The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced a new LEED pilot credit: Building Material Human Hazard & Exposure Assessment.
The credit aims to encourage building teams and manufacturers to assess human health-related exposure scenarios for products during installation and beyond.
“We have a focus on transparency and optimization so specifiers can know what they are using and can reward innovation,” said Scot Horst, chief product officer, USGBC. “But understanding how a material impacts human health requires a full understanding of hazard and exposure. The new pilot credit is a first step toward evaluating exposure by encouraging product inventories in order to prioritize decision making.”
The pilot credit is intended to reward manufacturers who perform hazard and exposure assessments designed to help minimize human health impacts during installation and use of their products. By requiring exposure to be considered during product development, make linkages can be made between the product’s ingredient inventory and hazard assessment required by the existing Materials Ingredients credit and performance testing required by LEED’s Low Emitting Materials credits.
Related Stories
| Sep 13, 2013
Insurance expert: Managing green liability risk not so different from 'normal' risk mitigation
Worries about legal liability have long dogged the sustainable building movement, but insurance expert Karen Erger says sustainability lawsuits are caused by the same types of issues that have always prompted clients to sue AEC firms.
| Sep 13, 2013
Video: Arup offers tour of world's first algae-powered building
Dubbed BIQ house, the building features a bright green façade consisting of hollow glass panels filled with algae and water.
| Sep 11, 2013
New design for Chinese science park aims for zero-carbon footprint
A new design for Jinshui Science and Technology Park in Zhengzhou, China is aiming for a zero-carbon footprint.
| Sep 4, 2013
Smart building technology: Talking results at the BUILDINGChicago/ Greening the Heartland show
Recent advancements in technology are allowing owners to connect with facilities as never before, leveraging existing automation systems to achieve cost-effective energy improvements. This BUILDINGChicago presentation will feature Procter & Gamble’s smart building management program.
| Sep 3, 2013
Grand Junction, Colo., courthouse aims to be first net-zero building on National Register of Historic Places
After a two year renovation, the 95-year oldWayne S. Aspinall Federal Building and Courthouse in Grand Junction, Colo., is being evaluated for LEED Platinum status and may become the National Register of Historic Places’ first net-zero-energy building.
| Aug 27, 2013
College of the Desert in Palm Springs to produce more energy than it consumes
A 60-acre solar farm next to the College of the Desert in Palm Springs, Calif., along with a number of sustainable building features, are projected to help the campus produce more energy than it uses.
| Aug 19, 2013
Integration of solar panels in building skin seen as key net-zero element
Recent high-profile projects, including stadiums in Brazil for the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics and a bank headquarters in the U.K., reflect an effort by designers to adopt building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV.
| Aug 14, 2013
Green Building Report [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Building Design+Construction's rankings of the nation's largest green design and construction firms.
| Aug 12, 2013
New York’s first net-zero school will be a sustainability lab for city school system
An elementary school on Staten Island will be the first net-zero energy school in New York City and the Northeast. The school is designed to use half the energy of a typical New York public school. Construction will be completed in 2015.
| Aug 8, 2013
New green property index could boost REIT investment in more sustainable properties
A project by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), the FTSE Group, and the U.S. Green Building Council to jointly develop a Green Property Index could help REITs attract some of the growing pool of socially responsible investment money slated for green investments.
