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Member Spotlight: Florim USA Leads the Way in Sustainable Porcelain Tile Manufacturing

Member Spotlight: Florim USA Leads the Way in Sustainable Porcelain Tile Manufacturing

by | Jun 25, 2026 | Blog Post, News

Florim USA, based in Clarksville, Tennessee, is one of North America’s largest porcelain tile manufacturers and has proudly produced Made in the USA porcelain tile for more than 25 years. Through its MILE®stone brand, Florim USA serves the United States with products specifically designed for the U.S. market and sold via a nationwide distribution network. Reinforcing its commitment to transparency, accountability, and creating a positive impact, Florim USA became a Benefit Corporation in 2022. In October 2025, Florim USA achieved B Corp certification, joining a global community of businesses that meet rigorous social and environmental performance standards — and setting a new benchmark for responsible manufacturing in the U.S. porcelain tile industry.

In addition to B Corp certification, Florim USA has renewed both its Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), first earned in 2015, and its Health Product Declarations (HPDs), first earned in 2017. EPDs provide verified, transparent data on the environmental impact of products across their lifecycle, while HPDs disclose the health impacts of product ingredients, helping architects, designers, and builders make informed, health-conscious material selections. Further emphasizing health-conscious design, Florim USA’s products carry Declare Red List Free certification, meaning they contain no hazardous chemicals as identified by the Living Building Challenge. Florim USA is the only U.S. porcelain tile manufacturer to hold both Declare Red List Free certification and B Corp status.

Florim USA’s commitment to sustainable practices is further reinforced by several industry-recognized certifications, including Green Squared, GREENGUARD Gold, and more — demonstrating an ongoing dedication to responsible manufacturing, low-emission products, and environmentally sound sourcing. Florim USA was also the first U.S. porcelain tile manufacturer to produce a Carbon Neutral collection, Plaster 2.0, in 2022; there are now eleven Carbon Neutral collections available.

As the building industry continues to prioritize human health, environmental responsibility, and material transparency, Florim USA remains dedicated to empowering better decisions through verified disclosures. That commitment is why Florim USA is proud to host the HPDC reception during Greenbuild 2026 this October — bringing together sustainability leaders, manufacturers, designers, and building professionals to advance healthier, more sustainable buildings through open and accessible product information.

Documenting LEED v5 BPSP — Your Questions, Answered

Documenting LEED v5 BPSP — Your Questions, Answered

by | Jun 25, 2026 | Blog Post, News

Follow-up Q&A from the HPDC × USGBC webinar, June 17, 2026.

More than 270 of you joined us on June 17 for Documenting LEED v5 BPSP — and you brought outstanding questions, far more than we could answer live. This follow-up collects the most common ones, with answers from USGBC’s Wes Sullens and HPDC’s Wendy Vittori and Milla Marcano. The webinar recording will be shared with all registrants — watch your inbox.

A quick framing note before the questions: LEED v5’s Building Product Selection & Procurement (BPSP) credit rewards products with stronger, multi-attribute transparency. Materials transparency is one of five BPSP criteria areas — it is not a standalone “ingredient” credit anymore. Roughly 90% of the attributes recognized under LEED v4/v4.1 still count; they have simply been reorganized.

Continuing education & GBCI credit

Is this webinar eligible for GBCI continuing-education credit? What’s the Course ID?
Yes — the course is approved for 1 CE hour, and the GBCI Course ID is 0920034934. You self-report through your GBCI account; when you do, enter the course ID number rather than the course title. If you hold LEED AP BD+C, LEED AP ID+C, or LEED Green Associate, these are LEED-specific CE hours; other credentials (such as LEED AP O+M) earn general CE hours.

Access, cost & membership

What does it cost to access the tool? Is an active HPD membership required?
All of the capabilities shown are free to use for registered HPDC Builder users — access is through HPDC membership. For full, unlimited access, affiliate membership is just under $1,000/year. For occasional or limited use, a lower-cost token program is available.

Is there a price for practitioners (architects/specifiers), not just manufacturers?
Practitioners do not need a separate paid tier to use the Builder and scoring tool — access comes with membership (or tokens), the same path described above.

The calculator & criteria resources

Is there a link to the calculator and the criteria/scoring table?
Yes:

The approved-document table is updated roughly every six months through the standard LEED addenda process.

How scoring works

How do material costs factor into the calculation?
For each product category you choose the metric that fits your project — cost, area, or volume — and you can mix metrics across categories.

If a product has an optimized EPD (3), a third-party-verified HPD (2), and a Declare label (1), is its score capped at 5 or summed to 6?
Within a single criteria column you take the highest applicable value, not the sum — there’s no double-counting, and the calculator handles this automatically. The maximum multiplier is 5x.

Why doesn’t post-consumer recycled content score higher than pre-consumer?
It does — this was a typo in the materials shown. Post-consumer is weighted 1x and pre-consumer 0.5x. (Thanks to the attendee who caught it.)

How does the multi-attribute score relate to final LEED points?
There are two distinct tools: (1) the scoring tool inside the HPDC Builder, which computes each product’s multi-attribute score and achievement level (Level 1/2/3, acting as multipliers up to 5x); and (2) the USGBC LEED calculator spreadsheet, where those scores roll up into final LEED points. HPDC supplies the per-criteria score, achievement level, and the scoring-document URL; cost-adjusted value is entered by the project team in the LEED calculator.

Product categories & coverage

Will this apply to products not in the BPSP categories — e.g., network/data cabling, MEP, or structural products?
Yes, through LEED v5 pilot credits in the optional credit library:

How do we document MEP and structural products for the pilot credit when the calculator has no dropdown for those categories?
An updated calculator with that capability is expected to be uploaded as part of the July LEED addenda. A pilot-credit calculator is in final testing.

Will GreenGuard or other low-VOC / low-emission certifications count?
VOC emissions and content are planned as recognized document types but are not collected today — they will be added in a future release as the compliance-library document list expands. (About half the document types are live now; the rest follow, with VOC among the later additions.)

Will polycarbonate skylights fall under the ceilings category, and will cost-adjusted value be included?
Yes — coverage isn’t a problem. Every product category is covered either by the BPSP credit or by the two pilot credits, and HPDs are not filtered by CSI MasterFormat, so any product can score. On cost: cost-adjusted value is entered manually by the project team — the LEED calculator already has a column for it. HPDC supplies the multi-attribute score, achievement level, and scoring-document URL per criteria area; the project team adds the cost figure.

HPDs, documents & eligibility

My published HPD returns “Not eligible product – Nested” in the v5 scoring tool. How do I make my EPDs eligible?
The HPD must be PreCheck for LEED v4.1 or v5. In the live example (Armourcoat Spatulata P70/P80), Milla added the required PreChecks on the spot — republishing the HPD then lets it score. If you hit this, contact HPDC with the product name and we’ll check the PreCheck status.

Do existing HPDs need to be republished to be scored?
No. All published HPDs are scored automatically — there’s no need to republish existing HPDs. (Republishing is only needed after a change, like adding a PreCheck.)

Can the Builder incorporate documentation beyond HPDs — recycled content, take-back/recycling services, etc.?
Yes. Any document type on the criteria/label-guidance table can be added to the product’s compliance library (URL, name, issue/expiry date, unique identifier). About half the document types are live now; the rest follow. Bio-based content is deferred pending USGBC guidance.

What happens when a document expires? Does the Builder automatically pull in renewed certificates?
No automatic renewal. When a certificate is renewed, the manufacturer updates the document and republishes; the update then flows through HPDC’s APIs into the repository. Project teams can also use the “contact manufacturer” feature to request an updated certificate. Expired documents stop scoring once USGBC defines the validity rule for that document type; unexpired documents continue to count. Per Wes: documentation should be valid at the time of purchase/installation, and GBCI allows leeway if a document expires after the building’s certification date.

Data, automation & workflow

Are APIs in the works to connect other databases and automate data upload — rather than only CSV upload?
Yes — APIs already move published data into the repository, and CSV upload is supported today (a unique identifier is required to map documents to products). Further automation is on the roadmap.

How do you export / manage LEED documentation when running multiple projects at once?
The Builder provides per-project download queues/folders: select the products for a given project and download a CSV with the multi-attribute columns pre-filled.

International scope

Are Canadian (and other international) projects, architects, products, and specifiers part of this effort?
Yes — there is strong participation from Canada, Mexico, and South America. An EU version, tuned to EU regulatory requirements, is shipping very soon, and the credit library includes European alternative-compliance-path filters.

What’s next

  • Recording: shared with all registrants — watch your inbox.
  • Publishing capability: rolling out now; existing compliance data mapped shortly after.
  • Project-team tools: a repository dashboard and pre-filled LEED-calculator download are coming, followed by a dedicated project-team webinar.

Questions we couldn’t fully resolve here will be updated as USGBC publishes the July addenda. For product-specific help (PreCheck status, eligibility, scoring), contact HPDC.

HPD Collaborative Launches HPD Open Standard v3.0

HPD Collaborative Launches HPD Open Standard v3.0

by | Oct 31, 2025 | Announcement, Press Release, Uncategorized

New HPD Open Standard v3.0 sets a new benchmark for digital transparency and material health reporting in building products.

“HPDC is proud to launch HPD Open Standard v3.0 — a digital-first milestone in material health transparency”

— Wendy Vittori

WAKEFIELD, MA, UNITED STATES, October 31, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) today announced the release of the HPD Open Standard v3.0 — a landmark update that significantly advances the industry’s leading method for product content and health reporting. This new version transitions the HPD format from a static PDF to a dynamic, digitized, and modular interactive dashboard platform. The evolution is designed to accelerate the disclosure of health-forward materials by enabling more agile updates, seamless data integration, and expanded usability for professionals across the building industry.

The HPD Open Standard v3.0 marks a transformative shift in how building product transparency is documented and accessed. Previously, HPDs were primarily distributed as static PDFs. With this digitized standard, manufacturers can now manage and distribute their product data more effectively. The new interactive dashboard format allows designers, specifiers, and certifiers to search, filter, and interpret material health data with greater speed and accuracy — facilitating faster, more informed decision-making. Using the capabilities of our Material Health ToolSuite™, project teams can now make decisions in minutes that once required hours of sorting through PDF documents.

“The HPD Open Standard v3.0 represents a strategic evolution in our mission to advance material health and transparency in the built environment,” said Wendy Vittori, Executive Director at HPDC. “This move to a digital-first approach empowers the entire industry to make more informed, sustainable, and socially responsible decisions — ensuring that material health remains central to the future of green building.”

Key Advancements in HPD Open Standard v3.0:

* Digitized, Modular Platform: Moving beyond the static PDF, the new format enables flexible, faster updates in response to user needs and evolving market demands.
* Enhanced Repository Dashboards: Upgraded dashboards provide a real-time, interactive interface with improved visualization tools and advanced data analytics, helping professionals more quickly assess material transparency and compliance.
* Introduction of the EU HPD: As the first regional adaptation, the EU HPD is tailored for European markets, aligning with regulatory frameworks such as REACH and highlighting Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) to simplify cross-border communication.
* Advanced PFAS Reporting: Responding to urgent regulatory and market demand, v3.0 introduces a powerful PFAS Attestation feature and PFAS Screening Tool, enabling manufacturers to disclose PFAS presence even below standard reporting thresholds.
* Expanded Focus on Social Equity: Section 3 of the HPD format now includes Social Equity Certifications — such as JUST and B Corp — and a new Survey Tab in the HPD Builder to collect voluntary information on social equity practices.
Improved Hazard Screening: HPD Builder v3.0 now supports hazard screening using European Community (EC) Numbers, a critical feature for international users and alignment with EU regulations.
* This comprehensive update reflects HPDC’s commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration with its industry partners. By providing enhanced tools for screening, attestation, and regional customization, the HPD Open Standard v3.0 empowers the building industry to prioritize material health and transparency as a core tenet of sustainable design and construction.

Learn More:

For complete details and documentation, visit the HPD Open Standard v3.0 webpage.
A recorded training webinar — How to Use the HPD Public Repository with Version 3.0 — provides an overview of key updates and digital platform features.
About the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC)

The Health Product Declaration Collaborative is a not-for-profit member organization dedicated to improving the transparency of information and material health in the built environment. HPDC created and maintains the HPD Open Standard, the industry’s leading specification for accurate and consistent reporting of building product content and associated health information.

HPDC Team
HPDC
info@hpd-collaborative.org

 

Sustainable Minds Partners with Health Product Declaration Collaborative and Perkins&Will to Advance Healthy Material Selection

by | Jun 21, 2023 | Announcement, Blog Post, News, Press Release

Building Industry Leaders Transforming Specification and Procurement Processes by Making Advanced Material Selection Accessible to All Project Teams

 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sustainable Minds®, the only provider of end-to-end product transparency solutions, is making advanced material practice accessible to any project team in the AECO (architecture, engineering, construction and operations) sector by automating material health selection criteria and reducing the time and effort needed to get a high-quality result to inform selection and specification. Today, it announces a game-changing filter for its Transparency Catalog™ in collaboration with Health Product Declaration® Collaborative (HPDC) and Perkins&Will®. The Precautionary List Free filter makes it possible for the AECO sector to select building products and materials that support stringent human health requirements for built spaces.

“Sustainable Minds has always been on the leading edge of introducing these new capabilities for their customers, uniquely advancing the tools available to match product information to meet project needs”

The Transparency Catalog is the most comprehensive, curated, and continually updated source of high-performance, low-carbon, healthy building and construction products. The platform features all the manufacturers making products and materials for the North American market who have invested in product transparency documentation providing free access to all their documents – ISO 14025 type III environmental declarations (EPDs) and Health Product Declarations (HPDs). EPDs quantify environmental performance information on the life cycle of a product to enable comparisons between products fulfilling the same function. HPDs provide a full disclosure of the potential chemicals of concern by screening the ingredients against a set of priority human and environmental health ‘hazard’ lists based on the GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals. In the HPD Open Standard v2.3 introduced in July 2022, screening is added from additional key restricted substances lists, including the Precautionary List from Perkins&Will.

Improving Product and Material Selection with Better Visibility into Data

By providing visibility into both EPD and HPD data, Sustainable Minds helps users make informed decisions and showcases the manufacturers committed to making lower-carbon and/or healthier products, which is becoming more critical with the continued introduction of new and more stringent project standards and requirements.

The new Perkins&Will Precautionary List Free filter is one of the latest initiatives to make it easier for the AECO sector to meet project goals through informed, simplified product and material selection. Through close collaboration between HPDC and Sustainable Minds, Transparency Catalog users can now access critical HPD data to identify the products that meet the requirements of the Precautionary List from Perkins&Will, a firm-wide mandate to screen all products being considered for projects for toxic chemicals (in more than 50 categories).

Supporting Healthy Material Selection through Collaboration with Perkins&Will

“Perkins&Will came to Sustainable Minds looking for a way to automate analyzing HPD results to easily find the products with no Precautionary List ingredients, which until now has been done by manual review,” explained Terry Swack, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Minds. “The urgency to transform the built environment is driving the need for more and better data, new workflows and smarter tools. It’s critical to make the information easy to use, not just easy to find. Now, in one click, users can access all the products in every MasterFormat® section that meet Precautionary List requirements.”

Sustainable Minds uses data provided from the HPD Public Repository API to create this filter. Only manufacturers who have published v2.3 HPDs have the data to be displayed by this filter. It is easy for manufacturers to update and republish their existing HPDs to v2.3 using the HPD Builder so their products can be selected when the filter is used. To date, 2,639 v2.3 HPDs have been published and added to the Transparency Catalog. Users can now find 553 HPDs reporting Perkins&Will Precautionary List free products, with that number continually increasing as more HPDs are published.

Driving Improvements through Industry-Wide Collaboration

“The inclusion of the Perkins&Will Precautionary List in HPD v2.3 and the Sustainable Minds Transparency Catalog greatly improves the workflow for designers assessing the material health of building products and ultimately allows us to spend more time on our primary goal of optimizing our projects for human health impacts,” said Tori Wickard, Senior Project Architect and Senior Associate at Perkins&Will. “Additionally, it sends a signal to the industry that human health is still a top focus in addition to social health and equity, circularity, ecosystem and climate health.”

“Over the past decade, we’ve witnessed a remarkable evolution of material health practices. Our collaboration with Sustainable Minds and Perkins&Will brings us closer to an era of new capabilities where it is possible to fully automate the once challenging job of processing massive amounts of information about the substances in products and their associated health impacts,” said Wendy Vittori, Executive Director at HPDC.

“Sustainable Minds has always been on the leading edge of introducing these new capabilities for their customers, uniquely advancing the tools available to match product information to meet project needs,” continued Vittori. “HPD-reported data provides accurate, reliable and consistent information across products and manufacturers. These new features in the Transparency Catalog automate the complexities of hazard screening and make it simple to understand the results. With new capabilities such as this, the leading edge of material health practice is within the reach of any project team.”

For those interested in learning more about this collaboration, Sustainable Minds and the HPDC will host a webinar on Thursday, June 29, at 2 PM EST. During this session, they will discuss their ongoing partnership and shared vision of how automation will make advanced material screening within reach for any project team, the importance of and how to use the Precautionary List free filter in the Transparency Catalog, and more. To sign up for the webinar, visit https://register.gotowebinar.com/rt/207971956739411800.

The Transparency Catalog and Precautionary List Free filter are free to use. Manufacturers, learn more about updating your HPDs to v2.3, visit the HPDC website here.

About Sustainable Minds

Sustainable Minds is the only end-to-end product transparency solutions provider for building product manufacturers today. The company provides technical services – life cycle assessment, material evaluation, carbon accounting; is an ISO 14025 PCR / EPD program operator committed to understandable and reliable reporting; and delivers innovative digital tools to get products into projects. The Transparency Catalog™ is the leading source of high-performance, low-carbon building and construction products, currently with more than 2,100 manufacturers and industry organizations in 28 MasterFormat® divisions and 1,260 sections. Now with Project Builder & Library, it is the first end-to-end collaborative workflow solution for sourcing materials that meet carbon impact and human health goals to make it super easy for architects, engineers, construction companies and owners to collaboratively select, specify and procure greener and healthier products – and reward building product manufacturers for making them.

About Perkins&Will

Perkins&Will, an interdisciplinary, research-based architecture and design firm, was founded in 1935 on the belief that design has the power to transform lives. Guided by its core values—design excellence, diversity and inclusion, living design, research, resilience, social purpose, sustainability, and well-being – the firm is committed to designing a better, more beautiful world. Fast Company has named Perkins&Will one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in Architecture three times, and in 2021, it added the firm to its list of Brands That Matter – making Perkins&Will the only architecture practice in the world to earn the distinction. With an international team of more than 2,000 professionals, the firm has over 20 studios worldwide, providing integrated services in architecture, interior design, branded environments, urban design, and landscape architecture. Industry rankings consistently place the firm among the world’s top design practices. Partners include Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen; retail strategy and design consultancy Portland; sustainable transportation planning consultancy Nelson\Nygaard; and luxury hospitality design firm Pierre-Yves Rochon (PYR). For more information, visit www.perkinswill.com.

About Health Product Declaration Collaborative

HPDC is a not-for-profit, member association with over 400 organizational members, representing the entire building industry: architects, designers, building owners, manufacturers, consultants, tool developers and others who share a common purpose to improve the transparency of information and the material health of the built environment. The HPD Open Standard has become widely adopted as the industry standard for reporting on building product contents and associated health information since its launch in 2012, with over 11,000 HPD reports publicly available. HPDC members champion the continuous improvement of the building industry’s performance through transparency, openness and innovation in the practices of reporting, disclosure, specification and selection of building products. For more information, visit hpd-collaborative.org.

Jeff Toffoli
HPDC
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