ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - 48

SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

ENGINEERS NOTEBOOK
COLUMN

Erin McConahey

Material Concerns
For HVAC Products
BY ERIN MCCONAHEY, P.E., HBDP, FELLOW ASHRAE

"We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us."-Winston Churchill

We didn't realize the unanticipated truth of Churchill's observation until medical
research in recent decades identified that very small amounts of the chemicals regularly used in common building materials can adversely affect the developing brains of
our children.1
In the United States, despite the power given to it by
the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tested
and restricted relatively few chemicals.2 While the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulates chemical exposure in the workplace,3 there is no
mandatory toxicity disclosure to the general public nor
any requirement to test industrial chemicals prior to
their use in downstream products.4 In 2016, the Frank
R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act
strengthened the TSCA to empower the EPA to start to
test the worst of the 40,655 chemicals in circulation.5
Without adequate government regulation, and in
advance of widespread industry demand, it is the leadership of professional organizations that has brought material transparency into design standards of practice. Green
building rating systems such as U.S. Green Building
Council's LEED® (www.usgbc.org/leed), the International
Living Future Institute's Living Building Challenge (LBC)

(living-future.org/lbc) and the International WELL
Building Institute's WELL (www.wellcertified.com) have
led the way in encouraging documentation of materials used in manufacturing and installation. ASHRAE
Standard 189.1-2017 and the 2018 International Green
Construction Code require a limited number of product
declarations to be submitted per project. However, the
HVAC industry has little in the way of product documentation demonstrating compliance.

Slow Adoption of Material Transparency
In the HVAC Industry
While ASHRAE has been a leader on other aspects
of healthy buildings-indoor air quality standards,
Legionella prevention, airborne pollutant control and the
current world-leading research and public awareness
campaign on COVID-19-it has been relatively silent on
materials used in HVAC products.
Erin McConahey, P.E., is a principal in mechanical engineering at Arup.

48

ASHRAE JOURNAL

ashrae.org

O CTO B E R 2020


http://www.living-future.org/lbc http://www.wellcertified.com http://www.usgbc.org/leed https://www.ashrae.org/

ASHRAE Journal - October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal - October 2020

Contents
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Intro
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Cover1
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Cover2
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - 1
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Contents
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - 3
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - 4
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ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR1
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR2
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR3
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR4
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR5
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR6
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ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Cover3
ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - Cover4
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