Green Building Materials: A Guide to Product Selection and Specification

Green Building Materials:

by Ross Spiegel and Dru Meadows. James Wiley & Sons, New York, 1999. Hardcover, 300 pages, $64.95.

Green Building Materials covers a lot of ground in this complex arena, with a particular focus on the process issues relating to material selection. The book’s organization reflects this approach, with more pages devoted to appendices than to the main text. It does not include any listing of green products.

The book organizes the material selection issues around three main headings: Resource Management, Toxicity/IEQ, and Performance. The text just outlines these three topic areas, while an appendix lists green considerations for product selection under these headings. Other useful appendices include a very thorough list of sources for related information, and a comprehensive glossary.

Green Building Materials really shines in the realm of contract documents and specs. The sample specification language, drawn from the authors’ experience in specifying green products for large corporate and institutional clients, is invaluable. Examples include environmental language for: 1) a typical section; 2) a sample section requiring that environmentally preferable options be bid as alternate materials; 3) a sample section on general environmental procedures to be followed in construction; and 4) a section describing the procedures that contractors should follow when proposing product substitutions. These sample sections, along with detailed descriptions of the design and construction process in the text, go a long way towards helping less experienced designers and specifiers ensure that the products they choose will actually be used in the building.

On the downside, some of the discussions of environmental issues in material selection are a bit simplistic or arbitrary. A section on using recycled-content materials, for example, presents them as a solution without noting that recycling can also have negative impacts, such as energy use for materials collection and remanufacturing processes. On the whole, however,

Green Building Materials is a reference with something for everyone: an introduction to ecological issues for newcomers to green design; an explanation of how the building procurement process works for non-architects; and, for knowledgeable designers, detailed sample language that can be adapted for real-world projects.