We just heard from one of our more progressive clients that they are pulling Mohawk from their shelves and are no longer allowing it on their projects. Apparently there are some chemical ingredients they objected to, but more importantly the manufacturer "lied" to the client about the content. Does anyone have an idea what this might be about? Have you heard of this from other clients or manufacturers?
-Carolyn
- Different inventory formats (Basic vs. Nested), thresholds (100 ppm, 1,000 ppm, etc.) and what the threshold is for (product level or material level) really impact what winds up on a disclosure report such as a Health Product Declaration (HPD). I've written a brief FAQ that touches on that.
- If you're a firm or you represent an owner that has very specific objectives in terms of specific chemical avoidance (such as PFOS), it's not enough to ask for LEED-v4-compliant HPDs or Declare labels. Key chemicals of concern will commonly fall below thresholds reported on those. You have to specify thresholds. The most granular format specifiable on an HPD would be Nested, 100 ppm, and threshold disclosed per material.
- It's seldom that products don't come with optional colorants, treatments, caster styles, etc., etc. Different manufacturers, quite reasonably, have different ways of handling this. For example, the HPD reports on a base model. Colorants may be handled separately. If you want to be sure that you are getting a specific disclosure report on what you're specifying, think about the product category, and what your objectives are, and ask for it. (BG has always been great at offering category-specific product guidance—I wonder if they have a resource that touches on this?)
There is a lot of good work being done to build trust between the manufacturing and design communities. A little dose of Hanlon's razor doesn't hurt in most situations: To stupidity, of course, add busy-ness, lack of knowledge, inexperience, was up late binge-watching The OA season 2 on Netflix, etc. And yeah, there are companies who understand all of this quite well and choose their disclosure labels and thresholds intentionally to make their products look better. This needs to be called out... I would recommend using more specific "asks" per the thresholds above. If any of this resonates, please post your comments, or email me directly at troberts@hpd-collaborative.org.