until the end of the project to ask myself “Wait, why is this pollution in our drinking water to begin with? Why are we using chemistry in such an inefficient, clumsy way?” After a little digging I stumbled on the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry, authored by Dr. Paul Anastas and Dr. John Warner. These principles are centered around using chemistry to prevent pollution rather than create it, to make efficient use of resources down to every atom, to avoid waste. This was an inspiring moment for me.
I decided to pursue a graduate degree in chemistry that focused on Green Chemistry. At the time the only graduate program focused entirely on “Clean Chemical Technology” was in the U.K. at University of York. Off to England I went, and I have worked in the field of Green Chemistry for my entire career.
H:
What has surprised you the most about working in this field?
TM:
I have worked in government, NGOs, and industry. I think what is surprising is how much these stakeholders have in common and how most people want the same things when it comes to human health and the environment. Most people want (to make, use, or buy) safer products that work well and they can afford. It is this alignment that we can all use to make progress.
The most exciting projects in my work experience were those that harnessed input from different stakeholders with different perspectives. For example, in 2017 Valspar invited NGOs and academics who fought against the use of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) to help them design and test alternatives to BPA for use in food packaging.
We can all learn from each other, and these moments of collaboration are critical to enable market changes toward products that are safer for human health and the environment.
H:
Who has inspired you along your journey?
TM:
In addition to Dr. Anastas and Dr. Warner, I am grateful to Dr. Lauren Heine, who I met at a Gordon Green Chemistry conference when I was in graduate school and has been a friend and mentor to me ever since. Dr. Heine is a leader in the field of green chemistry, green engineering, and sustainable business practices.
I first met Lauren when she was the Director of Applied Science at Green Blue Institute, where she developed the CleanGredients database in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help cleaning product manufacturers find safer alternatives. At Clean Production Action, she co-authored and led the development of the GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, a method for comparative chemical hazard assessment. She has also worked as Director of Science and Data Integrity at ChemFORWARD, where she co-created a harmonized chemical hazard assessment methodology that will not helps people avoid chemicals of concern, but also identify safer alternatives. She serves on various advisory boards and committees all over the world to share with the rest of the world a bit of the brilliance whenever she can.
Lauren taught me that collaboration is one of the most important tools to inspire change. She has an unique ability to build connections and relationships with every project she is involved with. I aspire to approach my work with this same focus.
I also credit Lauren with helping me land my very first job out of graduate school at the EPA despite the fact that I handed her a printed resume on scented paper (long story!).
H:
What are you excited about?
TM:
When I talk to project teams about how they find and select healthier products for new construction or retrofits, I often hear that they rely on disclosures like Health Product Declarations (HPDs) or Declare labels, or ecolabels such as Greenseal or Cradle to Cradle certifications, or most often they rely on manufacturer claims about the product.
I’m feeling optimistic that there has been more traction with manufacturers using these great transparency programs. There are a limited number of products on the market today that carry disclosures, and even fewer that have ecolabels. Real estate teams often feel stuck when the product they want to select is not yet disclosed. Also, because a product carries a disclosure or an ecolabel does not mean it is the best choice to avoid hazards for that product category.
I believe that there is a lot of value in disclosures and product certifications and that they play a critical role in our ecosystem. And, I believe the most powerful way to achieve safer products is to start BEFORE relying on those product disclosure tools. Project teams can take advantage of product type guidance to select products that are typically safer than others – all before ever selecting from an individual manufacturer.
Habitable’s InformedTM product guidance is informed by our 20+ years of building materials research. Guidance for individual product categories are generated by analyzing everything we know about a product category, including the way the products are made, the hazards associated with the product content, and end of life options for different product types. The reason I am so excited about this resource is that it summarizes a LOT of technical information into a simple, easy to use format that can be applied easily to both benchmark current practices and select typically safer products for projects, and even help document the powerful impacts of choosing safer materials on a project.
H:
What advice do you have for up-and-coming leaders in this space?
TM:
Don’t be afraid to reach out directly to professionals to learn more about their jobs. Ask what experience they are looking for in candidates, what their day to day looks like, and even directly ask about open positions or internship opportunities. Once you are in a role, actively look for opportunities to meet people within and outside of your organization. By expanding your network you learn different perspectives and build your capacity to collaborate on your next project. I can say from experience that you can make an impact from many different vantage points. We need young energetic leaders in NGOs, government, industry, and academia who are passionate about making the world a better place!
Healthy Building Network (HBN) is excited to welcome Monica Nakielski as our new Board Chair!
“I was excited to join an organization having the impact that HBN does. Our influence and impact spans across industries and the globe with the science and resources we create,” Monica said. “I was interested in networking with other leaders in this space while contributing to the conversation and bringing a healthcare perspective to the table.”
A longtime champion of healthy buildings and spaces, Monica is the former Vice President of Sustainability at Advocate Aurora Health. She has over 15 years of experience as a sustainability practitioner and consultant to Fortune 500 organizations, governments, institutions, and nonprofits, with a focus on health care, hospitals, and health systems.
Monica has long had a passion for healthy materials. Traveling to her mother’s home country of Ecuador years ago, she was deeply impacted by the visible effects of industrial processes and pollution. It was clear that in those communities – like many in the US and around the world – it was the already marginalized communities who were bearing the brunt of the impact of our choices.
Monica first connected with HBN in 2011 at a BizNGO gathering, where she began to learn about the deeper connections between health and the built environment and the way business and product decisions can deeply impact both. She quickly became an advocate for healthier materials and joined the HBN board in 2019.
A commitment to create healthier spaces for patients, staff, and communities has shaped Monica’s career for more than a decade. Before joining Advocate Aurora Health, she served as the head of sustainability at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), where she and her team worked to influence health insurers to be leaders of environmental sustainability. She also led and managed sustainability at MassGeneralBrigham (formerly Partners HealthCare) across 16 facilities and 18 million square feet.
As a leader in sustainable healthcare, Monica has been a vocal advocate for integrated approaches to creating safer and healthier spaces. She pushes back against the false dichotomy many practitioners feel of having to choose between climate or chemicals – i.e., focusing on energy efficiency or low-carbon choices versus eliminating toxic chemicals from products and the supply chain. She believes that both approaches can and must be aligned and integrated to create truly healthy spaces for all.
One of her proudest successes was impacting the amended fire code while working for a healthcare system in Boston in 2013. She had the opportunity to advocate with the Boston City Council to ensure that the new fire code met both public safety and public health needs. They were successful in removing toxic flame retardants from the requirements, which directly impacted the administrative headquarters they were building at the time. For that project, Monica’s team was successful in ensuring that more than 70% of the materials used in the building interiors avoided the worst chemicals of concern.
Monica is committed to blazing a trail and bringing others along for the journey. “We are able to drive this cultural shift and change, all the way down to selecting healthier, safer products, while we’re assuring the same, if not better health outcomes,” she said. “It comes down to connecting with our colleagues and educating them – finding the stories and the information that will inspire them to act.”
Monica believes that HBN is well-positioned to lead this work and create a healthier, more just world. “It’s up to us to lead, to share, to continue to collaborate, network, and leverage the science, tools, and resources that HBN publishes.”
Monica is incredibly excited for the growth and expansion that HBN is poised to take on in the coming years, and we are fortunate to have her as a leading voice guiding the way.
“What I find most exciting is that these discussions are bubbling up everywhere. With new ESG reporting standards and rules, people are being held accountable. I love the idea of continuing to raise awareness and drive perception, tying it back to the science. For people who have worked in the space of sustainability, we have waited for a really long time for people to connect the dots and to get as excited about this work as we are.”
We are grateful for Monica’s leadership and commitment to helping us achieve our vision that all people and the planet thrive in a world free of toxic chemicals.
“I want to leave the world a better world for my kids, and their kids, and the generations that follow,” she said. “I think we all do.”
Chemicals of concern lurk in a great amount products, from food packaging and computer monitors to lipstick and sunscreen, and you may not know that Habitable supports these industry sectors in their quest for safer chemicals.
Some companies have jumped ahead of regulations to voluntarily reduce or phase out specific chemicals of concern. One approach companies use for guidance is a Restricted Substances List or RSL. An RSL is a list of chemicals or chemical classes (a group of similar chemicals) that are restricted for use in a product.
RSLs can be an organization’s list of chemicals of concern for any industry, such as Green Science Policy Institute’s Six Classes of Problematic Chemicals, or they can be a voluntary industry standard, such as the furniture industry’s BIFMA e3/level list of chemicals restricted for use in certified products. At Habitable, we have created a one stop shop with our own chemical hazard database. Pharos – named for the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria – hosts all of these RSLs and more from a variety of industries to help suppliers screen their materials for chemicals of concern and design products that comply with their customers’ needs, and with health in mind.
Instead of checking each list individually, you can use Pharos to check a chemical against all RSLs by simply searching a chemical name or identifier (such as a CASRN). You can also search and download each list individually.
Pharos is a comprehensive independent database of chemicals, polymers, metals, and materials.
It was originally developed by the Habitable research team to save time by consolidating data from hundreds of different sources into one place. This system is available via subscription and is used by manufacturers, retailers, designers, NGOs, government groups, and academics across many industry sectors.
Pharos hosts hazard data for over 200,000 unique chemicals from more than 100 hazard lists. Pharos then maps these data to 25 different resulting types of human health and environmental hazards – such as reproductive toxicity or global warming potential – and assigns a hazard level (e.g high, moderate or low concern) for each endpoint. This translation and distillation of enormous amounts of complex data, to a searchable and practical set of bottom lines makes Pharos a powerful tool. Further, these data are constantly updated to ensure users get the most current information. Pharos helps companies save time finding hazard information, reducing risks by avoiding chemicals of highest concern, and leading the market with safer products. One specific way companies utilize Pharos in their chemicals management process is with RSLs.
While 12,000 different chemicals are approved for use in the manufacture of food contact materials and articles, most of those chemicals have little to no chemical hazard data associated with them, and some are known to be toxic to humans and/or the environment. 1
Recently a global coalition of leading food service companies, environmental NGOs, and technical experts jointly developed a harmonized Food Contact Chemicals of Concern List (FCCoCL). Hosted on Pharos, FCCoCL provides users with a clear pathway to avoid the most concerning chemicals.
The voluntary actions taken by companies to disclose and verify the absence of chemicals of concern will help them stay ahead of legislative and regulatory requirements and establish themselves as industry leaders.
Use RSLs to facilitate internal chemicals management.
Whether or not your company’s chemicals management policy is public, an RSL can reduce or eliminate restricted substances in your facilities and in your suppliers’ incoming materials. For example, the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals Manufacturing Restricted Substances list (ZDHC MRSL), available in Pharos, catalogs substances that are banned from intentional use in the apparel and footwear industries and their supply chains. By communicating these restrictions to the entire supply chain, manufacturers minimize the impact of banned hazardous chemicals on production workers, local communities, and the environment, while helping meet their corporate sustainability goals.
Use RSLs to maximize your customers’ peace of mind.
Retailers, brands, and manufacturers have published Restricted Substances Lists (RSLs) to help their suppliers identify the top priority chemicals to remove or minimize in their products and processes. For example, Target has relied on an RSL to implement their Chemicals Policy since 2017. Their latest list, the Target Priority Chemical List, is intended to incentivize and support the design of beauty, baby care, personal care, and household cleaning products that are better for people and the planet.
RSLs are a great way to get started working towards eliminating chemicals of known concern, but they do have limitations. RSLs tell you what not to use, but they cannot tell you what chemicals to use. The best next step beyond RSLs is to prefer fully disclosed, fully assessed, safer alternatives.
To identify safer alternatives, we recommend starting with full chemical hazard assessments, such as a GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals or those found in the ChemFORWARD shared repository of chemical hazard assessments. Hazard assessments enable informed decisions towards safer alternatives.
You can use Pharos’ comprehensive data to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and improve the inherent safety of materials and products.
By taking advantage of RSLs and other hazard screening tools hosted within Pharos, you can save time and money, advance human and environmental health, and future-proof your products and supply chain. Visit Pharos to learn more or subscribe today!
PS: If you want your RSL added, let us know!
If you’d like to have your RSL added to Pharos to facilitate your chemicals management—or you’d just like to learn more about Pharos—contact us at support@habitablefuture.org today!
The idea of a “plastic building” might bring to mind Barbie DreamHouses or Lego towers, but probably not the real life spaces we occupy every day. However, plastics have a long history of use in construction and are increasingly being used in a wide variety of building products.
What are plastics?
Plastics are synthetic or semi-synthetic materials typically made from fossil fuels and their byproducts.1 Depending on the plastic’s intended use, they may also be combined with a variety of additives such as stabilizers, fillers, reinforcements, plasticizers, colorants, and processing aids, many of which are toxic chemicals that are linked to chronic disease. They are a material of choice in the built environment, however, they come with a host of deeply rooted problems.
Durable plastics are the new “frontier”
As the energy sector shifts away from fossil fuels, the fossil fuel industry has turned toward plastics as a way of maintaining demand for their products.2 An International Energy Report from 2018 showed that petrochemicals, which are used to make plastics, are slated to become the largest driver of global oil demand in the near future.3 Historically, much of the investment has been in single-use plastics, which are increasingly the focus of bans, restrictions, regulations, and product innovation due to their harmful environmental effects.2 To pick up this anticipated slack, petrochemical, fossil fuel, and plastics industries are now pushing to increase their market growth in more durable goods, like building materials.4 The building and construction industry is already the second largest consumer of plastics after packaging.5
Plastics contribute to climate change
Plastics contribute to greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of their lifecycle. Greenhouse gases are released during fossil fuel extraction, transport, feedstock refining, and plastic manufacture, and carbon is released into the atmosphere through degradation and incineration at plastic products’ end of life.6 A 2019 Center for International Environmental Law report concluded that these lifecycle emissions may make it impossible to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees if growth continues as projected.6 Any comprehensive climate change plan must curb the production of plastics.
Plastic is ubiquitous in buildings
Maybe you know that vinyl flooring is plastic, but did you know that latex paint is mostly plastic? That many insulation products are plastic? How about carpet? Plastic-containing products can be found in almost every part of a building, from the waterproofing on foundations to roofing materials. See below for an infographic showing just some of the plastic materials in an average home. The products included are not exhaustive, but rather a list of example product types from Habitable’s InformedTM product categories where a main component is plastic. There are many more products that are predominantly made of plastic, and even more that contain smaller amounts of plastic additives or plastic binders.
Our plastic buildings are driving the growth in fossil fuels at the same time as we are diligently working to incorporate clean energy solutions and decarbonize these very same places.
Hidden costs of cheap plastic
Plastic products are often favored due to their “low cost.” This low retail cost is achieved by avoiding and externalizing the costs of fossil fuels and industrial pollution – and their related chronic diseases – throughout the plastics supply chain. These externalized costs are real and paid for by the BIPOC and low-income communities across the nation who are disproportionately burdened with toxic pollution flowing from refineries, chemical manufacturing, and plastics plants. It is fair to say that most of the stories about environmental justice that you have heard can be linked to plastics manufacturing.
With the building and construction industries anticipating growth over the next several years,7 commensurate growth is to be expected in their use of plastics. Indeed, market trends and projections show a steady increase in polyvinyl chloride (aka vinyl), polystyrene, polyethylene, polyurethanes, and other plastics used in building materials.8
It is, of course, unrealistic to avoid all plastic in building materials at this time, but there are steps we can take to reduce plastic waste, decrease toxic chemical use, and curb the demand for fossil fuels.
Select Better: Avoid worst-in-class plastics where possible.
Prioritize Transparency: Prefer products that provide transparency
Aim for Circularity: Select products designed for recycling.
With all of these plastic products, our buildings may seem increasingly like Barbie’s DreamHouse and a climate nightmare, but as specifiers, designers, architects, contractors, and owners we can do much to control what products end up in our projects. Starting with the recommendations above, we have the power to influence demand for better and safer materials. In the case of plastics, choosing better materials can lead to less reliance on fossil fuels, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, a decrease in toxic chemical use, and a win for our changing climate.
Simona Fischer, MSR Design
As registered architect, sustainable design professional, and associate with MSR Design, Simona Fischer has spent much of her career thus far developing and testing strategies for integrating sustainable design into the workflow of architectural practice. Her experience includes project management, Living Building Challenge documentation, and firmwide sustainable design implementation.
Simona is a dynamic community of practitioners who help co-create solutions to accelerate the adoption of healthier building materials in affordable housing. She has presented at national conferences, lectures regularly at the University of Minnesota, and currently co-chairs the AIA Minnesota Committee on the Environment (COTE).
Simona was instrumental in the Living Building Challenge Petal Certification of MSR Design’s new downtown Minneapolis headquarters, which achieved the materials, beauty, and equity petals. The project incorporated more than 114 Red List Free materials and achieved a 28 percent reduction of its embodied carbon footprint by using salvaged materials. She also led the development of guidelines around transparency, sustainability, and health for the firm’s materials library, including training materials for staff and external sales reps.
We sat down with Simona to learn why materials have been a focus of her career and to get her perspective on the green building industry today.
What sparked your passion about healthier materials? Was there an “aha” moment or a time that something just clicked?
I was that kid who won a prize for designing the elementary school recycling banner, so I guess I’ve cared about materials for a long time. But my interest in building materials was piqued in architecture school, when we were challenged to create a new ecolabel. Faced with inventing a way to compare one material to another in terms of sustainability, I realized how mind-blowingly complex of a task that was. How do you make the criteria objective? How do you compare products across categories? How do you measure health – is it just by the list of ingredients, or do you include research on health outcomes factoring exposure and risk (and if so, what research even exists)? How do you stack human health and other metrics against each other and choose which factor outweighs the other? How do you account for performance and durability? The questions were endless and led to more questions, which I found complex and intriguing. In other topic areas like water and energy in buildings, the goal seemed straightforward (at least on the surface). Use less energy, and make it cleaner. Use less water, and make it cleaner. But with materials, the number of variables were infinite. We had to think about balancing not just toxicity to people and embodied carbon, but also harvesting of raw materials, ethical manufacturing, and what to do with all that stuff at the end of its useful life.
I ended up writing my MS thesis on methods for assessing sustainability at the level of the manufacturer, as opposed to focusing solely on individual products which change so frequently. I was really just trying to find a system map at a higher level, and make the big, shifting world of materials more manageable in my head. I still use some of what I learned during that project as indicators of whether a building product manufacturer is serious about human health and sustainability, or just greenwashing. But sometimes they are greenwashing because they don’t know any better, and they are on their way to improving. So you can’t just write off smaller companies who don’t yet have all the documentation. It’s a learning process for them as well.
At MSR Design, the conversation about healthy materials had already started when I joined to work on The Rose, a Living Building-inspired affordable housing development in Minneapolis. My colleagues Rhys MacPherson, Paul Mellblom, and Rachelle Schoessler-Lynn were leading the conversation about why we should, and how we could, avoid vinyl and other chemicals on The Rose and on other projects across the firm. Over the next couple years we held a number of all-staff discussions and training sessions on healthy materials. Many staff members, from seasoned designers to interns, became interested in the question of how we could do better while still delivering a beautiful aesthetic and the best functionality for our clients. By the time we were ready to start designing our new studio, healthy materials as a concept had had enough time to become embedded in the culture
Tell us about your project to build the new MSR studio. Why was it important to prioritize healthy materials for this project? What went into your process?
When we knew we were moving, we held an all-staff discussion to debate frameworks for certification. We considered LEED, WELL, Fitwell, and Living Building Challenge Petal Certification. In the end, LBC won, because the Materials Petal was so ambitious, prioritizing not only human health through the use of Red List Free products, but also environmental health and other butterfly-effect impacts of resource harvesting and global warming potential and waste. At the same time, the LBC path included an emphasis on equity, as well as using the project as a tool to educate and inspire others. We found the holistic approach inspiring, and appreciated the challenge (most days).
It was important to prioritize healthy materials because we knew our staff cared about living out our values around healthy indoor environments. I think the team will agree that meeting the Red List requirement was difficult. It took time to develop a workflow for gathering the documentation. But it also gave us the opportunity to rethink the way we approach materials from the start of projects. Instead of trying to weed out all the “bad” chemistry, we found it was actually easier to start from scratch and build up a list of materials we knew were likely to comply with the requirement. It ended up being simpler, mostly natural materials, which we used as the palette for our space.
How do you consider low embodied carbon versus health in product selection?
Non-toxic materials and low embodied carbon are two lenses on a singular problem, which is planetary health. Human health is a subcategory of planetary health, since we’re part of the planet and made of its stuff. When indoor and outdoor environments, and plant and animal and human bodies, are polluted by toxic substances, both from human-made toxins and an overabundance of greenhouse gasses, the global ecosystem suffers and humans suffer within it. We are nature. What’s interesting is, younger, upcoming professionals and design students seem to understand this intuitively. They don’t even need to be told that human and global environmental health go hand in hand. So I think as an industry, we just need to accept the interplay of embodied carbon and human health as a foregone conclusion and get straight to the nitty-gritty of what materials we use and how those materials are grown, produced, manufactured and delivered.
That said, we also need to get serious about the data used to back up carbon and health claims. We need transparent, standardized reporting from manufacturers, including making sure the scope of every life cycle assessment (LCA) takes all the impact categories of the AIA Materials Pledge into account. I think petroleum-based building materials are going to be a battleground for a while to come. The low purchase price and saturation in the market make plastics seem like an easy choice for all kinds of different finishes and performance layers in buildings. It is possible to make them somewhat healthier for end-users by being careful to avoid certain additives. But that leaves a massive loophole; the impacts of production and waste on planetary health. I think there’s an opportunity for data to drive a new understanding here. If we can start seeing standardized collection and data crunching of environmental product declaration (EPD) data from different product sectors, we might be able to correlate carbon from building products more directly to regional health impacts of the production of those chemistries. This would help close loopholes that allow the incredible health impact of high global warming potential (GWP) emissions to stay hidden in the shadows
How have you used your knowledge to help move your clients toward healthier materials? What has been most successful?
I think some of my most successful work has been in addressing priorities and processes in our workflow. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say they just wish there was a single, simple database of all the great products. There are ever-improving databases out there, but people always want something else that is missing, so the problem hasn’t been solved. I think the missing piece is a deeper understanding of the principles of product categories, such as knowing what different types–not brands, but general types–of insulation or countertop materials are made of, and where they come from. This level of knowledge, over time, becomes a kind of intuition one uses to filter the world of products even as new things constantly appear in your inbox or your lunch and learns. When you understand the principles, and don’t just rely on a database to provide a solution, it also gets easier to speak knowledgeably and make solid recommendations to clients.
On project work, I have the best luck when I’m upfront about why we need to consider material health alongside cost. You have to tailor your message to the audience, for example, some clients are most receptive to the idea of improving their impact on the world, whereas for others, the message that hits home is one of directly affecting their health or the health of people they care about
How has Habitable’s InformedTM building product research been helpful or influential?
I love InformedTMand recommend it to designers all the time, and clients too. The information is organized in terms of product categories as opposed to brand names or labels, so it aligns with the level of learning that I think is most beneficial to becoming smarter in practice. We used the sample specs to rewrite our paint specifications in 2021. We’ve also heard great lectures from Habitable research team members over the years that have left an impact on our staff.
What advice do you have for other AEC leaders? Are there processes or approaches you would recommend? Where would you recommend a newcomer to healthier materials start?
For designers, I recommend signing the AIA Materials Pledge and studying the categories. The Pledge is a great framework – if you address each of the Pledge categories in some way, you know you’re hitting the right bases. If you can, allot some time to staff education and discussion. I recommend the Living Building Challenge Materials Petal as a particularly inspiring framework for education and good discussion, because it is based on absolute goals, instead of relative improvement. The COTE Super Spreadsheet (downloadable on the AIA website) is a good starting point for addressing materials issues in an applied manner on projects.
At MSR Design, our internal education efforts led to the development of our Material Library Entry Criteria. If others want to design similar criteria for their libraries, they are welcome to copy ours outright or modify as needed: www.msrdesign.com/generative-impacts.
The more we as designers align in our message to manufacturers about health and carbon, the easier it becomes for them to stay in business while giving us what we want
What are you most excited about right now?
I’m excited about natural and biobased materials. On the high-tech side, there is so much opportunity for new materials to be developed, especially bio-based polymers. On the other hand, there is a new straw bale project that is being built in Minneapolis. It’s low tech in comparison to the latest research in biomaterials, and yet it combines healthy, natural materials seamlessly with low carbon construction. The team is using Passive House building science principles to build a durable system, which they will test with sensors in the walls over the next few years. I really resonate with the idea that we can build a sustainable future with natural materials in both high- and low-tech ways
What do you want other people to know?
We, as an industry, are practicing architecture and construction in an era where buildings are made of hybrid material systems so complex, we hardly know what’s in them or why they work. I think we architects can perhaps find evidence of the Vitruvian virtues of utilitas (utility) and venustas (beauty) in the work we produce, but somewhere as a profession, I think we have let go of the firmitas (stability). Not in the sense of solid structure, but in the sense of owning materiality and material knowledge as a critical aspect of an architect’s role. We have become accustomed to accepting a level of vagueness about assemblies and their tons of little components, and leaving the details to the product manufacturer. I think understanding materials deeply is about reclaiming this knowledge, and a piece of architecture we have lost
Thank you to Simona and MSR design for being leaders in healthier materials! To learn more about the MSR headquarters project, check out this case study. You can also learn more about MSR’s commitment to sustainable design and download their Sustainable Materials Action Packet on their website. Follow this link to learn more about InformedTM, product guidance which Simona mentions influencing her practice.
The awards were created to identify, advance, and celebrate women working in sustainability. Awardees include dedicated women making significant positive changes to the planet, demonstrating bravery in the workplace, and mentoring the next group of women leaders.
Gina joins a group of 85 previous recipients including former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and leaders from Fortune 500 companies to startups, nonprofits to industry associations, and more.
“I am proud to receive this award and represent the nonprofit sector,” Gina said. “I chose a mission-based career to ensure I work to solve the most intractable problems, while serving as an ally to and working together with underrepresented and marginalized communities. I’m fortunate to have the privilege, position, and networks to work toward improving the health of people and the planet, leaving no person or place behind.
The 2021 winners were announced in a virtual ceremony. The full list of awardees is below.
Congratulations, Gina!
Healthy Building Network (HBN) and 100+ organizations stand united behind the new Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals, a roadmap for transforming the chemical industry to one that is no longer a source of greenhouse gas emissions and significant human and environmental health harms.
The goal of the updated charter is to protect human health and the environment and achieve environmental justice for all who experience disproportionate impacts from cumulative chemical sources, including people of color, low-income people, Tribes and Native/Indigenous communities, women, children, and farmworkers.
The original Charter was created in 2004; at that time, HBN joined a broad coalition of grassroots, labor, health, and environmental justice groups in an extensive process initiated by community organizations in Louisville, KY. Louisville’s “Rubbertown” area hosted 11 industrial facilities that released millions of pounds of toxic air emissions every year. The Charter was named in honor of this city and all of the communities across the nation exposed to toxic chemical contamination—starting with the people who are harmed first and worst. We participated in the 2021 update process, supporting the efforts of the most heavily impacted communities to more explicitly address the chemical industry’s massive contribution to the climate crisis, and the need to advance environmental justice in communities who are disproportionately impacted.
The Louisville Charter is a unifying guide for everyone working to ensure that toxic chemicals are no longer a source of harm, from local and national policy-makers and labor organizers, to health care workers and concerned community members, to committed leaders in the building industry. It is meant to be versatile and used in a wide variety of contexts for one overarching purpose: to overhaul chemical policies in favor of safety, health, equity, and justice, and avoid false solutions that simply shift harms to other people and places.
HBN is proud to be a signatory of the Charter and join this diverse and intersectional community of partners demanding urgent action to protect, strengthen, and restore our most vulnerable communities.
To learn more about the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals and its ten platform planks, visit www.louisvillecharter.org.
It cannot be produced sustainably or equitably. It cannot be “optimized.” It cannot be recycled. It will never find a place in a circular economy, and it makes it harder to achieve circularity with other materials, including other plastics.
There are three reasons for this: technical, economic, and behavioral. The inherent qualities of PVC and its cousin, CPVC, make it among the most technologically challenging plastics to recycle. Like most plastics, PVC is made with fossil fuel feedstocks. Unlike other plastics, PVC/vinyl also contains substantial amounts of chlorine, upwards of 40%. This is the C in PVC, and this chlorine content adds an additional layer of negative impacts to the earth and its people, social inequity, and an impediment to recycling that cannot be overcome. Recyclers consider it a contaminant to other plastic feedstock streams.1 It mucks up the machines and the already perilous economics of plastics recycling.
There is an emerging global consensus on this point, albeit euphemistically stated. The Ellen MacArthur New Plastics Economy Project consists of representatives from the world’s largest plastic makers and users, along with governments, academics, and NGOs. In 2017 it reached the conclusion that PVC was an “uncommon” plastic that was unlikely to be recycled and should be avoided in favor of other more recyclable packaging materials.2 “Uncommon” in the diplomatic parlance of international multistakeholder initiatives means unrecyclable. The project also took note of the many toxic emissions associated with PVC production.
That’s not surprising since after 30 years of hollow promises and pilot projects doomed to fail, virtually no post-consumer PVC is recycled.3 Conversely, leading brands with forward-looking materials policies such such as Nike, Apple, and Google have prioritized PVC phase outs.4
But in the building industry, PVC rages on. Virgin vinyl LVT flooring is the fastest growing product in the flooring sector. So much so that in 2017 sustainability leader Interface introduced a new product line of virgin vinyl LVT, despite forecasting just one year before that by 2020 the company would “source 95 percent of its materials from recycled or biobased resources.”5
The current flooring market demands the impossible – aesthetic qualities and durability at a price unmatchable by non-vinyl floor coverings. A price that is unmatchable because at every stage of vinyl production, the societal costs of its poisonous environmental health consequences are externalized, subsidized, paid for by the people who live in communities that have become virtual poster children for environmental injustice and oppression. Places like Mossville, LA; Freeport, TX; and the Xinjiang Province in China, home to the oppressed Uighur population. As we detail in our exhaustive Chlorine and Building Materials report, the unique chlorine component of PVC plastic contributes to a range of toxic pollution problems starting with the fact that chlorine production relies upon either mercury-, asbestos-, or PFAS-based processes. This is in addition to the onerous environmental health burdens of petrochemical processing that burden all plastics.
It is true that all plastics contribute to environmental injustices. Virtually all plastics are made from fossil fuel feedstocks, and all plastics share abysmally low recovery and cycling rates. Still, independent experts agree that some plastics are worse than others, and PVC is among the worst.6 Additionally, most uses of PVC have readily available alternatives or solutions that are within reach. Certainly there are non-PVC alternatives for flooring. What can’t be beat is the cost – that is, the low purchase price at the point of sale, subsidized by the sacrifices we ignore in the communities where the plastics are manufactured and the waste is dealt with. And BIPOC communities bear the disproportionate burden of it all. Acknowledging and addressing this tradeoff is at the root of the behavioral change that stands between us and a just and healthy circular economy.
In his influential book How To Be An Antiracist, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi argues that if we recognize we live in a society with many racial inequities – and acknowledge that since no racial group is inferior or superior to another, the cause of these inequities are policies and practices – then to be anti-racist is to challenge those policies and practices where we can and create new ones that create equity and justice for all.
Imagine if as part of our commitment to equity in our sustainability efforts, we recognized, acknowledged, and did what we could to address the racial inequities associated with PVC production, and committed right now to stop using PVC unless it was absolutely essential. The plastics industry would howl and point out inconsistencies, question priorities, highlight unintended consequences. We would all feel a tinge of whataboutism – what about carbon, or this other injustice, or that shortcoming of the alternatives. But it is clear that widespread incrementalism is failing us on so many fronts, none more than the environmental injustices that are hardwired into our supply chains.
In fact, there are many examples of companies and building projects that have prioritized PVC-free alternatives based upon principles of equity and justice. We need more leaders in the field to join those who are abandoning vinyl in product types that have superior options. Our CEO Gina Ciganik used a non-PVC flooring in 2015 at The Rose, her last development project prior to joining HBN.
First Community Housing, another affordable housing leader, has been using linoleum for many years for similar reasons. In their Leigh Avenue Apartments project. Forbo’s Marmoleum Click tiles were the flooring of choice.
Vinyl is not an essential material for any of the largest surface areas of our building projects – flooring, wall coverings, or roofing. It may often be the conventional choice in conventional buildings, but it should not be the conventional choice in buildings that promise to be green, healthy, and equitable. LVT may be the fastest growing flooring product in the world, but it is a throwback to the inequitable, unsustainable world we say is unacceptable, not the world we are trying to create.
Habitable can help you start by using our Informed™ product guidance, which helps identify worst and best in class products that are healthier for people and the planet. So why not start here and now, with a principled stand of refusing to profit from unjust, frequently racist, externalized costs?
If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably begun your journey in understanding the impacts that building materials can have on human health and the environment. But it can feel daunting to know where to start applying this knowledge to your work. You may feel like you don’t have the time or budget to select materials that are free of hazardous chemicals.
Fortunately, there are some relatively simple, low- or no-cost ways to start incorporating healthier materials into your projects right away. By focusing on a few high-impact product categories with readily available healthier products, you can begin the process of preferring and specifying healthier materials without making significant changes to your bottom line.
Assuming that healthier materials always cost more is a common misconception that often stops healthier material initiatives from even being discussed. Here are a few things you can do to start your journey without impacting your budget.
Paints
Paint is one of the easiest categories to start with, as healthier alternatives are readily available with no cost premium. Most paints today have Low or Zero VOC content and emissions and that are free of the endocrine-disrupting chemical APEs (Alkylphenol Ethoxylates), which are also toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms. “Endocrine disrupting” is a fancy way of saying they mimic hormones and send false signals, which cause problems in humans, and are especially problematic to children whose internal systems are nascent and developing.
Carpets
Avoid the use of carpets with stain repellents or stain treatments. PFAS is the chemical name often cited as a worst-in-class stain and water repellent chemical, and in performance testing, it often falls short of the job it is purported to do and instead, it rubs off and enters our bodies.
Insulation
Whenever possible, avoid the use of spray foam insulation, which is reacted onsite and can expose installers and building occupants to hazardous ingredients that can cause asthma. Prefer fiberglass, formaldehyde-free mineral wood, or cellulose insulation.
Use our InformedTM product guidance to quickly and easily find healthier products.
Antimicrobials
Avoid building products marketed as “antimicrobial” or “containing antibacterials” or similar claims. Some products on the market today include antimicrobials that are added for the purpose of making marketing claims around a product’s potential health benefits. However, there is no evidence that these added chemicals improve human health, and ironically, they can cause harm.
When looking at costs, there are a few strategies you can engage to tip the scales in your favor.
Start early in the design process
Consider the use of safer materials early in the design. Late design changes can increase the cost of your project and impose technical constraints that limit opportunities for incorporating certain types of materials. If cost remains a barrier, make sure to include safer materials as an alternate option in your specifications in case that funds become available later in the project.
Leverage purchasing power
By simplifying your material pallet and buying in volume, you may be able to secure better pricing for a healthier product across your organization’s entire portfolio. You can also leverage collective purchasing power by working together with other organizations via affordable housing collectives and associations like the Housing Partnership Network (HPN).
Save by cutting waste
Revisit your design process and emphasize waste minimization. For example, design a floor plan that minimizes cut off waste of your chosen flooring material. The savings you generate can be allocated to the purchasing of healthier materials.
With all this said, the reality is that sometimes safer materials do have a higher upfront cost. However, we hope this article has demonstrated that it’s possible to start prioritizing healthier materials no matter your budget or project size! Together we can all take steps toward a day where all people and the planet thrive in an environment free of hazardous chemicals.
These are the words of Vanessa del Campo. She was born and raised in Mexico and like many other people, she moved to the United States searching for safer and better living conditions. She now lives in Minnesota and rents a small unit in a multifamily apartment building located in one of the areas designated by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) as of Environmental Justice concern. Her experience as a tenant is filled with stories of unjust evictions, health concerns, and constant battles with unlawful landlords that neglected her right to even the most basic human living conditions.
Fortunately for Vanessa and other neighbors in her building, she received support from a community-based organization, Renters United for Justice (abbreviated IX from its name in Spanish), that helped them organize and mobilize to reclaim desperately needed services to maintain their health and wellbeing. What began as an organized effort to request new windows for a handful of apartment units turned into an exhausting but successful journey to purchase the run-down complex of apartment buildings from their landlord and secure a loan to renovate all the apartments.
It’s easy to get lost in Vanessa’s excitement as she talks about this newfound opportunity. She mentioned that her baby had a tough time learning to crawl because it was too dangerous to place her on the ground due to rats and cockroaches often running past her. At the same time, it is also easy to forget that in addition to being a mother and having a demanding job, she now has to fulfill the role of a building co-owner as a leading member of the newly formed residents’ collective (A Sky Without Limits).
With so much work going into buying and renovating the apartment complex, the residents had little time to think about the chemical safety of their chosen building materials. That’s where HBN came in. In 2021 the MPCA awarded IX and Healthy Building Network a grant to work together to reduce toxic chemical exposures among children, pregnant individuals, employees, and communities who are disproportionately impacted by harmful chemicals used in common products.
One example of toxic chemicals in homes are phthalates, or orthophthalates, which are chemicals that help make plastics flexible. They can also impact the proper development of children. These chemicals are banned in children’s toys in the U.S., and The Minnesota Department of Health in partnership with MPCA named phthalates as “Priority Chemicals” as part of the 2017 Toxic-Free Kids Act. While many manufacturers have phased out hazardous phthalate plasticizers, existing vinyl flooring, especially those installed 2015 and earlier, likely contain these potential developmental toxicants. This translates to dozens of pounds of these hazardous chemicals in the floor of a single apartment unit. As these chemicals are released from products, they deposit in dust, which can be inhaled or ingested by residents – particularly young children who are crawling on floors and often place their hands in their mouths.
“Honestly, we never stopped to think about how harmful [building] materials could be.” Vanessa said. “It was just regrettable to see how we were living. We understand that the new materials that are going into our buildings today may not be the healthiest. Today, we realize it is important to think about how we want to live in our homes, to imagine the quality of life we want in our buildings, in our community.”
Over the coming year, HBN will work with IX and the residents’ collective to evaluate the materials used in their ongoing renovation process and provide recommendations to improve material selection. We will also develop resources tailored to residents to enhance their understanding of how the surrounding environment influences their health. To extend the impact of this work, we will create and share a set of best practices that property managers and tenant organizations can use to advocate for healthier materials in the communities they live in and properties they manage.
“Our collaboration with HBN is timely. By working together with the property managers, we can raise their awareness about how their work impacts our health and help change how they select materials,” Vanessa said.
At Healthy Building Network, we are grateful for the opportunity to work with IX and local leaders like Vanessa through the MPCA grant that makes this collaboration possible. We call on public agencies, foundations, and private investors to fund initiatives that seek to dismantle health inequities through direct investment in the communities disproportionately impacted by environmental injustice, especially related to toxic chemical exposures. We look forward to sharing with you the lessons, stories, and resources that come out of this collaboration.
To learn more about selecting healthier products, visit our Informed™ website, which includes a wide range of resources and tools to help you find healthier material options.
“Cuando llegué aquí, mi apartamento estaba a punto de desmoronarse. Tuvimos muchos problemas; las alfombras eran increíblemente viejas y encender el aire acondicionado era como tener un helicóptero dentro de la casa”. Estas son las palabras de Vanessa del Campo.
Vanessa nació y creció en México, y como muchas otras personas, se mudó a los Estados Unidos en busca de mejores condiciones de vida. Ahora vive en Minnesota y alquila un apartamento en un edificio multifamiliar ubicado en una de las áreas designadas por la Agencia de Control de Contaminación de Minnesota (MPCA) como de interés de Justicia Ambiental. Su experiencia como inquilina está marcada con historias de desalojos injustos, preocupaciones de salud, y batallas constantes con propietarios que negaron su derecho a incluso las condiciones más básicas de vida.
Afortunadamente para Vanessa y otros vecinos en su edificio, ella recibió el apoyo de Inquilinos Unidos por Justicia (IX), una organización comunitaria que les ayudó a organizarse y movilizarse para recuperar los servicios que desesperadamente necesitaban para mantener su salud y bienestar. Lo que comenzó como un esfuerzo organizado para solicitar nuevas ventanas para un pequeño número de apartamentos, se convirtió en una larga pero exitosa tarea para comprar el destartalado complejo de apartamentos y asegurar un préstamo para renovar todas sus unidades.
“Pasamos por muchos litigios con el propietario porque no estaba haciendo las reparaciones que necesitábamos y no quería vendernos los edificios. El año pasado, cuando llegó la pandemia, finalmente obtuvimos la oportunidad de comprar el edificio. Fue un momento feliz y difícil porque estábamos aterrorizados de enfermarnos [con el virus], pero logramos organizarnos y apoyarnos unos a otros. Hoy estamos trabajando con una nueva empresa de administración de propiedades y el banco para instalar alfombras, pisos, techos, ventanas, hornos, refrigeradores y baños nuevos. Estamos haciendo una profunda renovación para llevar todos los apartamentos a un estado que es mucho, mucho mejor que el que teníamos”.
Es fácil dejarse llevar por la emoción de Vanessa mientras habla de esta nueva oportunidad. Ella mencionó que su bebé tuvo dificultades para aprender a gatear porque era demasiado peligroso colocarle en el suelo debido a las ratas y cucarachas que a menudo rondaban la casa. Al mismo tiempo, también es fácil olvidar que además de ser madre y tener un trabajo exigente, ahora tiene que cumplir el rol de copropietaria de un edificio como miembro principal de un recién formado colectivo de residentes (Un Cielo Sin Límites).
Con tanto trabajo invertido en la compra y renovación del complejo de apartamentos, los residentes tuvieron poco tiempo para pensar en la seguridad química de los materiales de construcción que fueron utilizados en sus apartamentos. Ahí es donde entra Healthy Building Network (HBN, o, La Red de Edificios Saludables). A principios de este año, MPCA otorgó a IX y HBN una subvención para reducir la exposición a sustancias químicas tóxicas entre los niños, las personas embarazadas, los empleados y las comunidades que se ven afectadas de manera desproporcionada por sustancias químicas nocivas utilizadas en productos comunes.
Un ejemplo de sustancias químicas tóxicas en los hogares son los ftalatos u ortoftalatos, que son sustancias químicas utilizadas para ayudar a dar flexibilizar a los plásticos. Estas sustancias también pueden afectar el desarrollo adecuado de los niños. Estos productos químicos están prohibidos en los juguetes de los niños en los EE. UU. El Departamento de Salud de Minnesota, en asociación con MPCA, nombró a los ftalatos como “productos químicos prioritarios” como parte de la Ley de Niños Libres de Tóxicos de 2017. Si bien muchos fabricantes han eliminado los plastificantes de ftalato, estos químicos están presentes en los pisos de vinilo existentes, especialmente los instalados antes de 2016. Esto se traduce en docenas de libras de estos químicos peligrosos en el piso de una sola unidad de apartamento. A medida que estos productos químicos se liberan de los productos, se depositan en el polvo que los residentes pueden inhalar o ingerir, afectando especialmente a los niños pequeños que gatean por el suelo y a menudo se llevan las manos a la boca.
“Honestamente, nunca nos detuvimos a pensar en lo dañino que podrían ser los materiales [de construcción]”. Dijo Vanessa. “Fue lamentable ver cómo vivíamos. Entendemos que los materiales que se utilizan en nuestros edificios hoy en día pueden no ser los más saludables. Hoy nos damos cuenta de que es importante pensar en cómo queremos vivir en nuestros hogares, imaginar la calidad de vida que queremos en nuestros edificios, en nuestra comunidad”.
Durante el próximo año, HBN trabajará con IX y el colectivo de residentes para evaluar los materiales utilizados en su proceso de renovación y brindar recomendaciones para mejorar la selección de materiales. También desarrollaremos recursos para ayudar a los residentes a entender cómo el entorno circundante influye en su salud. Para extender el impacto de este trabajo, crearemos y compartiremos un conjunto de mejores prácticas para que los administradores de propiedades y las organizaciones de inquilinos puedan abogar por utilizar materiales más saludables en las comunidades en las que viven y en las propiedades que administran.
“Nuestra colaboración con HBN es oportuna. Al trabajar junto con los administradores de propiedades, podemos aumentar su conciencia sobre cómo su trabajo impacta nuestra salud y ayudar a cambiar la forma en que seleccionan los materiales”, dijo Vanessa.
En Healthy Building Network, estamos agradecidos por la oportunidad de trabajar con IX y líderes locales como Vanessa a través de la subvención otorgada por MPCA que hace posible esta colaboración. Hacemos un llamado a las agencias públicas, fundaciones e inversionistas privados para que financien iniciativas que busquen desmantelar las inequidades en salud a través de inversión en las comunidades impactadas de manera desproporcionada por la injusticia ambiental, especialmente relacionada con la exposición a sustancias químicas tóxicas. Esperamos pronto poder compartir con ustedes las lecciones, historias y recursos que surgen de esta colaboración.