Health Product Declaration Provides Building Product "Nutrition Label"

The new format streamlines disclosure of building product ingredients and their potential health impacts.

A panel of leaders in the green building industry has unveiled a new format for reporting health-related information for building products.

The Health Product Declaration (HPD) Open Standard Version 1 is available to manufacturers as a standardized format for disclosure of product contents, emissions, and health information to help designers, specifiers, and building owners and occupants make informed purchasing decisions. The HPD is meant to increase transparency and reduce redundant disclosure demands by referencing existing hazard lists and providing a human health context for information disclosed in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and other documents (see “The Product Transparency Movement: Peeking Behind the Corporate Veil,” EBN Jan. 2012). It is included as a compliance option for the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization: Material Ingredients credit in the current public comment draft of the forthcoming LEED v4 rating system.

Says Aaron Smith of security-product manufacturer Assa Abloy, “While working toward EPDs, Assa Abloy realized that the human health impacts of building products were not adequately addressed. The HPD fills that gap.” Martha Vega of tile manufacturer Crossville told EBN, “Widespread adoption by manufacturers will be important to make HPD useful on a broad scale—hopefully we’ll see lots of participation from the start.”

The HPD was developed through a year-long process by the HPD Open Standard Working Group with the participation of 29 product manufacturers and 50 reviewers from the building industry; it will be maintained and revised by the HPD Collaborative.

The HPD Working Group was convened jointly by the Healthy Building Network and BuildingGreen, publisher of EBN. The standard is available at www.hpdcollaborative.org.