Integrative Analysis of Building Materials

I found this excersice helpful for that too but I was surprised to see how for the material portion HPDs are still not informative enough on the overal impact of the product. Whereas an EPD can tell you the impacts per stage, the HPD focuses on the composition only, meaning you still need to look into maintenance and cleaning guidelines, intallation manuals and things like emissions certificates to get a better understanding. 

I found the end of life human impacts category the hardest to assess with the existing industry documentation available. 

I liked how this credit allowed me to piece together the information that we were alredy gathering and informally comparing but now in a more stantardized way. 

I agree that this is a helpful exercise to unpack product EPDs and HPDs. In addition, we looked at Material Safety Data Sheets which I found informative. Environmental Data Sheets and Product Data Sheets (if available) also provide information/data needed for this credit documentation.

Agreed with Christian and Sumaiya - it forced me to read EPDs and HPDs more thoroughly, as well as create EPDs to input into our LCA since Revit/Tally has a couple standard EPDs built in, but aren't applicable all the time. Extremely time-consuming, but worth it, especially if you plan on going for the BPDO credits and have compiled a good chunk of the data/documentation needed.

What we found to be most helpful in gathering information for this Innovation credit were the Safety Data Sheets (SDS), and if the manufacturer has one, their Corporate Sustainability Reports (CSRs) for some of the more detailed asks in the worksheet.

I used EPD's, HPD's, manafacturer's websites and the SM Transparancy report to understand the possible harmful affects of the products on manufacturer's employees and installers. I also tend to look for products that are Greenguard Gold, Cradle to Cradle or Declare label certified to give me an extra layer of confidence.  

The credit allowed the design team to discuss the pros and cons of three key building products. The credit language and excel template was easy to use.

Our team has now completed this Pilot credit for the second time, this time for a Commercial Interiors project. We are finding HPD and health related information much easier to find. The process has helped us to understand a wider range of issues for material selection.

Our team has now completed this Pilot credit for the third time, this time for a Commercial Interiors project. We are finding HPD and health related information much easier to find, particularly when using fit out products from major European suppliers

The process has helped us to understand a wider range of issues for material selection, and supported the project's WELL certfiication.

Our team recently completed this pilot credit for a Commercial Interiors project. This credit is a great compliment to the BPDO and LEM credits, as it encourages the team to not just collect EPDs and HPDs, but actually evaluate them. We found that the environmental and health sections had good amounts of information available, though there was some variation between each product type. One of the products we had evalauted was a paint, which in general, had very good environemtnal information, but the health information was much more limited. In general, we also felt like many areas under the safety section were harder to find information for, and might not always be applicable for products like paint. 

I agree with Madeline's comment that this pilot credit is a fantastic complement to the BPDO and LEM credits because it requires teams to take that second, important step of evaluating the information within those product disclosures to make informed product selections. I can’t help but hope that LEED v5 will push teams further by limiting credits that simply require documentation gathering and instead prioritize analysis and implementation based on the information gathered.

Yes, the ability to navigate EPD and HPD’s is my biggest takeaway from credit documentation. I found material safety data sheets very helpful, especially for the installation phase of the product where workers are exposed to ingredients directly. Although verifying the information against all LEED specified endpoints was not easy, as they are not reported by the manufacturers in that manner. In future I hope to analyze three similar products for comparison. This time we did not have enough information on three similar, comparable products so we analyzed three different types of products that had enough disclosed information. I hope LEED v5 will come up with something that makes this analysis applicable in projects.

We definitely learned through this process that not all EPDs and HPDs are the same AND that just because the product has documentation doesn't make it the most sustainable option compared to others.