Thoughts from the Chair: Spring 2024

Thoughts from the Chair: Spring 2024

by | Apr 3, 2024 | Blog Post, Education, Thoughts from the Chair

Thoughts from the Chair: Spring 2024

During the 1960s and 70s, the interrelationship of humans and our environment was coming into focus. We had churned out enormous quantities of industrial chemicals over the previous half-century and were starting to realize the unintended and ill-considered outcomes of this “progress.” Rachel Carson, who died 60 years ago this year, offered this choice in Silent Spring:

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth super-highway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road – the one “less traveled by” – offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth.

With her words and the persistence of many other forward thinkers, great progress was made regulating the most blatant pollution – that was easily made obvious to everyone through poor air quality, visible blight, dying animals, birds, and people, and rivers that caught fire. Environmental bills passed Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations (Silent Spring Revolution, Douglas Brinkley).

Pushback soon followed, to the point that today very few chemicals are regulated and the environmental and human health impacts of most are poorly understood. Our air, land, and water may be visibly and sensibly less obviously polluted unless we’re unfortunate enough to live too close to the wrong industrial facility, accident, or extreme weather event; but chemicals known to cause disease, wreak havoc on our biological systems, or degrade our environment remain ubiquitous throughout our lives.

Carson’s superpower was the ability to explain the complex relationships between our chemicals and our health. Her thought above continues:

…we have at last asserted our “right to know,” and if knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks, then we should no longer accept the council of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals; we should look about and see what other course is open to us.

In essence, the HPD is about this “right to know.” We recognize the need to get hazardous chemicals out of our trains, our communities, and our bodies for good. We have spent years collecting data about building products to learn what is safe versus hazardous in the built environment. We continue to develop tools and harmonize an ecosystem of like-minded organizations to better understand the consequences of our product choices throughout their lifecycle. We are dedicated to helping manufacturers, designers, contractors, and owners choose the fork in the road that leads away from harm and towards a healthy, just, and thriving future. Now more than ever before, we have the tools to make this choice accessible to every decision-maker.

Call for HPDC 2024 Board of Directors Nominations

Call for HPDC 2024 Board of Directors Nominations

by | Sep 5, 2023 | Announcement, Blog Post, Membership, News

Call for HPDC 2024 Board of Directors Nominations

The Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) has opened its Call for Applicants for its 2024 Board of Directors, with terms commencing on January 1, 2024. HPDC is a Not-for-Profit, Member Organization, charged with the responsibility to oversee and evolve the HPD Open Standard.  HPDC’s Board of Directors is the decision-making group responsible for overall leadership of this important, industry-enabling effort to improve the material health of the built environment.

Please note the following deadline for submitting your nomination:

  • 11:59 PM PDT Friday, September 29, 2023

HPDC Board of Directors – Application and Nomination Information and Process

The business and affairs of HPDC, a not-for-profit, 501(c)(6) membership corporation under Delaware General Corporation Law, are overseen by its Board of Directors.  Working with the HPDC Executive Director, the Board establishes the overall strategic direction of the organization and ensures operational activities are achieving desired results. The Board approves the annual budget of the organization and proposed revisions to the HPD Open Standard.   The Board appoints members of the HPDC Technical Committee, which has responsibility for managing the evolution of the HPD Open Standard.

The HPDC Board has up to 18 elected members. The following 8 seats are open in this election:

  • 4 seats in the User category
  • 1 seat in the Ecosystem category
  • 1 seats in the Manufacturer category.
  • 2 seats in Community category.

HPDC Board Members are normally elected to a three (3) year term (*see asterisked note below).  Terms of newly elected directors will officially begin on January 1, 2024 and continue through December 31, 2026.

To be eligible for nomination, applicants must be a registered representative and employee of an HPDC General Member organization (for additional eligibility requirements, please see following section).  Current Board members whose terms are expiring in 2023 may apply in the event that they have not reached the term limit for their Board service (2 consecutive terms). Members who have served on the Board prior to 2023 are also eligible to apply.

Each applicant must be nominated for consideration by an HPDC General Member representative.  The nominating member may be from any membership category. Self-nominations are allowed.

Following the close of nominations on September 29, the HPDC Nominating Working Group will select the final slate of Nominees, from among the applications received.  Prior to the start of the election period on October 16, all Nominators and Nominee applicants who submitted applications will be notified of the outcome of the nominating process.  Those nominated to the final slate will be asked, at that time, to confirm that, if elected, they are committed to serve as an HPDC Board Member, aligned with HPDC Board Members’ Roles and Responsibilities.

The election for the 2024 HPDC Board of Directors will be conducted by written ballot from October 16 – November 6, 2023.  Results will be communicated to Nominees following the close of the election.  Announcement of the election results will take place at the Material Health Open Innovation Symposium (via Zoom), on November 14, 2023.  Those elected will be invited to attend the final HPDC Board of Directors 2023 meeting as invited guests, on December 5, 2023, via Zoom.
For further information about the HPDC member organization, please visit the HDPC website (www.hpd-collaborative.org), or contact the HPDC membership director at membership@hpd-collaborative.org.

Nomination Requirements for the HPDC Board of Directors

Eligibility – Nominees and Nominators

  • To be nominated, an individual must be an employee of an HPDC General Member in good standing, and be registered as a representative in the HPDC member roster.
  • Nominators must also be listed as a representative of a General Member of HPDC in good standing.
  • Nominees may be self-nominated, nominated by a representative of their own organization, or by a representative of another organization.
  • The nominating organization does not need to be in the same member category (user, manufacturer, ecosystem, community) as that of the Nominee, i.e., a User category member may nominate someone from the Manufacturer category.
  • Nominations shall only be considered submitted if they have been completed using the online Nomination Form provided, and the Form is submitted prior to the deadline, with no exception.

Desired Prior Experience, Personal Qualifications of Nominees

  • Prior experience serving on the Board of a non-profit, standards setting organization or industry group.
  • Willingness and ability to participate actively in meeting the fundraising goals of the Board.
  • Depth of knowledge, training, education in an area of the built environment relevant to the work of HPDC.  Examples are licensed professionals in architecture, design, engineering, construction; experts in the area of sustainability, especially material health; executive experience in building industry product development, marketing, manufacturing or other related fields; expertise in specific scientific disciplines, such as industrial hygiene, toxicology, chemistry.
  • Significant executive leadership experience/position of responsibility in organizations within the building industry.
  • A strategic orientation, blending both business and technical perspectives.
  • A strong personal commitment to actively support the mission and guiding principles of the HPDC, especially through encouraging harmonization and collaboration with other related efforts in which the Board member is participating.

Expected Time Commitment as an HPDC Board of Directors Member

  • Monthly – several hours reviewing Board communications (updates, emails), participation in a Board Committee and/or Board update call, and supporting achievement of annual fundraising goals, in which Board members are expected to play a significant role.
  • Quarterly – participate in a (typically) 2-hour meeting of the Board.  Three meetings will be telephonic/web.  The Q1 meeting will be scheduled as face-to-face during the HPDC Annual Board Retreat (travel costs to be borne by Board member).
  • Annually – participate in annual, face-to-face 2-day Board Planning Retreat, held in the first calendar quarter (typically February-early March), in conjunction with the 1st Quarter Regular Board Meeting.  Travel costs to be borne by Board Member.

Nomination Process

If you are receiving this information and your organization is not yet an HPDC General Member, becoming a General Member is the first step in the nomination process.  Both Nominator and Nominee must be officially listed as representatives of current HPDC General Member organizations prior to the online submittal of the nomination application form.  Information about membership can be found at https://members.hpd-collaborative.org/default.aspx, or by contacting the HPDC Membership director at membership@hpd-collaborative.org.

To be nominated for the HPDC Board of Directors, please complete the online application, which can be found here:  http://www.hpd-collaborative.org/board-directors-nominations/. Completed applications must be submitted online no later than 11:59 PM PDT Friday, September 29, 2023. All submitted forms will be acknowledged upon receipt.

Please be advised that only applications submitted using the online link noted above and prior to the deadline will be considered valid submissions.If you have any questions or need assistance with the application process, please contact us at membership@hpd-collaborative.org, or by phone at: +1.781.876.8871.

Explore the HPD v2.3 Update and its transformative features

Explore the HPD v2.3 Update and its transformative features

by | Sep 4, 2023 | Blog Post, Builder, HPD Public Repository, News, Technical Documentation

The Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) is happy to present a series of webinars tailored to help our community seamlessly integrate with the HPD v2.3 Update. With significant enhancements to the Health Product Declaration (HPD) framework, this update is poised to reshape the landscape of transparency and sustainability in building products. This webinar series is designed to provide in-depth knowledge, answer queries, and facilitate the transition to v2.3 Update.

Major Enhancements in HPD Open Standard v2.3 Update: Dive into the critical features introduced in the HPD v2.3 Update. This session will ensure a comprehensive understanding of the latest enhancements and how they can be effectively applied.

New Features of HPD Builder to support HPD v2.3 Update: A detailed walkthrough of the HPD Builder updates. Discover how these changes will impact your workflow and improve the product declaration process.

Introducing the HPD Builder Program Pre-check Feature: Unravel the intricacies of the new program pre-check features. Learn how they will revolutionize the review process and simplify criteria checks.

About HPDC
HPDC (Health Product Declaration Collaborative) is a non-profit entity at the forefront of promoting transparency and sustainability in the building sector. Through the standardization of Health Product Declarations (HPDs), HPDC aids manufacturers in disclosing the chemical compositions and potential health impacts of their products. Our mission is to empower stakeholders to make informed choices, driving a healthier, and more sustainable built environment.

Transformative Advancements in Material Health Practice: Empowering Project Teams for a Healthier Future

by | Jul 23, 2023 | Blog Post, Education, Technical Documentation

 

Recorded Thursday, June 29, 2023 at 2 pm EDT

Material health practice has taken a quantum leap in development over the past 10 years. Thanks to the work of the HPDC ecosystem and the evolution of the HPD Open Standard, many foundational components are in place making it possible to automate screening to a set of criteria – thereby making the leading edge of material health practice within the reach of any project team.

The webinar provided demos and information about:

  • HPDC & SM’s ongoing partnership and shared vision of how automation will make advanced material screening within reach of any project team
  • The Perkins&Will Precautionary List, what it is and how it was created
  • Using the new filter to find all brands & products with no Precautionary List ingredients, in every MasterFormat® section, in 1 click
  • How MFRs can update & republish their existing HPDs to v2.3 so their products can be selected when the filter is used
  • SNEAK PREVIEW of Project Builder & Library (now in private beta) – How to create a project using all Precautionary List Free products & materials

WITH:

Wendy Vittori, Executive Director, HPDC

Terry Swack, Founder & CEO, Sustainable Minds

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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HPDC Convenes Antimicrobials and Cleaning Chemicals Working Group

HPDC Convenes Antimicrobials and Cleaning Chemicals Working Group

by | Apr 21, 2020 | Blog Post

By Tristan Roberts, HPDC, Director of Technical and Education Programs

Many of our manufacturer and architecture members have been contacting us to ask about up-to-date research on antimicrobials and health issues. As one manufacturer wrote:
 
“Within last 48 hours, I received many antimicrobial requests in our products from sales field. I am afraid that the COVID-19 has turned many of our customers to this solution as a potential safety measure. However, we know that the antimicrobial additives in products aren’t proven to be helpful in preventing the spreading of virus and bacteria and some of them are harmful to the indoor environment. Their function is to protect the material/product itself.”
 
One intent of the HPD all along has been to prevent regrettable substitutions — switching out one problem for another. Hygiene is more critical than ever in the era of COVID-19, but widespread use of antimicrobials and cleaning chemicals may not be effective in killing the coronavirus. And many of these chemicals are known to cause other health and environmental issues.
 
Drawing from the expertise we have gathered on our Technical Committees, HPDC is convening a working group to share research and perspectives on this issue. We look forward to reporting out to a wider audience with any findings or recommendations—stay tuned! If you have questions or input on this issue, please email me at troberts@hpd-collaborative.org.
 
Manufacturers, designers, and many others are tasked with making consequential public-health decisions as part of this ongoing crisis. You can make those decisions informed by the consistent, reliable data reporting protocols and datasets we have put in place via the work of HPDC over the last 10 years. You can use tools with unprecedented utility such as Pharos to research chemicals. You can use forums to discuss difficult topics such as HPDC’s Technical Sub-Groups, and working groups.
 
Now, imagine the current crisis without the work we have all undertaken over the last decade. What a difference it will make! We have a lot to do, but we are fortunate not to have to invent these concepts in the midst of this crisis.
Tristan Roberts is Director of Technical and Education Programs for HPDC. You can reach him with comments and feedback at troberts@hpd-collaborative.org.