achieving market transformation through meaningful transparency
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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.