|
GreenCircle at the Industry Forefront!
Gearing up for Greenbuild
GreenCircle is gearing up for our fourth Greenbuild exhibit! This year, it's in our backyard as the National Green Building Expo comes to Philadelphia on November 20th. As a Greenbuild exhibitor the past four years, we have seen firsthand the positive evolution of the building products market. Market drivers including new regulatory requirements, updated standards, competitor pressures, and customer demand have been moving the industry toward product sustainability and transparency. Although every year brings about new ideas and trends, one focus consistently remains at the forefront - the need for increased transparency.
GreenCircle takes pride in advancing corporate transparency through our product and operations-specific certifications. Since its inception, GreenCircle has believed that verified environmental claims build brand value while empowering consumers to make educated purchasing decisions. As the market continued to evolve, GreenCircle introduced the Certified Environmental Facts (CEF) certification to provide a comprehensive multi-attribute view of a product's overall sustainability. Much like a nutrition label, the CEF certification details all necessary environmental information in a straightforward manner. As transparency continues to become a significant emphasis in the green building products market, first-movers are gaining a competitive advantage by increasing brand awareness and capitalizing on new market opportunities.
If you are attending Greenbuild, come see us at Booth #2725 and we can answer any questions you may have. This year, we are also having a contest, so stop by our booth and learn how you can enter to win an iPad!
HPD Third-Party Review Pilot Process
Growing concerns over chemical hazards in buildings has prompted many large architecture firms to request Health Product Declarations (HPDs) from building product manufacturers. HPDs disclose the chemical contents of products in accordance with the Health Product Declaration Standard. This open standard was developed to provide a consistent reporting format that increases the quality and availability of product health information. It will enable builders, architects, and designers to assess products and their related chemical constituents across product categories.
To date, there hasn't been a regulatory body that evaluates the conformity of an HPD to the Heath Product Declaration Standard, but the development of a third-party HPD validation system is now in progress. GreenCircle is assisting in the development of a certification system to validate that HPDs have been completed thoroughly and correctly in conjunction with the Health Product Declaration Collaboration. The pilot HPD certification program is scheduled to be announced at Greenbuild 2013, and GreenCircle is currently auditing some of our current clients' HPDs as a part of this pilot process. GreenCircle would be happy to audit your company's HPDs in this pilot program as well!
GreenCircle Continues to Advance Sustainability Through International Standards Development
GreenCircle actively participated in various standards development committees at the recent ASTM E60 meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. The purpose of the ASTM Committee E60 on Sustainability is to bring together diverse stakeholders to create consensus based standards on sustainability and sustainable development. GreenCircle utilized our expertise in Waste Diversion, Sustainable Manufacturing Practices, and Sustainable Purchasing to directly contribute to emerging standards in these areas.
Using industry leading expertise in waste diversion analysis, GreenCircle was integral in developing the WK38312 standard for Classification of Waste Streams from Manufacturing Facilities. This standard is being developed to define waste streams within a manufacturing facility. This standard relates heavily to GreenCircle's continued work on other Waste Diversion standards, specifically ANSI STP 2799 - Waste Minimization Reporting and Assessment of Zero Waste Operations. The market is in need of universal standards for waste diversion, and GreenCircle is proud to be included on several task groups to achieve this goal.
GreenCircle also participated in the Sustainable Procurement Standard (ISO PC 277) development. As one of eight representatives within the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG), GreenCircle is working with a multinational consortium of experts to create these International Sustainable Procurement standards. Joining the U.S. TAG, other national TAGs involved in the standard development include those from France, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, among others. GreenCircle will work with the U.S. TAG to submit comments to the Draft 1 standard by the end of 2013, with the next international meeting scheduled for February 2014. Utilizing the combined expertise of each country's TAG, the standard is scheduled to be completed by 2015.
To learn more about the ASTM Committee E60 on Sustainability, visit: http://www.astm.org/COMMITTEE/E60.htm.
|
