Achieving Market Transformation Through Meaningful Transparency

Bill WalshHealthy Building Networkwww.healthybuilding.netwww.pharosproject.net

Nexus/GPA RoundtableBoston, MAMarch 4, 2010

Increasingly Available Product Data

(carbon footprints) (chemicals of concern) (treatment of workers/communities)

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Web 2.0 Technology

____________________________Era of Radical Transparency

• From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media.

• Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up, in every city, town, and culture. and is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide.

More Emerging Materials Issues

Bisphenol A - BPA

July 22, 2009

Did You Know......that Some Building Products May Expose You to the Chemical Banned from Plastic Bottles?

Chemicals and Our Health

However careful you are about your health, your body is almost certainly home to troubling chemicals called phthalates. . . . . and many scientists have linked them to everything from sexual deformities in babies to obesity and diabetes.

July 16, 2009

Nichols D. Kristof

What’s Getting Into Our Children

August 6, 2009

Baby bottles and toys have been found to contain phthalates, bisphenol A, and lead, all toxins that have been linked to reproductive and developmental disorders. . . . .As harmful elements detected in everyday household items increase, rates of chronic disease have also risen sharply - and these conditions are now the leading causes of childhood illness and death.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Do Toxins Cause Autism?

February 24, 2010

. . . .suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment

Precautionary principle . . . . avoid most plastics marked at the bottom as 3 (PVC/Vinyl) , 6 and 7 because they are the ones associated with potentially harmful toxins.

Nicholas D. Kristof

The Little Princes of DenmarkWhy do Danes have smaller nuts than Finns—are toxins to blame?By Florence Williams

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, at 9:41 AM ET . . . . Why should you care if you're neither Danish nor Finnish? Because the answer involves environmental toxins that have made their way around the globe.

"It turns out the chemical burden is not the same" for Danish and Finnish baby boys, says researcher Main, who was surprised by the finding. "It's higher here. The higher your burden, as measured in breast milk, the higher the risk of undescended testes."

USGBC Takes on the 2030 ChallengeNatural Step System Condition 2: In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society.

Halogenated flame retardants (PBDE):

• disrupt thyroid and estrogen hormones

• developmental effects on brain & reproductive systems (reduced sperm count)

EPA Chemicals of concernAnnounced 12/30/09

• Phthalates (90% in Vinyl)• Polybrominated diphenyl

ethers (Flame Retardants)• Perfluorinated chemicals (Stain/Water Repellants)• Bisphenol A (epoxies)

Where do we use them?Vinyl floorsCarpetsVinyl wallpaperPolyurethane foam cushion Polycarbonate glazingEpoxy paints & coatings

Caulks ………and many more

TRADE SECRET

Low fat!

• A week A week after he arrived at the agency in July, Steve Owens, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In those cases, manufacturers had claimed secrecy for chemicals they had promoted by name on their Web sites or detailed in trade journals.

January 4, 2010

Meaningful Transparency:Founding Principles of the GPA ? ? ? What’s in it? – Customer, Occupant Concerns

How was it made? Global Environmental Perspective

Where did it come from? Occupational/Community Health

Define ideal goals for each impact (e.g., zero toxics)

Map existing labels and attributes in context of that ideal

Plot benchmarks to measure progress toward that goal

Include precautionary screening (high hazard toxics)and other difficult to quantify issues (social equity)

Encourage continuous improvement

Scoring

Customer Expectation Create Transparency

• Design firm• Construction firm• Health care provider

RFI Manufacturers

Data

Data &Analysis

What’s Really Radical About Transparency ?

It’s not only inevitable.

It’s going to be easier than you think.