Additional Resources
There are other great organizations (many collaborating with HBN) working on healthy materials issues. The list below includes some additional resources that may be useful in your quest for healthier building products. If you are using tools and resources that did not make this list, please share them with us so that we can include them. If you have comments about these resources, good or bad, please let us know that too!
Certification Program Assessment Tool Webinar Website Article Tool Guide
Resource | Description | Tags |
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Health Product Declaration Collaborative | The Health Product Declaration® (HPD) Collaborative is a customer-led, member organization committed to the continuous improvement of the building industry’s performance through transparency, openness, and innovation in the product supply chain. | Assessment Tool |
Health Product Declarations (HPDs) | HPDs use a standard reporting format for disclosing a product’s contents and associated health hazards. They are an inventory tool and do not provide explicit judgement on safer products. | Assessment Tool |
Health Product Declaration Public Repository | The Health Product Declaration (HPD) Public Repository is the authoritative source for published HPDs. HPDs are searchable and available to be downloaded by users – architects, designers, project teams, property owners, or any interested party. | Assessment Tool |
Cradle to Cradle Institute | Cradle2Cradle sets product standards to guide designers and manufacturers to make products in fundamentally better ways. They provide a C2C Certified Products Registry and a Materials Health Certificate Registry. | Certification Program |
Declare | Declare™ is a material certification program from ILFI. It is a transparency platform and product database that addresses where a product comes from, what it is made of, and where it goes at the end of its useful life. | Certification Program |
Declare Labels | Declare Labels are building material “nutrition labels” which identify whether products contain any of a subset of hazardous chemicals that are included on the Living Building Challenge Red List. | Certification Program |
Prescription for Healthier Building Materials: A Design and Implementation Protocol | A Prescription for Healthier Building Materials from the AIA and ARUP is described by the AIA as a stepwise method for: setting healthier material goals and defining criteria, selecting products, tracking, and specification. | Guide |
The Empowered Design Professional: Using HPDs to Make Healthier Material Choices | Online course sponsored by HPDC that describes why HPDs are needed, what they are and what they aren’t, and the type of information included in an HPD. It also discusses how HPDs can contribute to LEED certification. | Webinar |
Health Care Without Harm Healthy Flooring Criteria Product List | Health Care Without Harm developed healthy flooring criteria. These criteria encompass much of the HomeFree guidance, as well as additional requirements. Products that meet these criteria are expected to rank highly on the hazard spectrum. | Guide |
PFAS Central PFAS-Free Products List | PFAS Central provides current information about PFAS, including a list of manufacturers with PFAS-free products. Provided by the Green Science Policy Institute and Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University. | Guide |
SF Environment Approved Carpet List | San Francisco Department of the Environment has set regulations on environmentally preferable carpet for use in city projects. Their requirements align well with the HomeFree criteria and go further by including additional requirements. | Guide |
Pharos Project | Pharos is the most comprehensive independent database of chemicals and materials — over 100,000 records and counting. It aggregates a vast array of information used for analyzing chemicals of concern. | Assessment Tool |
Healthy Affordable Materials Project | The Healthy Affordable Materials Project seeks to improve the lives and health of affordable housing residents by reducing the use of toxic materials in building products. | Website |
Health Product Declaration Collaborative | The Health Product Declaration® (HPD) Collaborative is a customer-led, member organization committed to the continuous improvement of the building industry’s performance through transparency, openness, and innovation in the product supply chain. | Assessment Tool |
Health Product Declaration Public Repository | The Health Product Declaration (HPD) Public Repository is the authoritative source for published HPDs. HPDs are searchable and available to be downloaded by users – architects, designers, project teams, property owners, or any interested party. | Website |
Cradle to Cradle Institute | Cradle2Cradle sets product standards to guide designers and manufacturers to make products in fundamentally better ways. They provide a C2C Certified Products Registry and a Materials Health Certificate Registry. | Certification Program |
Chemical Hazards Alternatives Toolbox | ChemHAT, the Chemical Hazard and Alternatives Toolbox, is a new internet database designed to offer up easy to use information that we can use to protect ourselves, our families and our co-workers against the harm that chemicals can cause. | Website |
GreenScreen | GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals is a method for comparative chemical hazard assessment. It is used assess the inherent hazards of chemicals and their potential effect on human health and the environment. | Assessment Tool |
Blue Green Alliance Buidling Clean Product Database | This energy efficient housing products and materials supply chain database is designed to better inform and assist the industry in selecting housing products and materials for retrofit of multifamily residential buildings. | Website |
Building Green Designer Pages | Designer Pages Pro is an online software subscription service that helps designers select materials from a database. | Website |
Environmental Working Group | The Environmental Working Group’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. | Website |
ILFI Living Building Challenge | The Living Building Challenge™ is a building certification program. | Certification Program |
ILFI Living Product Challenge | The Living Product Challenge™ re-imagines the design and construction of products to function as elegantly and efficiently as anything found in the natural world. | Certification Program |
UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment | Provides resources to help your family reduce their environmental exposures. | Website |
Mind Disrupted | Discusses how toxic chemicals may change how we think and who we are. From "The Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative". | Website |
Sustainable and Healthy Materials Action Packet | Downloadable packet from MSR Design including their Materials Library Entry Criteria, Staff Onboarding Guide, and Architectural Samples Donation Guide which can be adapted to the needs of your organization or practice. | Guide |
Contaminating our Bodies with Everyday Products | New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, Nov. 28, 2015 "Contaminating our Bodies with Everyday Products" | Article |
The Endocrine Disruption Exchange: Understanding Endocrine Disruption | One page description of what endocrine-disrupting chemicals are, how people are exposed to them, and how they affect our health. | Article |
The Endocrine Disruption Exchange: Low Doses Matter | Infographic summarizing health impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and how people are exposed. | Article |
It’s not just Flint, poor communities across the country live with extreme pollutants | The Washington Post, Chris Mooney, Jan. 27, 2016 "It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the country live with ‘extreme’ polluters" | Article |
Parsons School of Design Healthy Materials Lab | The Healthy Materials Lab formed to build healthier lives for all people through the dramatic reduction of toxins in the building industry. | Website |
There are too many Flints | MSNBC | MSNBC, Hillary Clinton, Jan. 30, 2016 "There are too many Flints" | Article |
Perkins+Will Precautionary List | The Precautionary List includes substances commonly found in the built environment that have been classified by regulatory entities as being harmful to the health of humans and/or the environment. | Website |
Six Classes | A Webinar Series on Chemicals of Concern. | Webinar |
Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health | The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health conducts community-based research to study the health effects of prenatal and early postnatal exposures to common urban pollutants. | Website |
AIA Sustainability Whitepaper | "Materials transparency & risk for architects: An introduction to advancing professional ethics while managing professional liability risks " | Article |
Mt. Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center | The Children’s Environmental Health Center, conducts groundbreaking research to identify the environmental causes of childhood disease. They translate findings into solutions that protect children’s health using research to educate families. | Website |
Healthy Babies Bright Futures | Healthy Babies Bright Futures works to reduce babies’ exposure to a number of toxic chemicals that have negative effects on babies’ brain development. | Website |
Sweating the Small Stuff: Some molecules don’t belong in a building. Product transparency helps architects keep them out | Architectural Record: June 2016 Talks about Product Transparancy | Article |
Environmental Justice for All | EJ4All.org is a communication hub for the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA). | Website |
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families is a national effort to protect families from toxic chemicals. | Website |
Oregon Environmental Council | Oregon Environmental Council advances innovative, collaborative and equitable solutions to Oregon’s environmental challenges for today and future generations. | Website |
Toxic-Free Future | Toxic-Free Future advocates for the use of safer products, chemicals, and practices through advanced research, advocacy, grassroots organizing, and consumer engagement to ensure a healthier tomorrow. | Website |
Toxic Inequality: Research points to racial disparities in lead risk, and a model for action | Harvard Gazette, October 11, 2016, by Colleen Walsh, Harvard Staff Writer | Article |
Sustainable Minds Transparency Catalog | An online resource for finding products with different types of transparent disclosures to help meet green certifications. | Website |
Made Safe | MADE SAFE is a nontoxic certification program that applies widely to products from baby to personal care to household and beyond. We ensure that items we use every day are made with ingredients that aren’t known or suspected to cause human harm. | Website |