IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 56

Viewpoints
Material Transparency
Healthy materials and product transparency are hugely
important in today's design landscape. Beyond simply
wanting to know about a product's ingredients, designers
are pushing manufacturers to disclose as much information
as possible about supply chains, and how and where
products are made. Perspective sat down with healthy
materials expert Jennifer Atlee to talk about the key issues
in material transparency.
Atlee has engaged in research, writing, and consulting
on sustainability topics since 1999. Her work with
PROSOCO, BIFMA, HPD Collaborative, Rich Earth Institute,
BuildingGreen, MIT, Rocky Mountain Institute, Toxics
Use Reduction Institute, and Demand Management Institute
have addressed green building and healthy materials,
commercial and industrial energy efficiency, closing the
food-nutrient cycle, community-scale renewable energy,
electronics recycling flows, and the economics of toxics
use reduction.
Transparency surrounding business practices is becoming
more and more of a hot button issue-and in the design and
manufacturing industries, that also extends to building
materials. What are the key ways you've seen the field
evolve in recent years? What are the next challenges? Which
design firms or organizations are going above and beyond
to push these issues?
At first we simply didn't know how much we didn't know.
Manufacturers just weren't focusing on how little they knew
about their product's contents and the hazard profile of those
contents. Raising awareness of these issues is the first big
victory of the transparency movement. But we can't stop there
- we need to push through to where we're making relevant
improvements. The design community still has little
understanding of how much effort it takes for manufacturers
to collect this information from a reticent supply chain.
We still don't know how to effectively use the information
we newly have access to.
One of the next big challenges is to use transparency
information effectively to make better decisions (in both
product design and selection). To do this well we also need to
improve the quality of information and massively streamline
transparency efforts. Harmonization work that enables better
flow of information is a key step so that creative efforts to
meet user needs don't get stymied by data concerns. We also
need to resolve questions about the impact of material
transparency on liability, and that's a challenge that the AIA
and others are actively working to address.

56

You worked with the Health Product Declaration™ to
develop a common platform for manufacturers to report
harmful ingredients and health hazards. How are those
kind of platforms changing the industry?
We're still at the early stages-thus far we've focused mainly
on getting the data inputs right. We have a big gap still in
terms of assessing quality of information and then
interpreting it in a useful and honest way for decision making.
The most obvious simplifications-like total percentage of
ingredients with hazard flags-can get us into trouble. At the
same time, overly-complex frameworks won't get used. While
much work remains, the only reason the industry is able to
move on to a new set of issues is because we broke through
initial barriers and are now sharing information.
You also advised the Business and Institutional Furniture
Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) on launching a revised
furniture sustainability standard, to replace the previous
standard, which had been in place since 2008.
I helped them jump-start the development process for the new
ANSI/BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability Standard. The next
version of e3 has moved into ANSI committee process. I respect
BIFMA tremendously, as a trade organization with leaders and
members who are truly committed to environmental and
health objectives, and to bringing along their whole industry
while at the same time creating a meaningful leadership
product standard out of e3/level. This is a delicate balance, and
hard to achieve-but at least they're truly wrestling with it.
Do you see this as relating to corporate ethics
and transparency?
There is something to be said for finding companies that
really do walk-the-talk, and then sticking by them. Easier said
than done, but we all have companies whose products we
default to - we need to re-assess that collection of firms,
and make sure we put our trust in companies that are making
sincere and substantive progress toward environmental and
health objectives. Voluntary standards and certifications
are a useful indicator, but are by no means the whole picture.
The transparency movement has helped open a deeper
dialogue between designers and manufacturers, which
I hope to see enable truly collaborative cross-sectoral efforts
on optimization.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016

Iida Perspective - Spring/summer 2016
Contents
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
Contributors
IIDA Industry Roundtable
Designer Dialogue: The B Corp Wave
Can Design Rock the Vote?
The Politics of Sport
Roundtable: Office Politics
Inspiration
Colophon
Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Iida Perspective - Spring/summer 2016
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 1
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 2
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 3
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 9
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - IIDA Industry Roundtable
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 12
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 16
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 18
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Designer Dialogue: The B Corp Wave
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 22
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 24
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Can Design Rock the Vote?
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 28
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 30
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - The Politics of Sport
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 38
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 40
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Roundtable: Office Politics
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 46
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 48
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 50
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Inspiration
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 53
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - 54
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Colophon
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2016 - Cover4
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