**GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy**

######## Sustainable Development and Society

**October 2004**

Above and inside back cover: Dan Rico, "Subway Drillers," GSA Fine Arts
Program.

Front cover: Terry Mangat, "Oklahoma Quilt," GSA Fine Arts Program.

Foreword and Acknowledgements

Albert Potter, "The Bridge," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Foreword and Acknowledgements**

The Office of Governmentwide Policy is pleased to issue Sustainable
Development and Society. From its inception, the Office of
Governmentwide Policy has shared information throughout the Federal
community on best practices concerning real property's entire lifecycle
-- from development, design and construction, through operations,
maintenance and eventual renewal, reuse, or disposal. The purpose of
this publication is to promote a fuller understanding of sustainable
development and how it helps us to make better real property investment
decisions.

This publication is part of GSA's continuing commitment to help make the
U.S. Government more sustainable. However, the opinions expressed in the
articles are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect
the official position of GSA. We recognize that many of the ideas
presented here are very complex and likely may involve further
investigation. We hope, through this and other efforts, to further
understanding and application of these important sustainability
principles.

This publication was produced and edited by Jonathan Herz, under the
leadership of Stan Kaczmarczyk, Deputy Associate Administrator for Real
Property. In addition, we would like to recognize the contributors from
the private sector, the Federal Government and the academic community,
without whose participation this publication would not have been
possible. We appreciate everyone's contribution in helping to create a
more sustainable government for the American People and, to that end,
thank the following individuals and organizations:

William McDonough, FAIA William McDonough + Partners

Gregory A. Norris, Ph.D. Sylvatica

Tom Lent The Healthy Buildings Network

Stephanie Luce University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Gail D. A. Vittori Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

Karla R. Armenti COES, LLC

Alison Kinn-Bennett U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Arthur B. Weissman Green Seal

Jonathan Herz, AIA U.S. General Services Administration

Steve Ashkin The Ashkin Group, LLC

Kathy Gerwig Kaiser Permanente

Blaine Robinson NISH

We also would like to thank Ethics in Action™ for their permission to
reprint "Ethics in Action," and the GSA Public Buildings Service Fine
Arts Program for the use of images of work from their outstanding
collection.

**G. Martin Wagner**

Associate Administrator

Office of Governmentwide Policy

U.S. General Services Administration

**Contents**

Hugh Pearce Botts, "Construction Workers," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Contents**

Foreword and Acknowledgments

By G. Martin Wagner

Preface

By William McDonough, FAIA

Executive Summary

True Life Cycle Costing

The Government and Life Cycle Cost Analysis

Socio-Economic Impacts in Product and Building Life Cycles

By Gregory A. Norris

Toxic Data Bias and the Challenges of

Using LCA In The Design Community

By Tom Lent

Toxics

The Government and Toxics

What Are Toxic Substances?

By Gail Vittori

Pollution Prevention and Worker Protection

By Karla Armenti

Making Informed Choices

The McDonough Braungart Design Protocol™

By William McDonough, FAIA

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing: The Progress and

Remaining Challenges of Multi-Attribute Decision Making

By Alison Kinn-Bennett

Creating a More Healthful, Less Toxic Built Environment

By Arthur B. Weissman

Observations and Recommendations

Case Studies and Strategies

Real Cleaning 77

By Stephen P. Ashkin

Environmental Stewardship at Kaiser Permanente 85

By Kathy Gerwig

A Collaboration to Go "Green" NISH/JWOD 91

By Blaine Robinson

Well-Being and the Service Worker 95

Greening of the Pentagon 97

Measuring and Reporting Sustainability Principles 99

Ethics in Action 100

LeRoy Flint, "Street Car Rush," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Preface**

Lillian Richter, "Children\'s Theatre," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Preface**

When Thomas Jefferson wrote of the human desire for life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness, the revolutionary in him was essentially
railing at the idea of remote tyranny.

Political tyranny was the stated object of Jefferson's scorn, but
tyranny of any kind---economic, physical, emotional, mental or
spiritual---is anathema to the full expression of human life. No one
wants to be tyrannized. If our goal is to bring forth a truly life
sustaining world, then it is imperative that we understand the tyrannies
of our time and the ways in which they undermine our hopes for a just,
prosperous and healthy future.

Doing so places human-centered concerns at the heart of the contemporary
conversation on "sustainability." Indeed, equity and fairness permeate
all aspects of sustainability. Questions of social equity beget economic
and ecological questions and the lenses of each can be used to examine
each other. Economic activity, for example, has a huge social impact,
which can be seen in the shifting fortunes of the public realm during
times of prosperity or poverty. Social well-being is also dramatically
affected by the health, or ill health, of ecosystems: Farmers with no
water, buildings that make their inhabitants sick, coal-fired power
plants releasing neurotoxins into the food chain---these are all forms
of remote tyranny that oppress the life and liberty of workers, families
and communities.

So how do we consider social factors when designing a building, a master
plan for a site, or a housing complex? What about the materials used in
building construction and the infrastructure that services the built
environment? To begin, we can consider social factors right from the
start, at the beginning of the design process. An architect designing a
new facility might ask: Are the materials and products I am going to
specify safe for all the people producing, installing and using them?
Are all the people associated with the building earning a living wage?
How will the facility affect the surrounding community?

But these questions alone will not ensure good, life-sustaining designs.
They can ensure that social factors will be considered a fundamental
element of the design process, but we need to remember to always
consider the social realm in relation to economic and environmental
concerns. To make any single area of concern a primary focus can distort
the design process to the detriment of the whole, as we see in designs
for energy-efficient buildings that pay scant attention to the impact of
materials on human health. When we consider the rich connectivity of
economy, ecology, and equity, however, we begin to notice the many ways
in which their interplay generates unforeseen possibilities. We discover
that we can create buildings that have a positive impact on the world\--
buildings that are not simply less polluting or less harmful to their
inhabitants, but which generate a wide spectrum of beneficial, even
regenerative effects.

This is not only possible, it's an effective, proven design strategy.
Its practitioners, while maintaining the need to be practical and
profitable in the conventional sense, are following Einstein's insight
that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it.
So rather than trying to be "less bad" or more efficient within the
framework of conventional design, they are innovating, enhancing the
positive impacts of human activity and leaving the world a better place
for having been here.

The impact of this shift is growing. In the realm of product design, we
see safe, healthful materials that can be perpetually recovered and
re-manufactured, effectively closing the loop on material flows. We see
buildings designed to generate more energy than they consume and
green-roofed manufacturing plants that create habitat, restore
landscapes, and cost-effectively filter storm water while also providing
safe, comfortable places to work. We see public facilities with
operations that approach the effectiveness of natural systems which also
offer delightful, refreshing places to meet, confer and learn. From this
perspective, one can ask, not "How can I meet the minimum standards for
building design?" but "How can I enhance the economic, ecological and
social health of those who construct, work in, and live near my
facility?"

Peter Drucker, the well-known management guru, has said that a manager's
job is to do something right (to be efficient), but an executive's job
is to do the right thing (to be effective). Once the executive defines
the right thing to do---create a safe, healthful product people want;
generate quality work by investing in people; develop policy that
generates more benefits rather than fewer detriments---it becomes the
manager's job to perform based on the strategy.

Executives, therefore, have a strategic leadership role. This book is
designed with that role in mind. Its purpose is to encourage the
development of meaningful strategies of change, to empower leaders to do
the right thing. Through detailed analysis, case studies, and informed
commentary it refines and expands the conventional understanding of
sustainable development, giving policy-makers the tools they need to
make intelligent choices today and chart an ethical, effective path into
the 21st century.

William McDonough

**William McDonough, FAIA**

William McDonough + Partners

William McDonough was recognized by Time magazine, in 1999, as a 'Hero
for the Planet.\' Mr. McDonough is the founding principal of William
McDonough + Partners, Architecture and Community Design, an
internationally recognized design firm practicing ecologically,
socially, and economically intelligent architecture and planning in the
U.S. and abroad.

Oscar Weissbuch, "Snow and Sun," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Executive Summary**

Theodore Wahl, "Midtown Tunnel Construction," GSA Fine Arts Program.

There are economic, environmental, and social issues associated with
every business decision we make.

Getting the best value for the American people means doing more than
just the lowest first cost. It means understanding, acknowledging, and
even celebrating the choices that the Government makes across the broad
spectrum of its programs and responsibilities.

Achieving the Government's business goals, like those of GSA, includes
the commitment to "carry out social, environmental, and other
responsibilities as a federal agency."2

Meeting this goal depends on making appropriate decisions. But, how can
we be certain that we are making the right investments and getting
credit for the right choices we make? We need to understand evolving
models and business approaches and recognize the complexity of the task
at hand. This publication discusses some of the challenges and explains
some basic concepts that can help us make the right business choices and
create a more healthful built environment.

The basic framework for decision-making exists in the form of life cycle
cost analysis. Through its Circular No. A-94, the US Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) applies benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness
analyses to evaluate Federal programs and determine whether agencies
have considered and properly dealt with all the elements. OMB's goal is
to promote efficient resource allocation through well-informed
decision-making by the Federal

Government. The cost-effectiveness analysis helps us to make the right
decisions by identifying the lowest costs, in present value terms, based
on life cycle cost analyses (LCC) of competing alternatives.

But, is the current application of LCC getting us to the right
investment decisions?

Traditionally, LCC has used the benefits and costs over the life of the
material, asset, or program (including decommissioning or disposal) to
evaluate investment decisions.

However, we are learning that ignoring the "upstream" costs, leading up
to our acquisition and "downstream" impacts after disposal of a product
or service can omit major costs and impacts. We need to look at new ways
of applying the traditional life cycle cost model if we are to make the
right investment decisions.

The concept of sustainability has broader applicability than the
environmental arena. In fact, like good governance, sustainability is
fast becoming a cornerstone of public sector management.1

J. W. Cameron, Auditor-General, State of Victoria, Australia1

**What we build provides visual testimony of our aspirations to future
generations\...**

**But, how we build them tells them who we are.**

**Expanding the Definition**

The simplest model for comprehensive consideration of life cycles is
that of sustainable development. Its very definition, meeting "the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs,"3 guarantees the longest view of direct and
possible side effects of our actions. To do this, we need to consider
that the true life cycle cost looks beyond the life of the product or
program.

Sustainable Development is widely recognized as an important business
tool. As GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner F. Joseph Moravec
stated, in an OGP-produced video entitled The Journey to Sustainability:
A Conversation with Ray Anderson sustainability "is fundamental and
indivisible from our core mission, which is to provide a superior
workplace for the federal worker and, at the same time, superior value
for the American taxpayer."

In the 2000 GSA Real Property Sustainable Development Guide, we
explained how today's successful businesses demonstrate an understanding
of the environmental implications of their business functions by
considering environmental issues as essential components of business
processes, rather than consequences of those processes.4 We wrote,
"Sustainable development means integrating the decision-making process
across your organization so that every decision is made with an eye to
the greatest long-term benefit."5 In 2000, our discussion of sustainable
development focused primarily on business decisions and the environment.

This publication, Sustainable Development and Society, aims to expand
that definition.

**Investment Decisions and Sustainable Development: Incorporating the
True Life Cycle Costs of Societal Factors**

By definition, the most economical choices are those that have the
lowest life cycle cost. In order to make those choices, we should
consider what really constitutes the "true" life cycle costs.

The complete sustainable development model, which considers "the
simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and
social equity,"6 is a useful framework for informing the business
decisions we all must make. The first two factors of the sustainable
development triad, economic concerns and environmental stewardship, are
well understood and are being applied effectively today---particularly
in the area of facilities design and construction. But more
understanding of the third factor, societal needs -- or social equity -
is needed if this framework is to be applied effectively. Without such
consideration, it is unlikely that we are making the most sustainable
--or economical - decisions.

**What is Social Equity?**

Social equity is a broad topic that includes both individual and
corporate responsibility. Common, in the longstanding discussion of
social equity, are the ideas of people's "wellbeing," and "quality of
life," "respect," - remembering the people and communities behind the
products and services we use.

Frederick Douglass, writing in 1881 for North American Review, said:
"Neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we
respect ourselves and we will never respect ourselves till we have the
means to live respectfully." The connection to sustainable development
is clear. As Stephanie Luce, at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst,
writes:

When policymakers talk about sustainable development, the emphasis is
often on factors such as the impact of new building on the environment,
the use of recyclable and renewable resources, and designing communities
in order to minimize excessive transportation requirements and other
sources of pollution. Often, the piece that gets ignored in the
conversation is labor: the labor that is required in the actual building
or production, as well as the working conditions of people who inhabit
the community in question.7 The World Business Council for Sustainable
Development repeats similar themes:

> As an engine for social progress, Corporate Social Responsibility
> (CSR) helps companies live up to their responsibilities as global
> citizens and local neighbors in a fast-changing world. We define CSR
> as "business' commitment to contribute to sustainable economic
> development, working with employees, their families, the local
> community, and society at large to improve their quality of life. We
> are convinced that a coherent CSR strategy, based on integrity, sound
> values, and a long-term approach offers clear business benefits to
> companies and contributes to the well-being of society.8

Factoring of societal issues such as respect, quality of life, and
well-being into the sustainable development equation generally has not
been addressed. Considering the complexity of the subject, this is not
unexpected. But as our understanding of sustainability develops,
opportunities exist for building more effective tools and strategies

**Tools and Strategies**

There are a growing number of useful tools and strategies to help us
make more sustainable business choices. Some product-rating tools, such
as the GREENGUARD Certification™, address single attributes such as
indoor air quality. Others, like Green Seal, also focus primarily on
environmental impacts, but are more comprehensive, covering each
life-cycle stage.

A comprehensive tool for evaluating the sustainability of products and
services in everyday business decisions is the McDonough Braungart
Design Protocol™ Fractal (discussed in William McDonough's article, "The
Ecology Of Sustainable Design," below), which enables us to model the
basic elements of sustainable design --

Economy, Ecology, and Equity---as well as the more complex interactions.
In this model, the basic questions posed at the corners of the fractal
are:

Ecology: Does the product return to a reusable or biodegradable state?

Economy: Can we make it and sell it at a profit?

Equity: Are employees treating one another with respect?

\[Illustration - The McDonough Braungart Design Protocol™ Fractal
Ecology TM Model for a Sustaining Design is a triangular fractal with
"Ecology," "Equity," and "Economy" in the three corners.\]

The secondary questions posed by this fractal model are the most useful
for identifying societal needs:

Economy - Equity: Are our employees earning a living wage?

Equity - Economy: Are men and women paid the same for the same work?

Equity - Ecology: Are employees and customers safe making and using our
products?

Ecology - Equity: Is our production safe for the local and global
communities?

Ecology - Economy: Are we making effective use of our resources?

Economy - Ecology: Are we being efficient with our use of resources?

# **A Starting Point**

To begin the conversation on sustainable development and society, this
publication will try to address the issue of "safety," and how it
affects real property owners and operators making investment decisions
regarding the design, construction, operation, maintenance and final
disposal of their real and personal property. The two relevant questions
are:

Are employees and customers safe making and using the products we
specify? And, are our tenants safe?

Are the production and use of those products safe for the local and
global communities?

In the 1980's, in response to high energy prices, we sealed our poorly
ventilated buildings without consideration of offgassing materials. This
resulted in costly health problems that are finally being addressed by
sustainable design, which integrates the issues of energy and indoor air
quality. Our publication, Innovative Workplace Strategies, discussed the
importance of creating healthy work environments using sustainable
principles, finding that providing healthy indoor environment can
support worker well-being. As we are creating healthy and productive
work environments for our tenants, we should also be concerned with the
living standards, environmental health, and occupational safety of those
who produce and install the products that go into our facilities, those
who maintain operate and maintain them, their communities, and society
as a whole.

The publication that follows will help you to answer these questions by
explaining two of the basic underlying concepts: present value lifecycle
cost analysis and assessment, and toxics. Tools to assist in making
informed choices are presented, along with strategies and case studies
for their application. However, the opinions expressed in the articles
are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the
official position of GSA. The Government is eliminating toxic materials
where they threaten existing communities and minimizing the use of
materials that generate toxics that threaten the environment.

Even as we are specifying the most up-to date and seemingly economical
products for construction, operation and maintenance, we should be aware
of their composition and methods of manufacture. Old formulations can be
reengineered to eliminate known, hazardous components. New components
can be selected in a way that avoids creating new hazards. Every
building product or process has an equity component associated with it.
Understanding of true life cycle costs, including economics,
environmental impacts, and equity, will enable Federal agencies to make
more enlightened decisions so that they "do not underinvest in new
projects or maintenance of existing assets that support high priority
agency missions and services to the public,"9 as required by the OMB.

Who We Are:

The Innovative Workplaces Division in the Office of Real Property,
Office of Governmentwide Policy, seeks to encourage development of
Federal workplaces that embrace innovative design, operation and
management by developing innovative strategies to mainstream integrated
design, sustainability, telework and performance measurement.

The Business Case for Sustainable Design in Federal Facilities US
Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)9

The Benefits of Sustainable Design and Construction

Economic Benefits

Lower (or equal) first costs

Decreased annual energy costs

Reduced annual water costs

Lower maintenance and repair costs

Better productivity and less absenteeism

Indirect economic benefits to the building owner, e.g., lower risk, ease
of siting, and improved image

Social Benefits

Health, comfort, and wellbeing of building occupants

Building safety and security

Community and societal benefits

Environmental Benefits

Lower air pollutant emissions

Reduced solid-waste generation

Economic benefits to society, e.g., decreased environmental damage
costs, lower infrastructure costs, and local economic growth

Decreased use of natural resources

Lower ecosystem impacts

Notes:

1\. "Beyond The Triple Bottom Line: Measuring and Reporting on
Sustainability," Occasional Paper, Victoria Auditor-General's Office,
Melbourne, Australia, June 2004.
[www.audit.vic.gov.au](http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/), ISBN 0 9752308 2
4.

2\. GSA's "Mission, Values, and Goals" are listed at
[www.gsa.gov](http://www.gsa.gov/).

3\. United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development, the
"Brundtland Commission."

4\. "GSA Real Property Sustainable Development Guide," 2000, p. 5.

5\. Ibid, p. 6.

6\. World Business Council for Sustainable Development website,
Definitions, [www.wbcsd.ch](http://www.wbcsd.ch/), 2000.

7\. Stephanie Luce, "Why Living Wages Are Part of Sustainable
Development," Unpublished paper, 2004.

8\. World Business Council for Sustainable Development website,
[www.wbcsd.ch](http://www.wbcsd.ch/). 2004.

9\. U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)
in collaboration with the Interagency Sustainability Working Group, 2003
(August): The

Business Case for Sustainable Design in Federal Facilities, page vi

10\. OMB Memorandum M-97-18, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to
A-11, Part 3, July 22, 1997.

**True Life Cycle Costing**

**The Government and Life Cycle Cost Analysis**

Seymour Fogel, "Security of the People," GSA Fine Arts Program.

How do we most effectively plan and carry out agency missions, fully
considering the external factors that could affect the achievement of
long-term goals? How does the Federal budgeting process support those
goals? The Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) "Principles of
Budgeting for Capital Asset Acquisitions," stresses that assets should
be justified primarily by benefit-cost analysis, including life cycle
costs, and that all costs are to be understood in advance. This approach
works, but only if we broaden our understanding of the key terms and are
aware of limitations in current interpretations.

Life Cycle Cost (LCC)

The traditional Life Cycle Cost (LCC) model, allows us to make business
decisions based on expenses over the life of the material, asset, or
program. OMB's Benefit-Cost Analysis allows us to select the best
alternative by quantifying benefits and costs in monetary terms,
wherever possible, with benefits linked to program goals and needs.
Benefits and costs are estimated over the full life cycle of each
alternative considered. Life cycle costs, as defined by OMB, include all
initial costs, plus the periodic or continuing costs of operation and
maintenance (including staffing costs), and any costs of decommissioning
or disposal. Life cycle cost analysis is more than simple payback.

Investment alternatives are evaluated using a net present value
criterion. Qualitative evaluation considerations --- such as regulatory
requirements, business strategy, or unquantifiable social benefits or
costs --- may override quantitative criteria in OMB's final ranking of
projects. Even when the monetary value of benefits or costs cannot be
measured, physical quantification may be feasible and should be pursued.
When the benefits of alternative investments are the same,
cost-effectiveness analysis may be used to rank alternatives. An
investment is most cost effective when it has the lowest discounted
present value of life-cycle costs for a given stream of annual benefits.
When benefits are different, the most cost effective investment is the
one that has the highest discounted net (of cost) benefit.1

In recent years, a major concern has arisen regarding the usual
application of life cycle cost analysis. By focusing only on, in the
case of goods and services, the life of a product, technology or system,
major costs and impacts are overlooked. Currently, decisions on whether
or not to invest in a green building are typically based only on first
costs plus, in some cases, a discounted value of lowered energy and
water bills.2

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) expands the
traditional, limited focus of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis, and allows
us to make business decisions based, not only on expenses over the life
of the material, asset, or program, but also on the environmental
impacts of our choices. LCA looks at environmental upstream (extraction,
production, transportation and construction) use, and downstream
(deconstruction and disposal) flows of a product or service. Global and
regional impacts of a particular activity are calculated; based on
energy consumption, waste generation and a series of other impact
categories (e.g., global warming, ozone depletion, and acidification),
and integrated through a consistent application of financial
discounting.3

There are a number of green building assessment tools for evaluating
building performance across a large range of green performance
criteria.4 Two are gaining acceptance by U.S. designers: Athena™, a
Canadian core and shell assessment tool,5 and BEES™, the U.S. National
Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) building materials
selection tool.6 European tools include LEGOE from Germany, an LCA
program that runs in the background with CAD software,7 and EcoQuantum
from Holland.8 NIST's BEES® (Building for Environmental and Economic
Sustainability) tool, is aimed at designers, builders, and product
manufacturers, includes environmental and economic performance data for
65 building products across a range of functional applications. Its
multiple-attributes approach avoids some of the pitfalls of selections
based on a single attribute (such as recycling). Its assessments are
based on Sustainable Development and Society a functional unit basis, so
that compared products are true substitutes for one another. It
discounts small amounts of negative materials in otherwise benign
products; and helps to avoid short-lived, low first-cost products that
are often not the cost-effective choice. Professional rigor is required
for correct application of LCC analyses. But, the evolving discipline of
LCA is even more complex. Tom Lent's article, below, discusses some of
the challenges that still remain in their use.

**Equity and Life Cycle Assessment**

Life Cycle Assessment is developing as a superior tool for incorporating
both economic and environmental impacts of our in our business
decisions. But where does the third leg of the sustainable triad --

Equity -- enter the analysis? In order to be sustainable, we need to
address; not just cost reduction and economic opportunity, and
environmental protection and resource conservation, but also improving
the quality of life for individuals, communities, and society as a
whole.

And the private sector is moving in this direction, too. According to
the CoreNet Global industry research and leadership initiative known as
Corporate Real Estate 2010, ninety percent of the Fortune 500 companies
will adopt "triple bottom line reporting," which means that companies
will be measured by social responsibility, environmental sustainability
and profit.9 Once we have made the most economical and environmentally
healthy choices, we need to know the impact of those "green" products on
the communities in which they were made, on those who fabricate and
install them, and on those who operate and maintain them.

Greg Norris's article, below, describes an approach for estimating the
health consequences of the development impacts of sustainable
consumption policies and the design of goods and services and how the
topic fits into sustainable development.

# OMB Definitions

Benefit-Cost Analysis---A systematic quantitative method of assessing
the desirability of government projects or policies when it is important
to take a long view of future effects and a broad view of possible side
effects. External Economy or Diseconomy---A direct effect, either
positive or negative, on someone's profit or welfare arising as a
byproduct of some other person's or firm's activity. Also referred to as
neighborhood or spillover effects, or externalities for short.

Life Cycle Cost---The overall estimated cost for a particular program
alternative over the time period corresponding to the life of the
program, including direct and indirect initial costs plus any periodic
or continuing costs of operation and maintenance. Net Present
Value---The difference between the discounted present value of benefits
and costs. Discounting factor translates expected benefits or costs in
any given future year into present value terms. . . . The discount
factor is equal to 1/(1 + i)t where i is the interest rate and t is the
number of years from the date of initiation for the program or policy
until the given future year.

Source: Circular No. A-94, Revised, (Transmittal Memo No. 64), October
29, 1992, Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost Analysis of
Federal Programs.

Notes:

1\. Circular No. A-94, Revised, (Transmittal Memo No. 64), October 29,
1992, Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost Analysis of Federal
Programs.

2\. The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings, A Report to
California's Sustainable Building Task Force, 2003 (October), Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA), p.8.

3\. Evaluation of LEED™ Using Life Cycle Assessment Methods, NIST GCR
02-836.

4\. For an extensive international listing of green building evaluation
tools, see <http://buildlca.rmit.edu.au/links.html>.

5\. Athena Version 2.0 Environmental Impact Estimator. 2003. Available
at: <http://www.athenasmi.ca/>.

6\. BEES Version 3.0 is available at
<http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/software/bees.htm>.

7\. In German at: [http://www.legoe.de](http://www.legoe.de/).

8\. In Dutch, from the Environmental Institute at the University of
Amsterdam (IVAM). An older version is available in English at:

<http://www.ivambv.uva.nl/uk/index.htm>.

9\. "Dramatic Changes Predicted for the Corporate Real Estate Function
in 2010," March 5, 2004, Global Press Releases, Press Release 38,
CoreNet Global.

**True Life Cycle Costing**

**Socio-Economic Impacts in Product and Building Life Cycles: Broadening
from Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Sustainable LCA**

Charles Ernest Pont," Coal Breaker," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Socio-Economic Impacts in Product and Building Life Cycles: Broadening
from Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Sustainable LCA**

**By Gregory A. Norris**

Gregory A. Norris, Ph.D., is President of Sylvatica, a company
specializing in Life Cycle Assessment, Industrial Ecology, Sustainable
Consumption, and Scenario Analysis, in North Berwick, Maine. Since 2000,
he has also been a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard School of Public
Health. He is also the Manager of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative
Life Cycle Inventory Program, LCA Science Advisor to the Athena
Sustainable Materials Institute, Ottawa, Canada, and Editor of the
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.
[www.sylvatica.com/www.newearth.info](http://www.sylvatica.com/www.newearth.info).

**Abstract**

Health is a primary human need; it is also a primary indicator of levels
of satisfaction of other basic human needs; and, it is an enabler of
development. Consumption behavior by one person or nation has impacts on
the economic activity and development of other persons in the same
nation and around the world. These economic development impacts have
been shown to have a major influence on health through two primary
pathways: reduction of income poverty, and increased public investments
in human development and basic infrastructure. This paper describes a
modified approach for estimating the health consequences of the
development impacts of sustainable consumption and the design of goods
and services. We call this modified approach to Life Cycle Analysis
(LCA), "Life Cycle Development (LCD)." LCD has many applications: it can
associate development impacts with ecolabeling, including relating trade
barriers to sustainable consumption and production; and integrate with
today's methods and databases for life cycle assessment. The paper
summarizes the ideas behind LCD, the basic method, initial results, and
future applications. We stress the importance of creating
interdisciplinary teams and projects to enrich and improve the method
through practical case study applications.

**Background**

The environmental movement of the late 20^th^ century was concerned
about energy depletion, water and air pollution, and mounting flows of
post-consumer packaging wastes. As part of the response, teams of
engineers and physicists in the US and Europe, began to analyze the
environmental and resource implications of increasingly popular
disposable, plastic packaging. This process resulted in a methodology
that in the 1990s came to be called environmental life cycle analysis
(LCA).

With the rise of "product policy" and "extended product (or producer)
responsibility" during the 1990s, LCA shifted from a little-known
"cottage industry" to become an internationally standardized analytical
tool in support of environmental management. LCA is now used by
thousands of companies, many governments, consumer and environmental
groups, and others to explain the "cradle-to grave" environmental
consequences of product-related decisions.

In 2002 the government leaders and representatives from industry and
civil society met at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg. One outcome was the "Plan of Implementation for Changing
Unsustainable Patterns of Consumption and Production," whose key
elements included a call to "Improve the products and services provided,
while reducing environmental and health impacts, using where
appropriate, science-based approaches, such as life-cycle analysis."
Thus LCA, originally developed to inform environmental policies at the
dawn of modern environmentalism, was called upon to assist the current
search for sustainable patterns of consumption and production. Recently
it has become common to refer to the "three pillars" of sustainable
development: economic growth, ecological balance, and social progress.1
Traditional LCA has addressed only the environmental pillar. However,
integrating economic modeling and a "what-if" perspective opens up the
potential to address more of the sustainability agenda, helping to avoid
"burden shifting" among the social, environmental, and economic
objectives, and potentially helping to build a broader base of support
for policy proposals by addressing the concerns of a broader group of
stakeholders.

There are several ways in which this expansion can take place. By
integrating economic models and databases, LCA can address impacts and
performance measures which are routinely tracked at the economic sectors
level rather than through engineering unit processes. An example of such
an impact group is occupational health and safety. A recent
investigation concluded that occupational health and safety issues and
incidents in product supply chains may be in the same order of magnitude
as the expected near-term human health consequences of supply chain
pollution releases.2 That paper also pointed to the clear need to
develop better reporting systems and databases on occupational impacts
in industrialized and non-industrialized economies. Secondly,
integrating this modeling approach allows us to acknowledge that product
supply chain activities bring benefits as well as burdens for the agenda
of sustainable development. Sustained increases in economic output among
developing countries are linked to major gains in human health through
the mechanisms of income-poverty reduction, increased investment in and
access to education, and increased public investments in the public
health infrastructure.3 Traditional LCA, focused strictly on pollution
impacts and blind to development benefits, is seen by some
sustainability analysts from developing countries as biased against
their primary concerns. By addressing the benefits of economic
development alongside the costs of pollution and resource degradation,
extensions of LCA have the potential to meet these concerns and to point
to truly sustainable solutions to the challenges of consumption and
production in the 21st century.

**Impacts of Development on Health**

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a quantitative and comparative method for
supporting the identification of environmentally preferable product
choices and design options. At the core of LCA is the concept of the
"functional unit": a quantitative measure of the amount of function
delivered by a product system or service. LCA as currently practiced
takes the delivery of a specified unit of function as a given, then
informs inquiries about the total system-wide environmental consequences
of delivering this function via alternative product systems; thereby
allowing consumers to select "greener" (that is, less environmentally
damaging) products, and producers to manufacture greener products.

LCA's primary advantage lies in its ability to help decision makers
avoid "burden shifting" from one environmental problem to another or
from one life cycle stage to another. The current impact scope of LCA is
restricted to three "endpoints" of concern: human health, ecosystems,
and natural resources, focusing on those human health impacts that arise
through environmental pathways from stressors in the product life cycle.

In addition to environmental pathways, there are also important
socio-economic pathways from product life cycles to human health
consequences. The 2002 European Health report underlines the relation
between socioeconomic factors and health. Poverty, in particular, is
recognized as "the most important single determinant of ill health." The
report notes the influence of gross domestic product (GDP) on health at
the national level, and explained: "While GDP \[has\] a significantly
positive correlation with life expectancy, this relationship works
mainly through the impact of GDP on (a) the incomes of the poor and (b)
public expenditure. . . "\[F\]aster economic growth with a strong
employment component \[leads to\] the enhanced economic prosperity being
used to expand relevant social services such as education, social
security and health care\... Unemployment as a cause of poverty and ill
health is a major issue in all European countries."4 The importance of
poverty in the global burden of disease is even clearer in the World
Health Organization's (WHO) 2002 report, that found, "In both Africa and
Asia, unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene, iron deficiency, and indoor
smoke from solid fuels are among the ten leading risks for disease\...
As with underweight, these risks continue to be some of the most
formidable enemies of health and allies of poverty."5 Health and
socioeconomic status influence each other in a vicious/virtuous cycle,
as increases in health promote economic development over time. Research
shows that countries with weakest conditions of health and education
find it much more difficult to achieve sustained growth than do those
with better conditions of health and education.6 Extending the
definition of LCA will enable it to capture the influence of product
life cycles on health through the pathways summarized by the WHO reports
mentioned above. When a consumer buys a product; or when a producer
manufactures the product, these decisions have consequences throughout
whole supply chains and life cycles---impacts that change the levels of
activity in processes throughout their supply chains and life cycles.
Activity levels are measured in both physical units (e.g., increased
production) and economic units (increased sales).

Pathways from product decisions to human health outcomes are charted in
Figure 1. The blue arrows indicate the pathways traditionally modeled in
LCA, from process activity levels to human health. These pathways start
with increased pollution emissions, leading to changed levels of human
exposure to hazardous substances. The final health impacts may be
measured strictly in terms of mortality impacts (e.g., life-years lost)
or may also include nonlethal impacts on health (impaired functioning,
chronic pain, and myriad other morbidities).

Green arrows indicate the new pathways, addressed in this paper. It
shows how changed levels of economic activity throughout the supply
chain lead to the two impacts on socioeconomic pathways to health. For
example, increased output will increase employment and/or wages, as well
as tax receipts by the government. These in turn will reduce income
poverty, and thereby increase individuals' health status if the wage and
employment benefits reach people who are otherwise in poor socioeconomic
status. Likewise, increased tax receipts by the government can improve
health if the increased receipts cause an increase in health-promoting
public investments.

Figure 1 also includes a "feedback loop" from health status to levels of
economic and productive activity. Impacts of health on economic growth
over time are not typically modeled in LCA, and they are ignored in this
paper as well. We also ignore the important influence that socioeconomic
status has on morbidity, focusing instead on the long-term influence of
the green pathways on the well-known relationship between life
expectancy and per capita gross national product (GDP). Long-term
benefits of an incremental increase in GDP vary significantly by
country. In general, in countries below \$5,000 per capita GNP, there is
a very steep influence of economic growth on life expectancy; while
above \$5,000 per capita, the influence becomes much slighter.

**Application**

Step 1: Including Economic Activity Levels in LCA The first step is to
include an accounting of economic activity stimulated in different
countries, or sets of countries, grouped by current GNP per capita,
using multinational input/output LCA models. Process LCA databases can
be augmented with economic data as well. The only need is to obtain and
record, for each process, the economic value of the process output. This
can be done when gathering and using new and existing LCI database data
on prices.

Figure 1: Pathways from product decisions to human health outcomes

Selection, or re-design of products and processes (arrow to)

-   Changed Levels of activity (product output, economic output) in
    supply chains, from resources extraction through product end-of-life
    (three arrows -- 1 primary, 2 secondary)

-   (primary arrow to) Changed levels of pollution emissions

-   (arrow to) Changed exposures to pollutants

-   (arrow to) Changed health status of individuals (three arrows -- 2
    primary, one secondary)

-   (1^st^ primary arrow to) Changed life expectancy (mortality rates)

-   (2^nd^ primary arrow to) Changed rates of various health impairments
    (morbidities) secondary arrow back to Changed Levels of activity
    (product output, economic output) in supply chains, from resources
    extraction through product end-of-life

-   (Secondary arrow back to) Changed Levels of activity (product
    output, economic output) in supply chains, from resources extraction
    through product end-of-life

-   (1^st^ secondary arrow) Changed levels of employment and wages

-   (Arrow to) Reductions in income poverty

-   (Arrow to) Changed health status of individuals

-   (2^nd^ secondary arrow) Changed amounts of taxes paid

-   (Arrow to) Increased public sector expenditures

-   (Arrow to) Changed health status of individuals

**Step 2: Including Socio-economic**

**Pathways in LCIA**

Step 1 shows how life cycle inventory analysis can be augmented to
include economic output data in the supply chain of a product. The next
step is to develop a model capturing the relationship between life
expectancy and per capita GDP.7 We arrive at an estimate for the number
of life years saved due to an increase in per capita GDP through an
equation that expresses a change in life years as a function of a change
in total economic output, or GDP, for a given country. "Characterization
factors" can be used together with the economic inventory data to
compute lifeyears of impact through the "green arrow" socio-economic
pathways of Figure 1. These life-years of health benefit can be compared
with the pollution-related life years of damage to compute a more
complete estimate of the health consequences of product life cycles.

**Illustrative Application**

Applying this method, we can estimate the health consequences of
pollution in the total (global) supply chain and compare them with the
health consequences of increased economic activity. LCA, as previously
noted, provides information about impacts on at least three separate
areas of concern: human health, ecosystem health, and resources. Our
present focus on the human health endpoint reflects the fact that we are
adding a new impact pathway to this endpoint, and is not meant to imply
that human health is the only important endpoint in LCA. The model can
show the regional distribution of the economic activity in the supply
chain of a product, and most importantly, the impacts upon health, as we
show in our study of health consequences of pollution in the global
supply chain of Dutch electricity. Comparing these impacts with the
health consequences of increased economic activity, we found that
approximately two-thirds of the total economic activity stimulated by
the entire supply chain occurs within the Netherlands; 20% occurs in
other OECD countries, and less than 10% reaches non-OECD countries.
Although the fraction of supply chain economic activity reaching
developing countries is small in this example, we found that the
fraction of supply chain development impacts upon health was expected to
be very large. The expected distribution of health impacts of pollution
is not too dissimilar from the expected distribution of economic
activity. Our modeling approach captures the different mix of processes
and emission factors for the different regions as contained in the life
cycle inventory database of processes.

Figure 2 reports both the health damages due to pollution releases and
the health benefits from the increased economic activity in the supply
chain of Dutch electricity. The colored bars represent damages, while
the white bars represent benefits. Both are plotted as positive impacts
numerically because we are using a logarithmic scale; this in turn is
due to the fact that the health benefits in the non-OECD region of the
world dwarf the health benefit and cost impacts in the remaining
regions.

**Discussion about Applying the Method8**

The preceding section demonstrated that it is both practical and
important for LCA to begin to include socio-economic pathways to health.
Here we discuss how the method might be applied in actual practice, by
stakeholders and decision-makers. First, we make the following
observations about the methodology and its initial results:

The method is applicable with today's LCAs, as long as the user can
estimate total economic output induced per country in the supply chain
of each product alternative. Economic output can be used to compute
national-level estimates, summed over the supply chain, to estimate
total development based health benefits in a product's life cycle.

Supply chain economic estimates require that life cycle inventory (LCI)
databases or models report (or estimate) the location of processes; they
also require that LCI databases contain estimates of the total economic
value of process outputs.

The modeling is extremely provisional, preliminary, and incomplete (see
next section), and must be further developed by an interdisciplinary
effort. We now sketch some of the ways that improved and refined
versions of this method might be used.

**Conventional LCA**

Once an improved, peer-reviewed, set of factors has been developed by an
interdisciplinary effort, the factors could be employed directly within
existing methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment within conventional
LCA software. Anyone performing an LCA using such tools will be able to
estimate the development-based health impacts of product life cycles,
along with the pollution-based impacts. Since the method, as now
designed, takes into account differences in expected impact based on the
national location of the economic activity, the same table of factors
could be integrated into LCIA methods from all regions of the world.

The new modeling capability called for by this method would be the
ability of users to easily "tag" processes within supply chain models as
being located in a given region or country. LCA modelers often combine
new primary LCI data with links to existing databases. A user might
gather information about the location of 3^rd^ tier suppliers, without
gathering detailed process inventory data for these suppliers. They
would then use existing process data for these suppliers, but would want
to modify the specified locations of these processes and their economic
output.

Figure 2: Geographic distribution of pollution health losses and
development-base health gains in the supply chain of \$1M of Dutch
electricity

Bar chart -- Vertical Measure: Disability-adjusted life-years gained or
lost

Netherlands -- Pollution Health losses approx. 1.25, Socio-economic
health gains 1.0

Non-NL OECD -- Pollution Health losses approx. 0.9, Socio-economic
health gains approx. 0.8

Non-OECD -- Pollution Health losses approx. 0.4, Socio-economic health
gains 1000.1

**Ecolabels**

Once the impact assessment method has been advanced and peer reviewed,
and there is sufficient accumulation of experience and data to support
its use within LCA, the development-based impacts of product life cycles
on health can be included in the LCA results that are used to support
ecolabels. This could be true for both the so-called "type 2" as well as
"type 3" (Environmental Product Declaration) labels.

Including development-based impacts into LCA may significantly improve
the acceptance of ecolabeling and of life cycle based approaches to
sustainable consumption and production among the industrializing and
developing countries. If ecolabels and life cycle methods begin to
address more fully the impacts of development, both positive and
negative, then this suspicion and resistance may lessen.

More to the point, consumers and policy makers presumably want ecolabels
to provide guidance on how purchasing decisions can make the world a
better place. Including major health consequences from product supply
chains in ecolabels and LCA results will provide consumers and decision
makers with a more complete basis for action and choice. This will make
them more effective at using their consumption power to help bring about
the desired sustainable development outcomes.

**Next Steps in Advancing the Method**

While the factors reported our study might be used in some initial case
studies, a more proper use of them is as a stimulant to deeper,
multi-disciplinary research directed at improving the modeling and the
resulting factors. This follow-on research will not only change the
values in the table. It may even call into question the qualitative
conclusions that appear to be indicated by this first round of
investigation:

Long-term socio-economic pathways from product life cycles through
economic development to health benefits may dwarf the health damages
from environmentally mediated pollution in developing countries for some
product life cycles and supply chains; and

Long-term socio-economically-induced health gains from product life
cycles in developing countries may dominate the overall global health
consequences of product life cycles, at least for some product life
cycles and supply chains. There are several classes of limitation to our
first-round research, which must all be addressed before we are able to
develop confidence in these tentative conclusions.

**Specific Social Impacts**

Economic development does not occur in a vacuum. The construction and
operation of a major factory in most locations on earth in
industrialized countries and especially in developing countries - will
have significant impacts on lifestyles, social dynamics, and even the
culture of the affected region. The preliminary results presented
earlier indicate that the average, long-term influences of
socio-economic development on health can be at least as powerful as the
pollution consequences of the related processes. Combine this finding
with the reality that there are profound differences in the social
influences of new economic output per year from one factor and location
to another, and this study argues for extreme caution, and for the use
of as much case-specific information as possible when actually
performing socioeconomic impact evaluations within LCA. In summary, the
preliminary investigations reported in this chapter indicate that LCA's
current blind spot regarding socioeconomic pathways to health is neither
necessary nor advisable. It is not necessary because a practical
prototype solution has been successfully demonstrated and applied. It is
not advisable, because preliminary results from this prototype method
indicate that the influence of these pathways can be highly significant.
At the same time, the powerful influence these pathways means that they
should be modeled with responsible care within LCA, that methods for
doing so should be developed and widely peer reviewed by
interdisciplinary teams, and that rigorous case studies should be
performed as part of this development and evaluation process.

**Notes:**

1\. World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2003.
<http://www.wbcsd.ch/aboutus/index.htm>.

2\. P. Hofstetter and G. Norris, 2003: Why and How Should We Assess
Occupational Health Impacts in Integrated Product Policy?" Environmental
Science and

Technology 37(10):2025--35

3\. World Bank, 2002: World Development 2000-2001. Washington, DC: World
Bank.

4\. WHO Europe, 2002. European Health Report 2002 (Copenhagen).

5\. WHO 2002: World Health 2002 (Geneva: World Health Organization), pp.
xiv--xv.

6\. WHO, Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, 2001. Macroeconomics
and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development (Geneva: World
Health

Organization).

7\. Details of this derivation are provided in Gregory Norris,
Addressing the Health Impacts of Economic Development in Product Life
Cycle Assessment, Journal of

Industrial Ecology, 2004 (forthcoming).

8\. The method of accounting for the development impacts of product
supply chains on health is straightforward and practical in the present,
and the magnitude of these impacts appears likely to be important enough
to warrant serious attention within LCA. 2. Any near-term applications
of the present method and the factors should be done in the spirit of
exploratory research, with the intent to generate further discussion,
examination, and refinement of the method, rather than generating
results that are then treated as "truth."

Frank Vanacore, "Scrap Iron," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**True Life Cycle Costing**

**Toxic Data Bias and the Challenges of**

**Using LCA in the Design Community**

Howard Norton Cook, "Steel Industry (detail)," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Toxic Data Bias and the Challenges of Using LCA in the Design
Community**

**By Tom Lent**

Tom Lent is healthcare project coordinator for the Healthy Building
Network, a national network of building and design professionals and
environmental health specialists and activists working together to
advance the use of ecologically superior building materials.

**Overview**

Awareness is growing in the design community of the need to account for
impacts, throughout the life cycle, when assessing the environmental
characteristics of materials. Until recently, Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) tools were inaccessible to most, due to their complexity and use
of expensive, proprietary databases. Now, with the development of
software tools such as BEES 3.0®, relatively simple, affordable tools
are becoming available to the design community. This is a good first
step. However, challenges still remain in their use.

This paper outlines some important inherent structural constraints on
the ability of LCA to address a range of toxic chemicals and their
related human health issues. It particularly focuses on toxicity hazards
that are known by science to be serious environmental health problems
but remain poorly quantified or otherwise not readily managed in an LCA
framework. It explores how these LCA constraints can guide the user away
from a good understanding of the full environmental health impacts and
can lead to materials decisions that do not actually reflect the user's
environmental goals. It also suggests approaches to overcome these
problems before LCA tools are used broadly by the design community or
incorporated into green building tools such as LEED®. The goal is to
ensure that these tools serve the design community reliably and assure
that their use does not undermine the environmental and health goals
they seek to promote.

**LCA: Power of the Double-Edged Sword**

Quantitative LCA tools have progressed tremendously and have become an
effective means for systematic internal industrial design analysis. When
carried out by an individual manufacturer using datasets they understand
and manage, these analyses can provide excellent insight into the
impacts of alternative design pathways and can be powerful tools for
identifying environmental impacts and selecting optimal design
directions. The application of these tools to material selection by the
design community, however, presents significant challenges. The power of
the LCA tool lies in the wide-ranging scope of its analysis,
encompassing a large number of factors through which a building material
can impact the environment throughout its life cycle. At this stage of
development, however, this scope can be a double-edged sword.
Descriptions of LCA typically imply that the analysis is complete,
describing LCA as the analysis of the total environmental impact of a
product through every step of its life.1 While LCA designers are
striving mightily to improve the accuracy of their estimates and
approximations, LCAs can never live up to the expectation set by such
descriptions, of total analysis. By definition, LCAs must always have
boundaries limiting the impacts they attempt to model and are highly
dependent upon industry and science to provide useful data to drive the
models. If users don't understand these limitations, they may assume
that LCA tools are providing a comprehensive, unbiased and final
analysis of all of the environmental impacts resulting from production,
use and disposal of a material---thereby creating a false sense of
security and ending the need to ask further critical questions. In
reality, serious data and analysis limitations inherent in current tools
can lead them to strong but hidden biases for materials with major
environmental health impacts that are as yet inadequately quantified or
where acceptable health and safety threshold limits are in flux and
dispute. Persistent, bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemical releases are
one key area that is highly problematic to accurately represent in a
quantitative assessment.

**Reversals through uncertainty: Two Case Studies**

A case study will demonstrate how the effects of data uncertainty can
dramatically affect LCA results. In fact, results can be totally
reversed.

Eutrophication (excess nutrient runoff) vs. Ecological toxicity One
established LCA tool is the BEES® (Building for Environmental and
Economic Sustainability) model, developed by the Building and Fire
Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology. It considers over 400 material and energy flows, from raw
material extraction through product disposal, to evaluate the
environmental and economic performance of building products. BEES
evaluates 12 environmental impacts: global warming, acidification,
eutrophication2, fossil fuel depletion, indoor air quality, habitat
alteration, criteria air pollutants, water intake, ozone depletion,
smog, human health, and ecological toxicity. The tool is based on
consensus standards and designed to be practical, flexible, and
transparent.

BEES allows for the fact that all environmental impacts are not of equal
import, and provides the option of using one of two different weighting
schemes developed by a US EPA Scientific Advisory Board or Harvard
University, or a user defined scheme. As interpreted in BEES, the US EPA
weighting scheme suggests that global warming impacts are more than
three times as important as ozone depletion impacts.3 Using this
approach, the BEES model appears to rate vinyl composition tile (VCT) as
much more environmentally sound than linoleum. The Vinyl Institute
concludes that:

The results show VCT ranks 20 to 30 percent higher in environmental
performance and 90 to 170 percent higher in economic performance.
Criteria for the rating include indoor air quality, solid waste, acid
rain, global warming and natural resource depletion. The BEES model for
evaluating building products has been adopted as an official tool of the
U.S. Green Building Council, and is used by architects, builders,
contractors and other specifiers who want to select environmentally
friendly products.4 Applying the US EPA weighting criteria to the
analysis reduces the spread between the two flooring types - but not
enough to change the story. Linoleum still appears to have more than
twice the environmental impact of VCT (0.333 for linoleum vs. 0.153 for
VCT). For the designer with thousands of materials to specify, this
could be the end of the story.

A deeper look at the numbers within the BEES model, however, reveals a
different story. Comparing each BEES impact category for the two
floorings reveals that VCT ranks lower than linoleum in every category
except eutrophication (with impact factors from 1.4 to 8 times higher).
In this analysis, the eutrophication impact for linoleum is calculated
to outweigh all other categories combined. Eutrophication is indeed a
significant environmental problem, affecting aquatic life. The BEES
results, however, raise two important questions: Does linoleum's
contribution to eutrophication really outweigh the human health issues
raised by the polyvinyl chloride life cycle and are LCA tools even
capable of actually making this comparison yet?

A look at one of the health impact concerns at issue in the life cycle
of polyvinyl chloride will help make clear the challenges faced by LCAs
in properly evaluating the health impacts of materials. Dioxins are an
unavoidable byproduct of the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
feedstock (the raw materials) used to manufacture VCT, and of the
combustion of PVC products.5 The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
has concluded that, based on all available information, dioxins are
potent animal toxicants with potential to produce a broad spectrum of
adverse effects in humans. These include, for example, adverse effects
upon reproduction and development; suppression of the immune system;
chloracne (a severe acne-like condition); and cancer.6 For an LCA to
accurately capture and evaluate the health impacts of dioxin releases
from the life cycle of VCT, LCA planners must know how much dioxin is
emitted by an average pound of PVC though its life cycle. Science is
still very early in its efforts to quantify dioxin flows in the
environment. A tremendous volume of projected dioxin flows from various
sources is known to exist, but has not yet been quantified reliably
enough to be included in the official EPA assessment. There are many
known sources, like incinerators, smelters, chlorine-based chemicals
manufacture, and others; but additional sources, like landfill fires,
may also contribute significant quantities of dioxin per year.7 The
human health factor rating in BEES for dioxin is more than 10,000 times
higher than the next highest chemical (diethanolamine) and a million or
more times greater than the remainder.8 A small difference in estimates
of dioxin flows can have a massive impact on the outcomes. Increasing
the dioxin flow factor in BEES for VCT only by a factor of three would
be sufficient to totally eliminate the environmental advantage that BEES
indicates for VCT over linoleum in the initial comparison.

There are similar data concerns (except in the opposite direction) on
the linoleum side about whether the massive eutrophication impact that
BEES displays is correct. Resolution of these possible discrepancies
could also reverse the results of the BEES analysis in linoleum's
favor.9 This is not meant to dismiss LCAs as a useful tool for the
designer. This case study, however, also demonstrates that any use of
LCAs as a tool to compare materials must be informed by knowledge of
where flows are poorly characterized or totally missing and the
potential impact on the LCA of those flows. Failing to do this ensures
that, at least in some cases, the LCA comparison will serve to mask the
worst environmental impacts, rather than clarify the tradeoffs and
relative merits of the materials. In so doing, uninformed LCA use can be
expected to lead to environmentally detrimental material choices.

**More Missing Data: Maintenance Challenges**

Dioxins are not the only significant flows unmeasured by LCAs. Another
example is the emissions from flooring materials over the lifetime of
the installation. Most LCAs base their flow assumptions about flooring
emissions on the total of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted
during the first 72 hours after installation. The theory of using this
as a proxy for all emissions from the floor is that VOC emissions from
flooring products rapidly decline after installation and become
insignificant so only the initial emissions are meaningful. This
approach misses several other significant flows from installation that
may far exceed the impact of the 72-hour post installation VOC
emissions, including both maintenance flows, such as VOCs and sewage
loads from wax and strip cycles and semi-volatile organic compound
(SVOC) emissions such as phthalates from PVC10, that occur over a much
longer time frame than the VOCs.

The emissions from cleaning, stripping and waxing maintenance activities
are likely to be orders of magnitude higher than the 72-hour
post-installation VOC emissions. A recent LCA study found that the
amount of VOCs emitted from a single waxing of a floor is comparable to
the amount of VOCs emitted from the flooring itself over its entire
life.11 Two materials with different maintenance requirements are likely
to have vastly different lifetime VOC emissions that are likely to
dramatically alter the relative health impact balance between the
materials.

Accurately including the maintenance flows and properly weighting the
impact of the exposures in an LCA intended for universal use is very
difficult, as maintenance procedures and exposures vary widely from
building to building. Rates of maintenance will vary widely depending
upon traffic, preferences, and budgets. Staff and patients in a
healthcare facility that is fully operational 24/7 are going to have far
higher exposure to cleaning chemicals than occupants of a 9 to 5 office
building where maintenance can be scheduled for evenings and weekends
when occupancy is low. To account for this, LCA programs will need to
gather input from the user on building occupancies and maintenance
procedures and build that in to the model. Lacking that, users must be
made aware that not only are the maintenance-related flows excluded, but
that the impact of those flows could radically impact the indoor air
quality results for floorings and other maintained surfaces. Otherwise,
once again, the results of a comparative analysis between two materials
with substantially different maintenance regimes will sometimes falsify
the true comparative environmental impact.

**Other Considerations**

Currently, most LCAs are completely based upon relative weightings.
Every impact is assumed to have a value that can be exchanged against
another impact. For example, using the EPA weighting, two materials will
be scored about equally in an LCA if one has three times the indoor air
quality impact but only half the global warming impact of the competing
material. Real-world materials selection, however, doesn't work that
way. Specifiers work with a variety of weightings, limits and absolutes.
Minimum standard criteria are established by building codes for concerns
such as flame spread. The building code is absolute on this issue, not
allowing more flame spread in exchange for more of another value like
structural strength. Owner values may also determine absolute criteria
ranging from color and pattern to life expectancy and maintenance
requirements. Owners may also place a combination of criteria on other
factors, such as cost. These might include both absolute criteria limit
(must cost no more than \$X/yd) and a weighting (below that maximum
price a cheaper product may outweigh another value like ease of
maintenance). Environmental impact analyses can and should be similarly
subject to more than just comparative weighting. Just as fire safety
provided a strong rationale for setting absolute standards for flame
spread and screening out inappropriate materials, other environmental
and human health and safety concerns establish a strong rationale for
setting standards and screens on the chemical flows resulting from
materials selection.

In some cases the rationale may be for a not-to-exceed chemical
standard, as in the case of the California 1350 materials emissions
standards. Previous emissions standards took more of a fungible,
weightings approach in which any VOC emissions were allowable as long as
the total of all VOCs did not exceed a specified limit. The 1350 test,
on the other hand, recognizes that an increasing number of VOCs have a
known limit beyond which chronic illness effects on humans have been
identified, and sets an absolute limit on the permissible emissions of
each individual compound.12

An LCA tool that alerted the user if established VOC limits would ever
be exceeded would be much more useful than one that simply measures
total VOCs and weighs that against all other impacts and hence buries
the issue behind a composite rating number. Even 1350 should not be the
endpoint for inclusion of lifetime emission issues. The 1350 test
addresses VOCs released in the first few months of a product's life but
not the SVOCs referred to earlier. Until and unless adequate testing and
modeling protocols can be established to inform safe levels, a
precautionary approach will need to be taken to address phthalates,
brominated flame-retardants, and other SVOCs.

In other cases, chemicals have been clearly determined to be
sufficiently harmful to warrant outright elimination. CFCs and PCBs have
been banned for use in the United States13 and hence any material that
results in their use or production should be identified and disallowed
in an LCA. Similarly the United States has committed in an international
treaty "to reduce and/or eliminate the production, use, and/or release
of persistent organic pollutants" (POPs), including through material
substitution, to eliminate use of those materials that contribute to the
formation of POPs in any stage of their lifecycle.14 Useful LCAs would
support implementation of these agreements with warning flags, if not
outright screens, on materials that contribute to POPs formation.

**Accommodating Data realities: Suggestions for LCA enhancements**

To avoid the pitfalls identified here, LCA tools should consider
incorporating a number of enhancements:

Data uncertainties: Identify the significant uncertainties and
quantification controversies in the data and flag these uncertainties
numerically and graphically to show the end-user the effect they may
have on the end results through error bars and similar tools.

Use phase flows: Obtain user inputs on use patterns, preferences and
maintenance procedures and build that in to the models to allow modeling
of use-and-maintenance related flows.

**Chemical restrictions and screens:**

Build absolute chemical and maximum concentration level screening into
the model to allow application of legal limits, health research based
standards, international treaty obligations and precautionary
specifications to the environmental flows. Prime chemicals for absolute
limits are persistent bioaccumulative toxics and others whose
manufacture, use or disposal results in generation or release of
carcinogens (cancer causing chemicals), teratogens (chemicals inducing
birth defects in the developing fetus), reproductive toxicants
(chemicals that damage the functions of the reproductive system),
developmental toxicants (chemicals that stop or misdirect human
development), or endocrine disruptors (chemicals that disturb the
operation of the endocrine system, affecting development and other key
bodily functions). This process will need to be one that continues to be
updated for a long time with ample use of precautionary principles for
protective insurance as we await testing on thousands of uncharacterized
chemicals.15

**Conclusion**

LCAs are truly a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they have the
potential to provide the design community with highly important
information in the search for the most environmentally friendly and
healthy materials. On the other hand, the current reality is that they
provide just one portion of the picture in any comparative analysis of
materials. LCAs, such as BEES, do not generally incorporate information
into their analyses about environmental health issues that are not yet
well quantified, are affected by user patterns, are precautionary or are
subject to maximum limits or absolute restrictions. When portrayed as
total analyses of environmental flows, LCAs run the danger of lulling
the design professional user into thinking that the provided material
comparison is complete and does not require any additional analysis.
Even with these enhancements, it remains critically important for the
user to understand the limitations of quantitative analysis in the face
of scientific uncertainty.

Put simply, this means that science understands the existence and
importance of many significant environmental health hazards---like
dioxin emissions---for which it can not yet provide reliable numbers to
plug into LCA type analyses. The lack of those numbers means that these
issues do not show up in a quantity-based LCA as currently designed. The
health impacts, however, do not go away and we can ill afford to ignore
them. For many of these issues, preemptive precautionary action to limit
or exclude use of materials involving certain targeted chemicals is the
wiser, more responsible and -- considering potential liability issues -
sometimes more economically conservative course than waiting for certain
scientific quantification.

This paper is adapted from a presentation by Tom Lent at GreenBuild
2004, in Pittsburgh PA.

Notes:

1\. Typical description states: "LCA analyzes the total environmental
impact of all materials and energy flows, either as input or output,
over the life of a product from raw material to end-of-life disposal or
rebirth as a new product." Montgomery M, 2003 (Aug 20): Life Cycle
Assessment Tools, Architecture Week E2.1)

2\. Eutrophication is the addition of mineral nutrients to the soil or
water---in this case primarily from agricultural practices used to raise
the flax seed---which can increase algae growth, which in turn can lead
to lack of oxygen, impacting aquatic life.

3\. Lippiatt B, 2002 (October): BEES 3.0 Technical Manual and User Guide
(NISTIR 6916) (Gaithersburg, MD: NIST), p. 27.

4\. Vinyl Institute, 1998 (December): Environmental Attributes of Vinyl:
Vinyl Flooring Comes First in Life-cycle Assessment. EnVIronmental
Briefs.

<http://www.vinylinfo.org/environment/briefs_12_98.html>.

5\. Thornton J PhD, 2002: Environmental Impacts of Polyvinyl Chloride
Building Materials (Washington DC: Healthy Building Network), p. 28.

6\. US EPA, Office of Research and Development, 2001 (May 25):
Information Sheet 1, Dioxin: Summary of the Dioxin Reassessment Science.

7\. US EPA 2001 (March): 2001 Database of Sources of Environmental
Releases of Dioxin like Compounds in the US (EPA/600/C-01/012), pp.
1-37, 1-38, 6-9.

8\. Lippiatt, BEES 3.0.

9\. Analysts from linoleum manufacturer Forbo have done their own
internal LCA's and assert that the factor for eutrophication from
linoleum used in BEES is two orders of magnitude (100X) too high and
suspect a misunderstanding of functional units may have contributed to
the error. If the current BEES eutrophication category value (.0454) is
reduced by 99%, the total environmental impact of linoleum drops from
.0521 to .0071, flipping the results. Linoleum ends up beating VCT with
only 55% of the measured environmental impact---even before having
accounted for all of VCT's dioxin-related flows.

10\. Lundgren B et al., 2002: Small Particles Containing Phthalic Esters
in the Indoor Environment---A Pilot Study, Proceedings: Indoor Air 2002,
p. 153.

11\. Norris G et al., 2003: Indoor Exposure in Life Cycle Assessment: A
Flooring Case Study (life cycle assessment. Unpublished paper, Harvard
School of Public

Health, quoted in Floorcoverings: Including Maintenance in the Equation,
Environmental Building News 12, no. 5: 12.

12\. Lent T, 2003: Review of the California 1350 Specification and
Indoor Air Quality (Washington DC: Health Building Network).

13\. US EPA, 2000: Ozone Depletion Rules & Regulations: The Accelerated
Phaseout of Class I Ozone-Depleting Substances (Washington DC: US EPA);
US EPA,

1979 (Apr 19): EPA Bans PCB Manufacture, Phases Out Uses (press
release).

14\. US EPA, 2001: Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs); UNEP, 2000:
Persistent Organic Pollutants (United Nations Environment Programme).

15\. The task of identifying chemical hazards and screening out
materials choices for environmental and human health and safety will be
an ongoing one. Complete basic publicly available toxicity information
(the Screening Information Data Set, or SIDS) is available for less than
10% of the roughly 2,800 high-production-volume chemicals (those
produced in volumes over one million pounds per year). No toxicity
information at all is available for more than 40%. Even less is known
about the tens of thousands more chemicals that are produced in smaller
volumes or for any of these chemicals in combination with each other. US
EPA, Pollution Prevention and Toxics Division, 1999 (March): Chemical
Right to Know---Frequently Asked Questions (EPA 745-F-98-002f); Lowell
Center for Sustainable Production, 2003:

Integrated Chemical Policy (Lowell, Mass.: University of
Massachusetts--Lowell), 2.

Isadore Possoff, "Pennsylvania Miner with Hardhat & Pick," GSA Fine Arts
Program.

**Toxics**

**The Government and Toxics**

Cover, Adeline Goessling, The Housekeepers Reference Book (Springfield,
MA, Phelps Publishing Company, 1910).

**The Government and Toxics**

> **To Mend Kettles**
>
> "Holes in iron kettles may be stopped by driving in plugs of lead and
> heading them down well on both sides of the iron. So long as water is
> in the kettle, the lead will not melt."
>
> Adeline Goessling, The Housekeepers Reference Book (Springfield,
> Mass.: Phelps Publishing Company, 1910).

**Introduction1**

The idea of handling hazardous materials carefully and disposing of them
properly sounds like common sense today, but it is markedly at odds with
our history. Until recently, most industrial wastes were simply dumped
where they were generated, often into a stream, pond, or lake or simply
onto the ground. New England's waters are still recovering from
hazardous wastes dumped over two centuries of industrial development.
And, individuals have done much the same; pouring motor oil, paint
thinner, pesticides, and other wastes onto the ground and into storm
drains. Hazardous wastes must now be disposed of separately from
non-hazardous wastes. Unfortunately, these materials, mixed with other
wastes contaminate most, older landfills across the country. Even today,
household products that qualify as hazardous wastes are still being
disposed of with more innocuous trash. Early environmental laws may have
contributed to the problem. In avoiding release of hazardous wastes into
the air or water (to comply with the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts),
processes used to clean air and water produced unexpected, new hazardous
wastes: air pollution abatement devices such as scrubbers capture large
amounts of undesirable particulates; wastewater treatment plants produce
hazardous sludge; and municipal waste-to energy incinerators produce
significant volumes of ash containing heavy metals. For years, these
products of environmental protection went straight to the landfill,
where they continue to leak hazardous wastes into groundwater and
generate toxic airborne emissions.

Preventing exposure to persistent, dangerous substances is at the core
of the equity/toxics issue. The Government's strategy today, is waste
minimization, pollution prevention, technology innovation, toxicity
reduction, waste reuse, and others; all aimed at the goal of not
generating it in the first place. Three major federal laws constitute
the core of federal hazardous waste regulation:

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA)

RCRA applies to current operations of private and other hazardous waste
generators, and regulates solid and hazardous wastes. RCRA established a
"cradle-to-grave" system for tracking and permitting hazardous wastes
from their point of origin to their disposal time and location---and
thirty years beyond. The Hazardous and Solid Waste amendments (1984)
increased the number of under-regulated hazardous waste generators,
introduced a schedule to ban land disposal of hazardous chemicals,
encouraged source reduction, developed a waste classification process,
and regulated underground storage tanks. RCRA applies to more than
manufacturing. It labeled more than 360 million tons of wastes hazardous
and regulates any producer of more than 100 pounds of such wastes a
month, such as dry cleaners, photo shops, and auto repair garages under
regulation.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of
1980 (CERCLA)

Also known as "Superfund," RCRA regulates the ways in which existing
businesses dispose of hazardous waste. The Superfund is aimed at
cleaning up abandoned, inoperative, contaminated sites. The Superfund
Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) includes provisions
for requiring disclosure of hazardous waste sites under community and
worker "right-to-know" regulations.

Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TOSCA)

TOSCA was designed to give regulators and the general public advance
warning that manufacturers are considering commercial production of a
substance that may be toxic. Manufacturers submit a notification to the
government along with detailed data and must win approval before
proceeding.

Various Executive Orders (EO) address toxics reduction. EO 13148,
"Greening the Government through Leadership in Environmental
Management"2 (April 2000), directed the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) "to develop a list of not less than 15 priority chemicals used by
the Federal Government that may result in significant harm to human
health or the environment and that have known, readily available, less
harmful substitutes." In developing the list, EPA is considering:
toxicity, persistence, and bio-accumulation, availability of less
environmentally harmful substitutes and processes, relative costs of
alternatives, and the potential risk from chemicals used by Federal
agencies. The EO directed Federal agencies to reduce the usage of these
chemicals by 50% by December 31, 2006.

The first five chemicals to be identified are cadmium, lead,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury, and naphthalene. The Federal
Environmental Executive (OFEE) notes that there are known alternatives
to the five priority chemicals or products containing them. For example,
electronic thermostats can be used in place of mercury-bearing switches.
Solders containing copper or silver can substitute for solder containing
lead, and, integrated pest management can be used in place of
naphthalene.

But we still need to address this problem. As Gail Vittori and Karla
Armenti write, below, toxic chemicals are still widely used in
manufacturing, suggesting that we must avoid strategies that simply
shift hazardous materials from one place to another, rather than
eliminating them. The choices we make in specifying products and
services that generate toxics at any point in their lifecycle have
equity consequences. We need to ask, as William McDonough does, "Are
workers safe making and using the products? Are your tenants safe?" And,
"Are the production and use of those products safe for the local and
global communities?"

> "Even in the face of scientific uncertainty, society should take
> reasonable actions to avert risks where the potential harm to human
> health or the environment is thought to be serious or irreparable." 3
>
> \- The President's Council on Sustainable Development

**Notes:**

1\. Introduction adapted from "The Complete Guide to ENVIRONMENTAL
CAREERS In the 21^st^ Century, Copyright © 2004 The Environmental
Careers Organization,

Chapter 9, <http://www.eco.org/Guide/Chap09/history.html>."

2\. <http://www.ofee.gov/wpr/chemical.htm>

3\. "Sustainable America, A New Consensus for the Prosperity,
Opportunity and a Healthy Environment for the Future," May 1999, The
President's Council on

Sustainable Development, p.12,
<http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/index.html>.

Fay Chong, "The Mansion," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Toxics**

**What are Toxic Substances?**

Joseph Gross, "Golden Cycle Mill," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**What are Toxic Substances?**

**By Gail Vittori**

Gail Vittori is Co-Director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building
Systems, a non-profit sustainable planning and design firm established
in 1975 and based in Austin, Texas.

Webster's Dictionary defines toxic as "of or pertaining to poison;
poisonous". Naturally occurring and intentionally or unintentionally
released into the global commons of air, water, and land, exposure to
toxic chemicals is an unavoidable consequence of life on Earth in the
21^st^ century. Indeed, in some ways, toxic chemicals can be thought of
as the antithesis of a public good -- once produced everyone can be
affected by them, and, in many instances, it is impossible to prevent
exposure from them (though exposure levels can be controlled). While
public awareness about toxins and their consequences to human and
ecological health is perhaps better understood today than ever before,
widespread use of toxic chemicals in the manufacturing sector continues
within a context of chronically deficient testing protocols and
uncertainties associated with their dose response.

But does it have to be? In response to growing recognition of global
toxicity, many people in government, industry, and nongovernmental
organization sectors are advocating and implementing public policies and
'green' manufacturing practices that eliminate further reliance on toxic
chemicals, while transitioning to increasingly benign chemicals and raw
materials required for industrial processes, known as feedstocks.

While there is continued uncertainty about what constitutes safe
exposure levels, there is general agreement about what chemicals are
defined as toxic. According to the U.S. EPA, the governmental agency
responsible for overseeing the collection of Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI) data, there are currently 582 individually listed chemicals and 30
chemical categories.

A significant sub-set of TRI chemicals are those classified as
Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxins (PBTs), currently constituting 16
chemicals and 4 compound categories. (The compound categories are dioxin
and dioxin-like compounds; lead compounds; mercury compounds; and
polycyclic aromatic compounds). The US EPA cites the pronounced concern
about PBT chemicals, reflecting not only their toxicity but the fact
that they, "remain in the environment for long periods of time, are not
readily destroyed, and build up or accumulate in body tissue."1
Consequently, there are significantly lower reporting thresholds for
PBTs than for other chemicals.

The EPA's concern is echoed in the National Research Council's "Building
A Foundation for Sound Environmental Decisions" (1997), that identified
six significant components contributing to global environmental change
including persistent organic compounds. More recently, the Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), a global treaty
signed by 151 nations including the United States, was developed to
protect human health and the environment from persistent organic
pollutants. Indeed, PBTs are broadly recognized as a class of chemicals
that warrant swift response, with an objective to transition away from
their continued use. As stated on the Stockholm Convention's website
([www.pips.int/](http://www.pips.int/)), "In implementing the
convention, Governments will take measures to eliminate or reduce the
release of POPs into the environment."

**Toxins in Building Materials**

Today, we find that Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and the closely
associated Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxins (PBTs) are used in and
result from the manufacture of an array of commonly used building
materials, yet are seldom acknowledged in point-of-sale information or
manufacturers' cut sheets. Broadly recognized as hazardous materials,
over the last 30 years both lead and asbestos have been phased out for
use in building materials in the U.S., though some lingering uses of
lead continue for solder, flashing, terne, and copper, and as a PVC
stabilizer. For both lead and asbestos, their track records as widely
available and inexpensive products with notable performance attributes
are tarnished by the public health, economic and environmental burdens
associated with their use. Other hazardous materials in common use
include:

-   Cadmium-used as stabilizer in rigid PVC and paints

-   Dioxins and furans-emitted from cement kilns, secondary copper
    manufacture and by-products of vinyl chloride monomer

-   Mercury-used in fluorescent light bulbs, high intensity discharge
    (HID) lamps, paint, and electrical switches.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element present in the earth's crust.
In its inorganic form, the World Health Organization, the U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services, and the U.S. EPA categorize
arsenic as a human carcinogen. Until December 2003, inorganic arsenic
was commonly used as a wood preservative in the CCA (chromated copper
arsenic) formulation. A negotiated agreement between the U.S. EPA, wood
preservative manufacturers and environmental organizations, effective
December 2003, curtailed continued use of arsenic as a wood preservative
in the U.S. Again, the societal burden stemming from decades of use of
this toxic chemical will be borne by generations to come, as the health
consequences of direct exposure and the challenge of safe disposal play
out. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are carbon-based chemicals that
have a high vapor pressure and vaporize at normal temperature and
pressure. While some VOCs are naturally occurring and/ or benign,
specific volatilized chemicals are of particular concern, especially at
high emission levels, because of their toxicity. Paints, adhesives,
sealants, carpets, composite wood, flooring products, and agri-based
materials often are manufactured with chemicals that have high VOC
emissions. Some VOCs, such as formaldehyde, are recognized as
carcinogenic to humans. As a result, scores of manufacturers are
reformulating their products to eliminate and/or drastically reduce
their VOC emissions, while the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® Green
Building Rating Tool encourages the use of low-emitting materials.

Building materials manufactured with chlorine represent another class of
chemical use with direct links to the persistent bioaccumulative toxins
(PBTs) cited above. Noting that "virtually all chlorinated organic
compounds that have been studied exhibit at least one of a wide range of
serious toxic effects such as endocrine dysfunction, developmental
impairment, birth defects, reproductive dysfunction and infertility,
immunosuppression, and cancer, even at extremely low doses," the
American Public Health Association passed a resolution in 1996, "to
become involved in this global effort to eliminate or reduce to the
greatest extent possible the discharge of POPs (persistent organic
pollutants) into the environment."

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is responsible for 42% of chlorine use in the
United States, according to the American Chemical Society's Chemical and
Engineering News. Roughly 75% of all PVC manufactured is used in
building materials. One of the processes used to manufacture chlorine
--the chloralkali process -- results in the annual release of many tons
of mercury into the environment. Mercury, like the dioxin by-products of
chlorinated compounds, is classified as a persistent organic pollutant.

**Summary**

The life-cycle consequences of continued dispersion of, and exposure to,
persistent chemicals and other toxins are both immediate and long term.
For example, occupational exposure to POPs, such as for electricians who
routinely put lead stabilized PVC-jacketed wire cable in their mouths in
the course of their daily work, can result in immediate health
repercussions. For others, cumulative exposure may result in health
decline over a longer time frame, such as impaired male reproductive
health, that may not be immediately evident.

Eliminating the worst-in-class POPs, PBTs, carcinogens, and reproductive
toxicants in the manufacturing sector is a primary driver behind green
building. As the hazards associated with these chemicals become more
widely recognized, so does an evaluative framework for defining "green"
materials and processes -- not as options, but as prerequisites in
protecting the public health.

**Notes:**

1\. EPA Fact Sheet on EPCRA Section 313 Rulemaking, Persistent
Bioaccumulative Toxic Chemicals,
[**http://www.epa.gov/tri/lawsandregs/pbt/pbtrule-fs.pdf**](http://www.epa.gov/tri/lawsandregs/pbt/pbtrule-fs.pdf).

**Toxics**

**Pollution Prevention and Worker Protection: The Importance of
Integrating Occupational and Environmental Health.**

Richard Correll, "Log Bucker," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Pollution Prevention and Worker Protection:**

**The Importance of Integrating Occupational and Environmental Health**

**By Karla Armenti**

Karla Armenti, ScD, MS, is an Associate Professor in the Master of
Public Health program at the University of New Hampshire's Manchester
campus. She also heads Consulting in Occupational and Environmental
Sciences, COES, LLC, in Bedford, New Hampshire.

Occupational and environmental health risks are not always considered
simultaneously when attempting to reduce or eliminate hazardous
materials from our environment. Methods used to decrease exposure to
hazardous chemicals in the workplace often lead to increased exposure in
the environment and to the community outside the workplace. Conversely,
efforts to control emissions of hazardous chemicals into the environment
often lead to increased exposure to the workers inside the plant. There
are government regulations in place that ensure a safe work environment
or a safe outside environment; however, there is little integration of
both approaches when considering the public's health as a whole.

Despite the formal separation of occupational and environmental health,
there is a strong link between pollution in the environment and hazards
in the workplace caused by the use and processing of hazardous
materials. For the past 30 years, the United States has made an
intensive and very costly effort to reduce the burden of environmental
pollution and occupational injuries and illnesses. These efforts have
traditionally been remedial in nature - addressing the problem after it
has occurred by using controls to lessen the hazard. This strategy
tolerates the probability of risk associated with the production
process. If changes are made to the production process, however, by
replacing or eliminating a hazardous chemical, by reducing the use of
resources, or by promoting energy recovery, then industrial production
can be designed in a way that would eliminate or substantially decrease
pollution from toxic manufacturing processes and workplace hazards.

**Pollution Prevention (P2): A Model for Sustainable Economic Growth and
Development**

In October of 1990, the federal Pollution Prevention Act was passed,
prompting the

EPA to rethink its environmental management strategies. The Act
established a new pollution prevention policy advocating source
reduction as a more desirable method of reducing pollution than waste
management and pollution control.

The aim of the pollution prevention policy was to reduce the volume and
toxicity of wastes at the source. In an attempt to define the concept of
pollution prevention, the EPA published its Pollution Prevention
Statement in the Federal Register, demonstrating "a preventive program
to reduce or eliminate the generation of potentially harmful
pollutants."1 While the definition was broad in scope, for the EPA,
pollution prevention represented:

1\. the reduction or elimination of pollutant discharges to the air,
water or land;

2\. reducing the quantity and/or toxicity of pollutants generated by
production processes through source reduction, waste minimization, and
process modifications;

3\. eliminating pollutants by substituting non-polluting chemicals or
products (e.g., material substitution, changes in product
specifications); and,

4\. recycling of waste materials (e.g., reuse, reclamation).

The pollution prevention model is presented here as a method that
recognizes source reduction as the most important tier in the hierarchy
of environmental management. This model shifts the focus from hazard
control at the end of discharge pipes to reducing or eliminating
exposures at the front end of the process by changing the raw material
inputs through source reduction. Pollution prevention, a valuable
strategy for protecting community environmental health, can be effective
in the work environment as well, but only when occupational and
environmental risks are considered simultaneously. The pollution
prevention or "P2" approach encompasses several forms of prevention,
including source reduction, waste reduction, waste minimization; toxics
use reduction, and clean or cleaner production. These approaches
emphasize the prevention of environmental damage before it occurs,
focusing attention on the processes that create the waste prior to being
emitted into the environment. Preventive strategies focus on identifying
potential harm or hazard, and on reducing or eliminating the use of
materials or processes that could cause harm, injury or damage to the
environment and thus to the general population. Some environmentalists
refer to a "hierarchy of prevention"2 with the ultimate goal being to
change our activities.

In reverse order:

-   Change in Activities: reducing material consumption, and changing to
    less polluting activities.

-   Products: creating products that work better and last longer.

-   Material usage: reducing material inputs and changing to less toxic
    materials.

Production processes: improving efficiency and achieving cleaner
technology, better control, improved materials handling, etc.3 All four
levels of the above hierarchy of prevention can represent primary
prevention by promoting ways to reduce or eliminate the hazardous
condition that is causing the pollution. Changing our activities in
these ways requires a change in both social and economic policies and
would lead us toward the ultimate goal of sustainable economic growth
and development. By promoting changes in the technology and materials of
production, in industrial processes and operations, and in attitudes,
the "prevention paradigm" provides us with the means to achieve the
desired compatibility between environmental and human needs.4 Pollution
prevention is a way to facilitate a transition toward sustainable
production.

**The potential for risk shifting when addressing occupational and
environmental health problems separately**

Although pollution prevention is limited to preventing environmental
degradation, it has the potential to prevent adverse impacts on worker
safety and health as well, if applied comprehensively to both the
general and work environments. When making efforts to prevent worker
injuries and illnesses, and prevent pollution, there is the potential
for "risk shifting" from the general environment to the work environment
and vice versa. Without simultaneous attention to occupational and
environmental issues, traditional workplace based exposure control
activities have the potential to shift risk of the hazard among
different media. For example, a preferred engineering control such as
installing ventilation exhaust systems that remove hazardous dusts from
the work area transfers the risk to the general environment, which now
must deal with collecting and disposing of the dust being put into the
ambient air outside the facility.5

While pollution prevention addresses the problem of risk shifting
between environmental media, it also has the potential to shift risk
between the general and work environments. For example, while acetone
may be a less toxic substance to use in parts cleaning than a
chlorinated solvent, it does present a new hazard of fire and explosion
not present with the chlorinated solvent. Although pollution prevention
does not formally consider the work environment as another "medium" that
is equally affected by production or material changes to prevent
pollution, there is no reason why it cannot be broadened to encompass
workplace hazards.

The potential use of substitute materials or proposed changes should
consider the impact of the changes on worker health within the work
environment. If applied systematically, pollution prevention methods
used to reduce or eliminate hazards at the source can identify potential
workplace hazards (during the process of considering alternative
technologies, chemicals or processes). By applying the methods of
pollution prevention across occupational and environmental media, the
work environment is given equal standing with the general environment
when pollution prevention strategies are planned. Worker risks should be
carefully explored in choosing "substitute chemicals."

**Example: Risk Shifting in Auto Repair**

In response to the California Air Board's 1997 decision to phase out
chlorinated solvents used in the auto repair industry (hazardous to the
environment), employers substituted these solvents with hexane and
acetone. Unfortunately, it was not considered at the time that hexane
posed a risk to workers. It was soon discovered that with overexposure,
hexane caused peripheral neuropathy -- a debilitating disorder that
causes numbness and tingling in the fingers and toes followed by
weakness and muscle wasting.6 Pollution prevention planning requires
careful consideration of the impact of proposed changes on both
environmental and worker safety and health programs. Poorly designed
pollution prevention projects that fail to consider the impact of
changes in processes, practices, or procedures can increase worker
health and safety risks.

**"Green Building": Is it really better for construction workers?**

Construction and demolition can produce significant waste and toxic
releases in the form of storm water runoff, solid wastes, dusts, and
vapors. Wastes can include wood, concrete, brick and block, asphalt,
glass, paint roofing materials, tile, insulation, plastic, lead pipes,
and ferrous and nonferrous metals. Paints, thinners, adhesives,
solvents, aerosols, lead, welding fumes, and asbestos can be released
during construction work. These not only have a detrimental effect on
the environment, they can also adversely affect the health of the
construction workers on the project.

A green building, or sustainable building, is a structure that is
designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and
resource-efficient manner. Green buildings are designed to meet certain
objectives such as protecting occupant health; improving employee
productivity; using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently;
and reducing the overall impact to the environment. While these are
certainly worthwhile outcomes, this approach may have deleterious
effects on construction worker safety and health.

Certain "environmentally friendly" building practices and products such
as adhesives and cement fiber siding (to replace polyvinyl chloride) may
actually lead to increased worker exposure and/or injury. Some adhesives
used for air sealing (which is a good thing for energy efficiency) may
also contain VOCs (volatile organic compounds) harmful to workers and
occupants. Additionally, cement fiber siding contains silica and when it
is cut, the workers will be exposed to silica dust. Crystalline silica
is a highly hazardous inhalation hazard. Cement fiber siding also weighs
more than wood siding, so there may be potential for increased back
injuries and ergonomic risks.

These are just a couple of examples of risk shifting in green
construction. There is little attention directed to the hazards
construction workers may face when working with some of these new
materials. However, if equal attention is paid to both environmental and
occupational risks associated with green building, we can be assured of
a sustainable building with low ecological impact that protects the
community, the workplace environment, and the workers creating them.

**Using Pollution Prevention to Reduce or Eliminate Workplace Hazards7**

Utilizing P2 strategies can lead to finding safer substitute chemicals,
reducing toxics use, and making other changes in processes, procedures
or practices that reduce worker and environmental exposures. Just as P2
strategies offer many advantages over pollution control approaches, P2
also offers advantages over traditional worker health and safety
approaches. Few companies, however, have integrated P2 with employee
health and safety. There are a few reasons for this.

First, as already discussed, occupational and environmental health
measures are governed by separate laws and regulations issued by
separate agencies (OSHA and EPA). Unfortunately, there is no formal
consideration of the overlap between environmental and occupational
exposures (outside versus inside the plant) and the potential of P2
strategies for addressing both.8 Second, even when the same person in a
company is assigned to both environmental and workplace safety and
health, opportunities to connect these two areas of responsibility may
go unrecognized. While the best facilities have embraced ambitious
"continuous improvement" goals for environmental management, most
facilities still view their OSHA responsibilities in terms of regulatory
compliance.

Third, personnel trained in environmental engineering are not
necessarily trained to focus on worker safety and health. They tend to
assume that P2 initiatives automatically benefit employees, which may
not be the case. Similarly, P2 activities may not be on the radar screen
of personnel responsible for worker safety and health.9

**Who should be Involved in P2?**

Using P2 to address both occupational and environmental safety and
health goals requires input from a wide range of employees including:

-   Production: Production employees contribute a "hands-on"
    understanding of the production process.

-   Maintenance: Maintenance personnel understand the equipment, and the
    operations and procedures used to maintain the equipment.

-   Process engineering: Process engineers bring an understanding of the
    technical possibilities in the production process.

-   Design engineering: It is important to include those involved in the
    design phase of any new process or equipment, so that safety and
    health hazards can be "designed out."

-   Facility engineering: Facility engineers know the procedures for new
    construction and equipment installation and modification.

-   Warehouse/shipping: These employees understand storage, inventory,
    shipping and receiving and transportation issues.

-   Product design: Chemists and design engineers take the lead in
    incorporating environmental and occupational health concerns into
    product design.

-   Quality assurance: Individuals charged with "quality" functions can
    provide insight into how to integrate occupational and environmental
    safety and health aspects into quality control systems and
    documentation procedures.

-   Environmental health and safety: EHS personnel can help identify key
    environmental issues and concerns.

-   Occupational health and safety: OHS personnel can help identify key
    worker exposures and analyze health and safety impacts of proposed
    alternatives.

-   Purchasing: Purchasing personnel bring knowledge of the procurement
    process and can play a lead in integrating EHS/OHS concerns into the
    purchasing process.

-   Sales and marketing: Sales/marketing personnel can identify EHS/OHS
    concerns important to customers and communicate the facility's
    EHS/OHS initiatives.

-   Accounting and finance: Accounting and finance track the costs of
    existing practices and analyze the costs and benefits.

**Worker Involvement in P2**10

There are several important reasons why employee involvement in P2
results in a more successful P2 program. Employees have an important
stake in the success of pollution prevention efforts because they are at
the front lines of exposure to toxic chemicals, both in the workplace
and in the outside environment. And, since workers are directly involved
with all aspects of production, they have a unique ability to contribute
to the pollution prevention planning and implementation process.

**Successful P2 Programs Require Employee Involvement:**

One program that specifically addresses the need for worker involvement
in P2 is based out of the Occupational Training & Education Consortium
(OTEC) at The Labor Education Center at Rutgers University in New
Jersey. OTEC has developed a Pollution Prevention Training Program based
on participatory and small group activity methods using a P2 Workbook
that employees use to learn about P2, how it can be applied to their
facilities and work processes, how to analyze for toxicity and
efficiency, and how to apply Environmental/Health and Safety Systems.
The workbook recommends that in order to be a full participant in
pollution prevention, you need the following:

**How to Avoid Risk Shifting11**

The best way to avoid risk shifting is to ensure that relevant health
and safety personnel, along with frontline employees in the production
area affected by the change, are involved in thinking through P2
options. Integrating environmental and occupational health with safety
problem solving will lead to cost-effective solutions that avoid risk
shifting.

Before making changes in chemicals, processes, practices or procedures,
consider the following:

1\. Does the change pose an exposure to hazardous substances (a
different or new exposure)?

2\. Does the change pose a new ergonomic hazard?

3\. Does the change pose a new physical hazard?

4\. Will the change increase psychological stress?

> In 1997, a worker at an aircraft engine manufacturing plant in Eastern
> Massachusetts was concerned about severe dermatitis from coolants. He
> researched and found a P2 solution that reduced coolant usage by 90%
> and prevented the mold contamination responsible for the dermatitis.
> It saved the company \$150,000 the first year and helped them fulfill
> their commitment under an EPA SEP (Supplemental Environmental Project)
> settlement.

-   Training in P2 methods and approaches, like process mapping and root
    cause analysis. Opportunities to review processes and operations to
    determine where and how toxic substances are used and hazardous
    wastes are generated.

-   Forums to discuss recommendations on ways to eliminate or reduce
    waste production at the source.

-   Input into the implementation process (e.g., as part of a
    cross-functional team). Leadership that makes it clear that your
    contributions to P2 are valued.

**Summary**

The Pollution Prevention Act clearly states that prevention of pollution
at the source is to be the primary policy goal of environmental
management in this country. Continued focus on technology-based control
standards that react to hazardous waste and emissions prevents us from
looking more broadly to define different "environmental media,"
including the work environment. This can shift risks from one medium to
another.

In order to reach our goal of sustainable development, we should promote
a more holistic approach to protecting human health, from government
regulation that encourages innovation in technology, design, processes
and products to industrial policy setting. The critical task is to
include a broader group of stakeholders, that is, those who are affected
by the results of this innovation, including workers. Integrating
environmental objectives with occupational concerns and vice versa could
effectively result in a process where standard-setting is accomplished
with the joint cooperation of managers and workers in industry, of
authorities in government, and of the public.

**From the "Journey to Sustainability: A Conversation With Ray Anderson
"12**

"\[We need\] to be sure that whatever we do emit from our factories,
from our offices, from our automobiles, from our homes... is harmless,
totally benign and harmless to the biosphere.

"That is incredibly difficult to do in this society because so much of
what comes into our factories, into our homes, into our offices, is
replete with materials that never, ever should have been taken from the
earth's crust. It took nature 3.8 billion years to put some of it there
.In its presence, we never would have evolved into homo sapien sapiens,
but now we're bringing that very stuff right into our living rooms, so
to speak. It's very much suicidal.

"And we must learn to think upstream, and put the filters not only into
the pipe, but put the filters into our brains and go upstream and stop
that stuff. Find the substitutes that enable us to operate without the
really dangerous stuff that we are bringing into our factories, our
homes, and our offices. "

**Notes:**

1\. US EPA, 1989 (January 26): Pollution Prevention Policy Statement,
Federal Register, vol. 54, no. 16.

2\. T. Jackson, ed., 1993. "Clean Production Strategies, Developing
Preventive Environmental Management in the Industrial Economy" (Boca
Raton, Lewis Publishers).

3\. The problem of pollution is directly related to the materials cycle.
Changes in the materials cycle are transitional in that toxics reduction
is perceived as being easier

to achieve than elimination. While focus on "toxics use reduction"
allows for the realization that harmful substances may be used in
manufacturing and may be present in the products themselves, it leads to
the goal of true prevention by focusing on what materials are used to
produce goods and services. Hirschhorn et al., 1993: "Towards
Prevention: The Emerging Environmental Management Paradigm," chapter 7
in "Clean Production Strategies: Developing. Preventive Environmental
Management in the Industrial Economy" (Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers.

4\. Hirschhorn, et al.

5\. Moure-Eraso R. 2000, "Avoiding the Transfer of Risk: Pollution
Prevention and Occupational Health," in: Levy, B. Wegman, D. Editors,
"Occupational Health,

Recognizing and Preventing Work-Related Disease and Injury,"4^th^ Ed.,
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, PA. Pgs. 124 - 125.

6\. Michael P. Wilson, PhD, 2001 (November 16): n-Hexane--Related
Peripheral Neuropathy Among Automotive Technicians---California,
1999--2000, CDC MMWR Weekly 50 (45): 1011--13.
<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5045a3.htm>.

7\. Occupational Training and Education Consortium (OTEC), 2002
(September): Pollution Prevention E/HS Workbook, 1^st^ ed. (Camden / New
Brunswick NJ: Rutgers

University). Contact: <oshep@rci.rutgers.edu>

8\. For a more detailed evaluation of the differences between OSHA and
EPA, and the barriers to integrating the protection of occupational and
environmental health, see Armenti, Moure-Eraso, Slatin, and Geiser,
2003: Joint Occupational and Environmental Pollution Prevention
Strategies: A Model for Primary Prevention, New

Solutions, vol. 13, no. 3.

9\. Matt Gillen, MS, CIH, 2000 (November): "What Occupational Health and
Environmental Specialists Need to Know to Protect Workers and the
Environment."

Presented at the American Public Health Annual Meeting, Boston MA.

10\. For a more detailed discussion on worker involvement in P2, see M.
Ochsner, 2001 (Summer): Can Workers Participate in---and Benefit from---
Pollution Prevention? Pollution Prevention Review; and Cora Roelofs,
1999: Trade Unions and Cleaner Production: Perspectives and Proposals
for Action, New Solutions, vol. 9, no. 3..

11\. Matt Gillen, MS, CIH, 2000 (November): "What Occupational Health
and Environmental Specialists Need to Know to Protect Workers and the
Environment."

Presented at the American Public Health Annual Meeting, Boston MA.

12\. Full transcript is available at
[www.gsa.gov/sustainabledevelopment](http://www.gsa.gov/sustainabledevelopment).

**Making Informed Choices**

**The Ecology of Sustainable Design**

Lee Allen, "Soil Erosion," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**The Ecology of Sustainable Design**

**By William McDonough**

**William McDonough, FAIA, is a founding partner of William McDonough +
Partners, Architecture and Community Design, and Co-founder and
principal, MBDC.**

For all the benefits that have come from the technological advances of
the last century, and there are many, it has become difficult to deny
that the practices of conventional architecture and industry often prove
to be at odds with economic, ecological and social health. As industry
takes, makes, and wastes, using materials in a cradle-to-grave system
designed more than a century ago, our air, water and soil---the very
fabric of life---bear the consequences.

An architect's material choices also influence human health. Beyond the
widespread environmental problems that undermine social well-being, the
various ingredients that add up to a building also have invisible,
long-term effects on both building occupants and those who manufacture
and dispose of architectural materials. Indeed, none of the materials
used to make large-scale buildings is specifically designed to be
healthful for people. Even a cursory inventory begins to suggest some of
the challenges architects are dealing with.

Consider, for example, the ubiquitous use of polyvinyl chloride.
Polyvinyl chloride, better known as PVC or vinyl, is a common ingredient
in windows, doors, flooring, wallcoverings, interior surfaces, and
insulating materials. Many formulations of PVC have been known to
contain toxic heavy metals and plasticizers that are carcinogenic and
endocrine disrupting. Equally common is formaldehyde---a reproductive
toxin found in particleboard, paints, and textiles---and other volatile
organic compounds (VOCs), some of which are suspected carcinogens and
immune-system disrupters that occur in adhesives and carpets.
Formaldehyde and VOCs seep, or off-gas, from architectural materials,
accumulating in tightly sealed buildings in concentrations that make
indoor air quality on average three times worse than the most noxious
urban air. The forced flow of chemicals through inadequate ventilation
systems adds up to costly health problems, like those associated with
Sick Building Syndrome.

Fortunately, an expanding palette of materials is allowing designers to
phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride and other toxic substances, a
very promising step for twenty-first century architecture.

**Cradle to Cradle Design**

The destructive qualities of today's cradle-to-grave system are
fundamentally a deeply ingrained design problem, not an inevitable
outcome of human activity. Indeed, good design can transform the making
of things---from products to buildings to community plans---into a
positive, regenerative force. Based on principles observed in nature,
this new conception of design goes beyond retrofitting the systems of
architecture and industry to simply reduce their harm. It offers instead
a profoundly effective alternative, a framework in which the
regenerative, cradle-to-cradle cycles of nature---nutrient cycles, water
cycles, energy flows---are seen as both the model for and the context of
human designs. Within this cradle-to cradle framework, design can
generate wholly positive effects whose benefits enhance all life
allowing us to imagine and create architectural and industrial systems
that purify air, land and water, use current solar income and generate
no toxic waste, use materials that replenish the earth or can be
perpetually recycled.

Over the past decade, the cradle-to-cradle framework has evolved
steadily from theory to practice. In the world of industry it is
creating a new conception of materials and material flows. Just as in
the natural world, in which one organism's "waste" cycles through an
ecosystem to provide nourishment for other living things, cradle
to-cradle materials circulate in closed-loop cycles, providing nutrients
for nature or industry. The cradle-to-cradle model recognizes two
metabolisms within which materials flow as healthy nutrients.

Nature's nutrient cycles comprise the biological metabolism. Materials
designed to flow optimally in the biological metabolism, known in the
cradle-to-cradle model as biological nutrients, can be safely returned
to the environment after use to nourish living systems. The technical
metabolism, designed to mirror the earth's cradle-to-cradle cycles, is a
closed-loop system in which valuable, high-tech synthetics and mineral
resources---what German chemist Michael Braungart calls technical
nutrients---circulate in a perpetual cycle of production, recovery, and
remanufacture.

Biological and technical nutrients have already entered the marketplace.
The upholstery fabric Climatex Lifecycle is a blend of
pesticide-residue-free wool and organically grown ramie, dyed and
processed entirely with non-toxic chemicals. All of its product and
process inputs were defined and selected for their human and ecological
safety within the biological metabolism. One result: the fabric
trimmings are made into felt and used by garden clubs as mulch for
growing fruits and vegetables, returning the textile's biological
nutrients to the soil to feed new growth.

Shaw, the world's largest carpet manufacturer, has designed a carpet
tile system made for the technical metabolism. These carpet tiles are
made from a nylon 6 face fiber called EcoSolutionQ™ and a polyolefin
backing material called EcoWorx™, both of which are perpetually
recyclable. When the carpet is being replaced after years of use,
customers can call the toll-free phone number printed on the back of
each carpet tile and Shaw will retrieve the carpet for recycling. The
face fiber and backing are separated, and the nylon 6 is returned to its
constituent molecules and repolymerized into first quality fiber, while
the polyolefin backing is mechanically reprocessed into high quality
backing for a new tile. The carpet is rematerialized, not
dematerialized---a true cradle-to-cradle product.

The production of nutrients cycling in healthy metabolisms starts with
material chemistry. We are only beginning to understand the effects of
the chemicals we live with every day in our homes and workplaces, and
each year, approximately 2,000 new chemicals are introduced worldwide
without any need for approval.

The toxicological data simply can't keep up. Through existing chemical
assessments, however, we do know enough to begin to select materials for
architecture that are safe, and even beneficial, for human and
environmental health.

Michael Braungart and I, with our firm MBDC, have developed a protocol
for assessing the human and environmental health characteristics of
chemicals and materials, allowing designers and engineers to formulate
products intelligently. The Cradle to Cradle Design Protocol begins with
a full inventory of a material's chemical ingredients, followed by
research into their key environmental and human health effects:
carcinogenic and mutagenic potential, effects on reproductive systems,
accumulation in biological systems, climate effects, and other impacts.
Once these characteristics are understood, we can then work with
suppliers to reformulate materials using only safe and healthful
chemicals appropriate for biological and technical metabolisms.

**The Fractal Triangle**

The Cradle-to-Cradle Design Protocol addresses material chemistry issues
directly, but these are part of a much broader spectrum of concerns. In
our work with corporate clients such as Ford Motor Company, Nike, Herman
Miller, and BASF we have found that a visual tool, a fractal triangle,
helps us apply cradle-to-cradle thinking throughout the design process.
Typically, the pursuit of sustainability is seen as a balancing act, a
series of compromises between competing interests played out in the
process of design. The key insights offered by the fractal triangle turn
this notion on its head: Intelligent design, rather than balancing
economy, ecology, and equity, can employ their dynamic interplay to
generate value. The fractal triangle, first of all, reminds us that
every product, whether or not it is designed with environmental health
in mind, is produced and used in an interconnected world. This is the
fundamental insight of ecology and the reason why the famous triad of
sustainable development is on the table in the first place.

Representing the ecology of human concerns, the fractal triangle shows
how ecology, economy and equity anchor a spectrum of value, and how, at
any level of scrutiny, each design decision has an impact on all three.
As we design a product or building, we move around the fractal inquiring
how a new design can generate value in each category. Again, the goal is
not to balance competing perspectives but to optimize and maximize value
in all areas of the triangle through intelligent design. Often, we
discover our most fruitful insights where design decisions create a kind
of friction in the zones where values overlap When applying the fractal
triangle to our own projects, we begin asking questions in the extreme,
lower-right corner, which represents the Economy/Economy sector.

Here we are in the realm of pure capitalism and the questions we ask
would certainly include, Can I make my product or provide my service at
a profit? We tell our commercial clients that if the answer is no, don't
do it. As we see it, the goal of an effective company is to stay in
business as it transforms, providing shareholder value as it discovers
ways to generate positive social and environmental effects. Moving to
the Economy/Equity sector, we consider questions of profitability and
fairness. Are the employees producing a promising product earning a
living wage? As we continue on to Equity/Economy, our focus shifts more
towards fairness---we begin to see Economy through the lens of Equity.
Here we might ask:, Are men and women being paid the same for the same
work? Are we finding new ways to honor everyone involved, regardless of
race, sex, nationality or religion? In the extreme Equity corner, the
questions are purely social: Will the new building improve the quality
of life of all stakeholders?

In the Ecology corner of the Equity sector, the emphasis shifts again;
Equity is still in the foreground, but Ecology has entered the picture.
The questions arising at this intersection of values might explore the
ways in which a product, such as the ecologically sound upholstery
fabric, could enhance the health of employees and customers. Continuing
to Ecology/Equity, we consider questions of safety or fairness in
relation to the entire ecosystem: Will our product contribute to the
health of the watershed?

In the pure Ecology sector: Are we obeying nature's laws? Creating
habitat? In this realm we try to imagine how humans can be "tools for
nature." Shifting to Ecology/Economy, commerce reenters the picture: Is
our ecological strategy economically viable? Will it enable us to use
resources effectively? Finally, we come to Economy/Ecology, where we
encounter many questions that relate to the triple bottom line. Here the
inquiry tends to focus on efficiency: Will our production process use
resources efficiently? Will it reduce waste?

Each of these questions presents an opportunity for creating value.
Considered together, they signal the possibility of each design decision
to create multiple positive outcomes throughout the entire spectrum of
concerns.

**Multiple Positives**

Herman Miller, the furniture manufacturer, was looking to create
multiple positives when it commissioned the design of a 295,000 square
foot factory and office near its headquarters in western Michigan. The
company's goals for the new plant were to foster a spirit of
collaboration between office and factory workers, and create a workplace
with a restorative impact on the local environment. Working with a
design team that paid close attention to local conditions, Herman Miller
built a plant that serves the needs of all its factory workers and
administrative employees by celebrating an array of natural and cultural
delights.

The low-lying, curved building follows the natural contours of the
Michigan grassland. Stormwater spilling off the building moves off the
site through an extended series of wetlands that purify the water while
providing habitat for hundreds of species of birds, plants and insects.
Plantings of native grasses and trees provided additional habitat for
local creatures and further enhance the beauty of the site. Inside the
building, offices face the manufacturing plant across a sun-lit, urbane
promenade where workers meet and lunch and drink coffee among whimsical
sculptures and thriving plants. The entire building---the gyms, the
bathrooms, the factory floor---is so pleasantly bright and airy, it is
now known as "the GreenHouse." Does this enhance the well-being of
workers?

Create productivity and wealth? Well, yes. When Herman Miller moved into
the building the company was producing \$250 million worth of furniture
each year. Within a single year it increased production by nearly \$50
million, a gain of 24 percent. At the same time, both office and
manufacturing staff reported a significantly higher degree of job
satisfaction than they had at their previous workplace. These
substantial benefits came not from focusing strictly on the bottom line,
but through a sophisticated understanding of the synergy of economic,
social and ecological concerns.

The customized design of the factory, which suited Herman Miller's
administrative and manufacturing needs; an innovative management
strategy designed to enhance relationships with customers; the
environmental quality of the building; and its harmonious relationship
to its surroundings together created a better outcome than could have
been realized if Herman Miller had narrowly defined its goals. As a
result, the company is now doing business in a productive,
environmentally sound, delightful workplace.

While it's impossible to measure the influence of delight, it's easy to
imagine the pleasure of working in a place where you can always see the
beauty of the surrounding landscape, where copious fresh air and light
actually blur the boundary between indoors and out. Workers in such a
place feel as if they have spent the entire day outdoors. They see the
comings and goings of birds and the passing of the seasons. They come to
know the place where they live---at work!

Such pleasures have an enormous impact on the spirit. After Herman
Miller moved into the new plant, sixteen young employees left for jobs
with higher wages. But they soon returned. When the president of the
company asked, "Why are you back?" they said, "We want our jobs back
because we had never worked in another factory before. We couldn't work
in the dark." One of the icons of industry, The Ford Motor Company, is
realizing multiple positives as it carries out one of the most sweeping
acts of industrial restoration ever. Led by Henry Ford's great-grandson,
William Clay Ford, Jr., the company has embarked on a 20-year, \$2
billion dollar restoration of its gigantic Rouge River plant in
Dearborn, Michigan. Built between 1917 and 1925, the manufacturing
complex remains one of the world's largest. At its peak it employed
100,000 workers and churned out millions of cars (boats and airplane
engines, too). It was the pride of Ford and the envy of industrialists
from Tokyo to Berlin. Yet by the beginning of the 21^st^ century, the
Rouge River plant was a brownfield, a sprawling wasteland of dark and
dilapidated buildings, leaky pipes and old equipment. The land was
contaminated, bare of all but the most persistent vegetation, and the
river was badly polluted. Rather than walk away from a worn-out
industrial landscape and a community that had supported it for nearly a
century, Ford chose to transform the Rouge River site into a healthy,
productive, life-supporting place. Indeed, Ford's leaders are now asking
a revolutionary question: "When will we be able to let our own children
play in the soils and waters of the Rouge?"

That critical question leads to a wide spectrum of inquiry. What
specific innovations will make the site a place that invites the return
of native species? How can the presence of the factory be beneficial to
the Rouge River? On the grounds of the site what is the optimum depth of
topsoil, number of worms per cubic foot and insect and bird diversity?
What are the optimum aquatic populations of the river? How do we design
a manufacturing facility that is a prosperous, supportive work
environment?

These may sound like surprising questions for a car company to ask, but
Ford is asking them---and answering them, too. In 2003, Ford unveiled a
new automotive assembly plant featuring skylights for daylighting the
factory floor and a roof covered with growing plants. The
450,000-square-foot "living roof" provides habitat for birds, insects
and microorganisms. In concert with a series of wetlands and swales, the
roof also controls and filters stormwater run-off.

With these natural, built-in measures replacing the expensive technical
controls called for by new regulations, Ford realized \$10 million in
first cost savings on stormwater remediation alone. Just as with Herman
Miller's Greenhouse, these savings could not have been realized through
a traditional approach to facility design. As William Clay Ford, Jr.
says, "This is not environmental philanthropy; it is sound business . .
." And he's right, of course. Businesses that fail to bring ecological
and social concerns to commerce put shareholder value in danger and are
not contributing to the larger prosperity.

**Conclusion**

These examples begin to suggest some of the ways in which considering
the principles of the fractal triangle can create business
opportunities. Applied throughout the design process, they introduce a
new standard of quality, adding ecological intelligence, social justice,
and the celebration of creativity to the typical design criteria of
cost, performance, and aesthetics.

There is still a long way to go. Architecture has just begun, really, to
design new ecologically intelligent materials that flow in cradle to
cradle cycles and contribute to the health of those who manufacture them
as well as the building occupants. Ultimately, it will be the delight
buildings inspire, the way they enhance our feeling for life, that will
move ecologically intelligent design from the agenda of a few to the
demand of many. Imagine buildings so delightful, so expressive of the
world's diverse interactions between nature and human culture, so
comfortably affordable for so many, so able to inspire wonder in the
living world, that the demand for them is driven by pleasure from the
bottom up.

**Making Informed Choices**

**Environmentally Preferable Purchasing: The Progress and Remaining
Challenges of Multi-Attribute Decision making**

Keith Sonnier, "Cenozoic Codex," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Environmentally Preferable Purchasing: The Progress and Remaining
Challenges of Multi-Attribute Decision making**

**By Alison Kinn-Bennett**

Alison Kinn-Bennett is the Model Green Construction Specifications
Project Officer, for the US Environmental Protection Agency,
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program in Washington, DC.

Consumers can play an integral role in improving environmental and
public health through their purchasing patterns. By demanding certain
attributes, consumers can send a clear signal to manufacturers about
their preferences for those products and services that pose fewer
burdens on the environment. By leveraging their purchasing power,
consumers are voting with their pocketbooks, directly affecting
manufacturers' bottom lines. Some manufacturers are attuned to this
market signal and have recognized that differentiating their products on
the basis of environmental attributes can serve as a competitive
advantage.

As the single largest consumer of goods and services, spending over
\$250 billion annually on a wide variety and large quantity of products
and services, the U.S. Federal government leaves a large environmental
footprint. By the same token, it can wield its purchasing power to
propel companies to manufacture products and services that pose fewer
burdens on the environment and thereby leverage and jump-start the
market for "green" products in both the public and private sectors.1 In
the environmental arena, the fact that paper with recovered materials
content has become the norm is an example of how purchases of such goods
by the Federal government made them more widely acceptable and
available.

However, despite this potential, the Government has not relied heavily
on demand-driven policies to achieve environmental improvement, and the
market for "green" products remains a niche market in many sectors. Why?
In part, this is because there currently is no existing infrastructure
that can easily facilitate the identification of "green" products and
services for American consumers. Although there are a number of private
sector environmental labeling or certification organizations in the
United States that are attempting to fill this gap, their programs have
not yet made deep inroads into consumer buying patterns.2

**The Benefits of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing**

Improved ability to meet environmental goals through markets rather than
mandates

Improved worker safety and health

Reduced liabilities

Reduced disposal costs

**The Federal Drive for Green Purchasing**

The commitment for the U.S. Government to be an environmentally
responsible consumer is ensconced in a number of national statutes:

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, the solid and
hazardous waste statute, includes a provision---Section 6002\--which
directed government agencies to promote recycling by increasing the
purchases of products made with recovered materials and thereby
developing markets for those products.

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 establishes an environmental
management hierarchy and places pollution prevention3 as the approach of
first choice. This Act directed EPA to identify opportunities for
Federal procurement to encourage source reduction.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 emphasizes energy efficiency and renewable
energy; it promotes, for example, the use of alternative fuels and
encourages the purchase of alternative-fueled vehicles. Although these
laws have been on the books for a number of years, their potential to
harness purchasing power to achieve environmental objectives has not
been fully utilized.4 These statutory mandates were given a major boost
in the nineties by a series of Presidential Executive Orders, which, in
sum, require the Federal Government to improve environmental performance
in its daily operations and practices---i.e., to "green" its
decision-making process.

An integral component of these Executive Orders and U.S. "greening of
government" efforts is the use of its purchasing power to achieve
environmental improvement. The Executive Orders require Federal agencies
to purchase products ranging from energy

**Presidential Executive Orders Related to the Environment**

Executive Order 13101 "Greening the Government through Waste Prevention,
Recycling, and Federal Acquisition"

Executive Order 13123 "Greening the Government through Efficient Energy
Management"

Executive Order 13134 "Developing and Promoting Biobased Products and
Bioenergy"

Executive Order 13148 "Greening the Government through Leadership in
Environmental Management"

Executive Order 13149 "Greening the Government through Federal Fleet and
Transportation Efficiency"

Executive Order 13150 "Federal Workforce Transportation"

Executive Order 13211 "Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly
Affect Energy Supply, Distribution or Use"

Executive Order 13221 "Energy Efficient Standby Power Devices"

Executive Order 13302 "Amending Executive Order 13212, Actions to
Expedite Energy-Related Projects"

Executive Order 13327 "Federal Real Property Asset Management"

efficient computers and recycled content products, to "environmentally
preferable" products. The Executive Orders also require changes in the
standards, specifications, and regulations guiding purchasing in the
Federal government to be modified to allow for "green" purchasing. These
Executive Orders served as important catalysts, rejuvenating or creating
new "green" procurement programs including:

Buy Recycled Program- Originating in Section 6002 of RCRA (see above),
the Buy Recycled Program is the oldest and the most well-established
environmental procurement program in the United States. RCRA requires
EPA to designate products that can be made with recovered materials and
to recommend practices for buying these products, based on a market
survey to ensure sufficient availability, reasonable price, and
competing vendors.

Once a product is designated, agencies are required to buy the product
with the highest recovered material content level practicable.5 Energy
Star Program- Originally for private sector purchases; this popular,
internationally known program establishes energy efficiency levels for
computers and other energy-consuming products. Executive Order 12902
requires Federal government to buy only those computers, monitors, and
printers that meet Energy Star requirements.

These programs helped to establish the U.S. Government's presence in
demand driven policies for environmental improvement and have been
instrumental in getting the environment on the radar screens of many of
the Federal purchasers. And, each program is tied to a very clear
mission, based on a single product attribute - like recycled content or
energy efficiency. This single attribute focus is not surprising given
that environmental management in the first 20 or so years of EPA's
history centered around controlling and cleaning up industrial pollution
in disparate pieces--- often shifting the pollutant from one medium to
another. This is not to criticize or underplay the tremendous success of
this approach in cleaning up the most egregious and noticeable
environmental problems.

Like the Agency's past policies in the industrial sector, the few
policies and programs directed at influencing consumer behavior and
products have been driven by single-issue concerns (e.g., solid waste
\[Buy Recycled Program\], air quality \[Energy Star, Green Lights
Program\], water quality, etc.). However, as the Agency moves away from
addressing environmental problems on a single-medium basis to a
multi-media systems-based approach that focuses on preventing pollution,
programs targeted at the consumer sector will also have to evolve to
reflect this paradigm shift.

Thus, we need to build on the successes of the single attribute green
procurement programs to introduce the Federal purchasers to a more
comprehensive approach to buying green. This broader perspective is
reflected in EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics'
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program, which aims to
minimize environmental impacts across all environmental media and over
the entire life cycle of the products or services purchased by Federal
agencies.

**EPA's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program**

The Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program is an outgrowth of
Executive Order 13101, which mandates the U.S. Federal Government to
identify and give preferences to those products and services that pose
fewer burdens on the environment when compared to competing products or
services that serve the same purpose. This definition goes on further to
say that this comparison should consider environmental impacts across
the various life-cycle stages of the product.

In 1999, EPA published "Final Guidance on the Acquisition of
Environmentally Preferable Products and Services," the first
articulation of U.S. policy on "green" products and services. The Guide
is a broad framework within which Federal agencies can make more
environmentally preferable purchasing decisions.6 However this broad
approach fell short of Federal agencies' expectations for a set of "how
to" directions from EPA on incorporating human health and environmental
considerations into their purchasing decisions. This need led EPA to
develop a number of tools and resources to help Federal purchasers apply
these broad principles to specific acquisitions (See Figure 2).

**EPA's Purchasing Tool Suite**

The Federal Government does not endorse specific products, but the EPA
has developed a number of tools and resources to begin to help Federal
purchasers find the products that meet their environmental goals and
mandates. EPA's purchasing tool suite was developed with Federal
employees in mind, but will also be useful for others in the private and
public sectors, including product designers, manufacturers, suppliers,
and purchasers. EPA has different approaches for different types of
procurements and product categories. A tailored approach and level of
analysis have been employed to fit the complexity of the product and
service categories. Some of the tools and resources available on-line
include:

General EPP Training Tool: Basic EPP principles, along with some more
in-depth applications of EPP, are introduced in an entertaining and
interactive multimedia format.
[www.epa.gov/epp/gentt/index.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/gentt/index.htm)
Database of Environmental Information for Products & Services:

This searchable database includes product specific information (e.g.,
environmental standards and contract language).
[www.epa.gov/epp/database.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/database.htm)

**EPA's Five Guiding Principles for EPP**

Guiding Principle 1: Environmental considerations should become part of
normal purchasing practice, consistent with such traditional factors as
product safety, price, performance, and availability.

Guiding Principle 2: Consideration of environmental preferability should
begin early in the acquisition process and be rooted in the ethic of
pollution prevention, which strives to eliminate or reduce, up-front,
potential risks to human health and the environment. Guiding Principle
3: A product or service's environmental preferability is a function of
multiple attributes from a life cycle perspective.

Guiding Principle 4: Determining environmental preferability might
involve comparing environmental impacts. In comparing environmental
impacts, Federal agencies should consider: the reversibility and
geographic scale of the environmental impacts, the degree of difference
among competing products or services, and the overriding importance of
protecting human health.

Guiding Principle 5: Comprehensive, accurate, and meaningful information
about the environmental performance of products or services is necessary
in order to determine environmental preferability.

Tips on Buying "Green" with the Government Credit Card: This manual
includes tips and ideas to help one make "greener" choices.
[www.epa.gov/epp/tools/creditcard.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/tools/creditcard.htm)

Promising Practices Guide for "Greening" Contracts: Case studies
highlight successful strategies for incorporating environmental factors
into products and service contracts.
[[www.epa.gov/epp/ppg/index.htm]{.underline}](http://www.epa.gov/epp/ppg/index.htm)

Cleaning Product Attributes Ranking Tool: An interactive tool that helps
the user choose greener cleaning product by prioritizing environmental
attributes (e.g., skin irritation potential, VOCs, recycled packaging).
[[www.epa.gov/epp/cleaners/select/](http://www.epa.gov/epp/cleaners/select/)]{.underline}

Buying Green Online: Greening Government E-Procurement of Office
Supplies: An overview of federal government office supply e-procurement
initiatives and references.
[[www.epa.gov/epp/pubs/buying_green_online.pdf](http://www.epa.gov/epp/pubs/buying_green_online.pdf)]{.underline}

"Greening" Your Meetings and Conferences: An interactive, multi-media
tool that helps meeting planners, and the industries that supply them,
create environmentally responsible meetings, with checklists, case
studies, a calculator for monitoring progress, and links to resources.
[[www.bluegreenmeetings.org]{.underline}](http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/)

Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability: BEES 3.0,
developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Building and Fire Research Laboratory with support from the EPP Program,
is a powerful tool for selecting cost-effective, environmentally
preferable building products.
[www.epa.gov/epp/tools/bees.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/tools/bees.htm)

DRAFT Federal Guide for Green Construction Specs: EPA and our partners,
including the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, are
developing this tool to assist Federal design professionals in meeting
their building environmental goals and mandates. Organized according to
the Construction Specifications Institute's MasterFormat™, the model
language provides performance based options, allowing for flexibility in
application.

([http://fedgreenspecs.wbdg.org](http://fedgreenspecs.wbdg.org/)) In
June 2004, EPA released for public review four draft EPP guides covering
the specific issues surrounding the following
([www.epa.gov/epp/documents/pfs.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/documents/pfs.htm)):

"Greening Your Purchase of Carpet: A Guide for Federal Purchasers."

"Greening Your Purchase of Cleaning Products: A Guide for Federal
Purchasers."

"Greening Your Purchase of Copiers: A Guide for Federal Purchasers."

"Greening Your Meetings and Conferences: A Guide for Federal
Purchasers."

# **Conclusion**

"Greener" public purchasing requires the expertise of both environmental
and acquisition experts. This is because EPP in the Federal government
context presents at least two challenges. First is the challenge of how
to define what is environmentally preferable. As EPA has defined it,
environmental preferability depends on numerous and specific product or
service factors, including the local conditions within which the product
will be used, available alternatives, life cycle impacts, etc.

Environmental information on life cycle impacts is scarce, and where
available, it is often difficult to translate into useful formats to
allow for decision-making. We need to look to the private sector (e.g.,
research institutions and standard setting organizations) that can be
relied upon to fill the information gaps.

The second part of the challenge is how to ensure that those products or
services that do pose fewer burdens on the environment are indeed
purchased. The Federal acquisition process involves complex and
sometimes arcane rules and regulations (even with the recent reforms to
the acquisition process) that may make it difficult for new
environmental products and services to compete on an equal footing with
traditional products and services. As a first step, the U.S. Federal
Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which provides the basic contracting
guidance and implementing regulations used by Federal agencies for
buying products and services from the private sector, was formally
revised in August 1997 to incorporate policies for the acquisition of
environmentally preferable and energy efficient products and services.6

The changes require consideration of environmental factors in all
aspects of Federal acquisition---acquisition planning, describing an
agency's needs, conducting market surveys, and evaluating and selecting
a vendor. However, translating these policies into practice will require
time and resources as well as innovative acquisition approaches that
ensure that environmental considerations become routine in the
purchasing decision-making process.

**Notes:**

1\. James Lee Conrad, 1993 (December): Buying Green: Implementation of
Environmentally-Sound Purchasing Requirements in Department of Defense

Procurements, p. 2.

2\. Two notable examples are Green Seal and Scientific Certification
Systems.

3\. The Pollution Prevention Act defines source reduction to mean any
practice that: reduces the amount of any hazardous substance, pollutant,
or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the
environment (including fugitive emissions) prior to recycling,
treatment, or disposal; and reduces the hazards to public health and the
environment associated with the releases of such substances, pollutants,
or contaminant. For example, between 1976 and 1992, only five products
made with recovered materials---paper, cement and concrete containing
fly ash, building insulation, re-refined oil and retread tires---had
been designated by EPA under Section 6002 for purchase by government
agencies.

4\. US EPA, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, 1997
(November): Environmental Fact Sheet: EPA Expands Comprehensive
Procurement Guideline

(CPG).

5\. From the "Final Guidance," at
[www.epa.gov/epp/guidance/finalguidancetoc.htm](http://www.epa.gov/epp/guidance/finalguidancetoc.htm).

6\. For additional information, consult the 22 August 1997 Federal
Register, vol. 62, no. 163, pp. 44809--44813.

Emil Eugen Holzhauer, "Brooklyn Bridge," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Making Informed Choices Creating a More Healthful, Less Toxic Built
Environment**

Jonathan Herz, Untitled, (Jonathan Herz)

**Creating a More Healthful, Less Toxic Built Environment**

**By Arthur B. Weissman**

Arthur B. Weissman, Ph.D., is President and CEO of Green Seal, Inc., an
independent, non-profit organization that identifies and promotes
products and services that cause less toxic pollution and waste,
conserve resources and habitats, and minimize global warming and ozone
depletion.

As the manager of building facilities, you have an enormous opportunity
to affect positively the health and welfare of your workers, occupants,
and visitors. The products and systems that have been designed into your
building, as well as the products and procedures you put into place for
operating and maintaining your building, can either be a source of
toxins and other harmful health effects or be neutral or even nourishing
to human health and the environment.

This article describes the basic connection between products in the
built environment and human health and environment. We will look first
at how common products in the built environment can be the source of
highly undesirable toxins and how good alternatives can be found for
them. Then we will look at some data linking toxins in the built
environment to the health, productivity, and welfare of workers and the
community. We will describe how environmental standards can be developed
to promote alternatives to toxic products, and look briefly at the
methodology called life-cycle assessment on which product standards are
based. Finally, we will explore the benefits of life-cycle-based
environmental standards for the built environment and show the linkages
to improved health, productivity, and welfare of building occupants and
the community at large.

Basic materials and common products that have become familiar features
of our built environment may nonetheless be a source of toxins with
potentially serious adverse health effects. Contamination of building
ventilation systems resulting in Legionnaire's Disease is a striking and
acute version of many quieter, more insidious dangers in the buildings
we inhabit. Sources of contaminants and toxins include not only heating,
ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems but also carpets,
window furnishings, wallboard, furniture, partitions, paints, cleaners,
fax and copier machines, etc. For example, particleboard, which may be
found in doors and furniture, is usually bonded together with urea
formaldehyde, which emits vapors of formaldehyde, a probable human
carcinogen. Paints may contain petroleum distillates, also potentially
carcinogenic, as well as high levels of volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) that can cause respiratory distress or disease. Even common
surface or floor cleaners used frequently in buildings can be a source
of reproductive toxins or endocrine disruptors as well as VOCs.

The good news is that in most cases there are good alternatives to
products that have harmful toxic ingredients in them. Particleboard can
be made with resins that do not contain formaldehyde. Paints can be made
without carcinogenic petroleum distillates and other toxic ingredients
and with low levels of VOCs, or none at all; so can cleaning chemicals.
All of these so-called "green" products are made with compounds that are
not carcinogens, reproductive toxins, or endocrine disruptors, and are
not toxic to humans or aquatic life, harmful to the ozone layer, bad for
air quality, or persistent and bioaccumulative. Yet green products can
also be designed and formulated to work as well as conventional
products; in fact, they must, or they cannot hope to replace the latter.
For years many in industry resisted the notion that everyday products
could, as a whole, be harmful to health or environment. The typical
response was that, while some of the chemicals in these products might
pose a hazard, the exposure to them by building occupants or
environmental endpoints was negligible or inconsequential.

Risk assessment -- a very uncertain "science" -- was used to determine
levels of exposure or risk that were considered acceptable. But
experience has proved that this approach is not only inadequate but also
erroneous and misleading. Sick building syndrome, chemically sensitive
individuals, increases in asthma and allergies, and long-term genetic
damage in the environment from endocrine disruptors have all shown that
chronic exposure to toxic chemicals can be harmful even at very low
levels.

In fact, a study was conducted a few years ago by the internationally
recognized Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on the macro-scale link
between indoor air quality and worker health and productivity. It
determined that there is "relatively strong evidence that
characteristics of buildings and indoor environments significantly
influence prevalence of respiratory disease, allergy and asthma
symptoms, symptoms of sick building syndrome, and worker performance."
It calculated "potential annual savings and productivity gains in 1996
dollars of \$6 to \$14 billion from reduced respiratory disease, \$2 to
\$4 billion from reduced allergies and asthma, \$15 to \$40 billion from
reduced symptoms of sick building syndrome, and \$20 to \$200 billion
from direct improvements in worker performance that are unrelated to
health. In two example calculations, the potential financial benefits of
improving indoor environments exceed costs by factors of 9 and 14."1
Please note the last statistic: you will reap ten times in financial
benefits what you spend to improve the indoor environment!

Is there any question, then, why building managers should strive to
introduce only green materials and products into the built environment?
These results make very clear why we pursue a pollution prevention or
precautionary policy of getting toxic ingredients out of the workplace
and economy; a more healthful building turns out to be a much more
productive one. But how exactly do we determine what is a green material
or product? How do we define non-toxic, and how do we ensure that
something won't harm the environment in another respect?

Green Seal uses rigorous, scientifically developed environmental
standards for products and services to set appropriate criteria for what
is "green." Two points are critical in developing such standards: they
must be developed in an open, transparent process that allows
participation by all interested stakeholders; and they must be based on
sound technical information on the life-cycle environmental impacts of a
product category and the environmental attributes of products in the
current market.

An open, transparent process is necessary to ensure that all possible
information and perspectives are considered in defining leadership
criteria for a product category. Moreover, for major institutions such
as government bodies to adopt an environmental standard, it has to be
perceived as fair and unbiased. If the criteria are explicit and
transparent, everyone knows on what basis the standard defines a product
as green or not green. At a minimum, all standards should be developed
with proper notice; a draft standard should be proposed to stakeholders
and the public at large for comment, and any comments received should be
carefully and in good faith evaluated for any revisions to the proposal
before the standard is finalized.

We also recommend creating a public document responding to each
substantive comment, showing whether it resulted in a change in the
proposal or why such change was not accepted. In the best of scenarios,
a consensus can be achieved among stakeholders on the final standard,
but, at the least, reasonable efforts should be made to achieve such a
consensus.2

Product environmental standards must also be life-cycle-based. A product
life cycle is all the material, energy, resource, and pollutant flows,
in and out, associated with the manufacture, use, and end-of-life of the
product. It looks at the raw materials that are extracted from the
environment and processed for the product; the manufacturing process to
assemble or formulate the product; the transportation of materials
associated with extraction, processing, and manufacturing and of the
finished product to the market; the use of the product during its
productive life; and the recycling, disassembly, reuse, or disposal of
the product after its useful life.

Formal life-cycle assessment analyzes the environmental impacts of a
product by creating an inventory of materials, energy, and pollutants in
all the life-cycle stages and then determining the corresponding
environmental impacts. For an environmental standard, an evaluation of
the significant environmental impacts at each important stage in the
product's life cycle ensures that no significant attribute is neglected
(for example, highly toxic chemicals used in manufacturing an otherwise
acceptable product) and that environmental impacts are not simply
shifted from one life-cycle stage or environmental impact to another
(for example, from manufacturing to use; or from air pollution to water
pollution).

Life-cycle-based environmental product standards take all this
information and, along with an analysis of the environmental attributes
of products in the current market, set criteria for significant product
attributes -- including its manufacturing process or end-of-life -- so
that the standards represent a leadership level in the current market in
that category. This level may vary, but Green Seal typically strives to
capture 15% to 20% of the top environmental performers in a given
product category in its environmental standards. Purchasers who select
products that meet these standards therefore know that they are buying
environmental leadership products and are helping to reduce the
environmental impact of their own purchasing and activities as well as
encouraging green products in the market.

For the built environment, using life-cycle based environmental
standards has the same positive effect. If the products and procedures
employed in constructing and maintaining a building meet environmental
standards, the materials will have the least possible impact on the
particular environments from which they were extracted; they will have
minimal or no adverse impact on the health of building occupants and
those who operate and maintain the building (such as the janitorial
staff); and, in the best of cases, they will actually enhance the
productivity and wellbeing of all building occupants and visitors from
the community at large. The good news is that the greening of buildings
is happening, and these positive effects are beginning to ripple through
our population and economy. The State of California recently built and
opened up a huge office complex on the Capitol grounds (the East Wing
Complex) that has very low emission carpet and office dividers. One of
the models of green hotels, the Sheraton Rittenhouse Square in
Philadelphia, provides high-volume filtered fresh air to all rooms, and
guests are pampered with linens and towels that are organic and natural
in fiber. Data coming in about other green buildings are showing not
only a reduction in absences due to sickness, but also enhanced
productivity from the tenants. A major corporation experienced a 15%
drop in employee absenteeism after moving into a new high performance
facility.3 An insurance company in Wisconsin recorded a 16% increase in
productivity upon moving into a green building.4

Overall, green buildings can boost occupant performance by 6 to 26%.5
Since your tenants spend a lot of their time inside the buildings you
manage, you can be sure that anything you do to make the buildings
greener will only help them, the environment, and the community of which
we are all a part.

**Notes:**

1\. William Fisk, 1999: Estimates of Potential Nationwide Productivity
and Health Benefits from Better Indoor Environments: An Update, Indoor
Air Quality Handbook,

Report number LBNL-42123 (New York: McGraw-Hill).

2\. The ISO standard for environmental labeling programs, ISO 14024,
requires that reasonable efforts be made to achieve consensus on their
environmental standards. Consensus is not mandated because it could give
a stakeholder bloc, such as industry, too much control over the standard
and possibly result in its being compromised as an independent,
leadership standard.

3\. U.S. Green Building Council, n.d.: Making the Business Case for High
Performance Green Buildings.

4\. Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Design
Program, 2002. Presentations on CD. Sean McGuire, contact.

5\. U.S. Green Building Council, Making the Business Case.

Isaac J. Sanger, "Coal Barges," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Observations and Recommendations**

Daniel Rasmusson, "Men On Scaffold," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Observations and Recommendations**

**The Government and Equity: Making It Green, Economical, and Fair**

Applying sustainable development principles in a way that recognizes the
economic, environmental, and social issues associated with every
business decision we make, will enable the Government to obtain the best
value. By investing in and protecting communities - specifying products
and services that reduce or eliminate toxic materials - we are getting
closer to our goal of carrying out "social, environmental, and other
responsibilities as a federal agency."

But, we need to recognize the complexity of the task. While recognizing
and celebrating the right choices we are making, we need to develop the
data and tools necessary to support a comprehensive planning approach in
the future.

Based on the existing body of literature in this field and our
experience to date, we can make some observations concerning sustainable
development and the equity corner of the Ecology/Economy/Equity
approach.

**Observations and Recommendations:**

Build on the Sustainable Design and Development Business Model
--consider the triad of economic prosperity, environmental quality and
social equity holistically, to develop a meaningful understanding of the
complex nature of sustainability.

Practice Integrated Design --consider and where possible, include all
participants in a building's life cycle in the decision-making and
design process. Sometimes, the maintenance staff and building tenants
can tell you more about impacts and effectiveness of materials choices
than many complex models.

"Expand" Life Cycle -- always start with present-value life cycle cost
analysis, then expand to life cycle analysis. To be sustainable, we need
to address more than just cost reduction, economic opportunity,
environmental protection and resource conservation. We must also
consider improvements in the quality of life for individuals,
communities, and society as a whole.

Eliminate Toxics and Avoid Risk Shifting -- understand the impact of our
product choices, including "green" products, on the communities in which
they are made, on those who fabricate, install, occupy, operate and
maintain, and dispose of the materials and services associated with our
facilities. Be certain that the "lowest first cost" includes their
health and safety, too.

Establish an Evaluative Framework for Green Materials --recognize the
demonstrated human health, societal and environmental burdens associated
with persistent organic pollutants, persistent bioaccumulative toxics,
carcinogens, and reproductive toxicants, and incorporate these costs
into our business calculations.

Incorporate Society Factors into Green Design Templates -- as
understanding of, and agreement on, equity factors increase, consider
their explicit incorporation into recognized green modeling tools and
guidelines, such as EPA's Model Green Specifications, BEES, Greenseal
Standards, the McDonough Braungart Protocol™, and LEED®.

Affirmatively Recognize Agency Commitment -- to our goal of carrying out
social, environmental, and other responsibilities as Federal agencies,
by embracing sustainable development principles (per EO 13123), and
eliminating toxics (per EO 13148). Responsibility for compliance is with
all Federal Agencies not just the Environmental Protection Agency,
Department of Labor and Department of Justice, which, in these areas,
are primarily monitoring agencies.

**Green and Fair Means Best Value**

The Office of Governmentwide Policy is committed to educating and
helping Federal decision-makers in planning and carrying out their real
property programs in a way that will result in the most effective use of
limited resources. This means investing in building products that have
the best long-term value over their entire lifecycle. The reality is
that the Government will likely continue to use products that generate
toxics through their lifecycle where they currently represent the best
alternative. But, we must be aware of their future costs and
impacts---and take steps to mitigate them.

Sustainable development only works when societal issues are considered.
As we noted in the "GSA Real Property Sustainable Development Guide," it
helps us to understand the environmental implications of our business
functions, such that environmental issues are considered essential
components of business processes, rather than consequences of those
processes. Understanding and holistically considering the three pillars
of sustainable development - economic prosperity, environmental quality
and social equity -- will lead us towards getting the best value for the
American People.

Mary De Neale Morgan, "Trees on Coast," GSA Fine Arts Program.

> "First and foremost, applying the sustainability principles means
> going beyond traditional financial reporting to measure and report on
> at least the environmental, social and economic dimensions of
> performance. The reductionist approach is inconsistent with the
> concept of sustainability, and its principles, for two main reasons.
> Firstly, sustainability is not a single thing. It is multidimensional
> . . .
>
> "Secondly, sustainability is a vision of wholeness. Breaking it down
> into disconnected parts and then studying the parts individually will
> not help us understand the relationships between the parts that make
> up the whole. Instead, taking the reductionist approach can lead us to
> oversimplify the complex nature of sustainability" . . .
>
> Auditor-General's Office, State of Victoria, Australia1

**LEED® Innovation in Design, Green Building Concerns:**

Environmental Issues: With all sustainable design strategies and
products, it is important to consider the related impacts to the
environment and occupant well being, and to assure that other building
aspects are not adversely impacted.

Economic Issues: Innovative strategies and measures have variable first
costs and operating costs, depending on the degree of complexity,
materials incorporated, and the novelty of the technology. Initial costs
can range from free to prohibitively expensive. To understand the
implications of design features, a life cycle analysis can be applied to
determine if the strategy or product is cost-effective over the lifetime
of the building.

Community Issues: Community issues are those that affect others in close
proximity to the project, as well as members of regional and world
communities. Local actions can have dramatic effects on the world when
considered in aggregate.**LEED Innovation in Design, Green Building
Concerns:2**

The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® Green Building Rating System was
devised to address current sustainable issues involved in commercial
building design. While still focusing major energy conservation-related
issues, LEED has broadened the definition of green buildings, by
requiring point credits in six categories: sustainable sites, water
efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor
environmental quality, and, innovation and design process. To attain
LEED certification, project investment decisions follow a template.
Different levels of green building certification are awarded based on
the total points earned. Currently, the LEED certification template
exemplifies an economic and environmental approach to sustainable
development. By focusing on these two core values, the USGBC was able to
bring together diverse segments of the building industry to create a
national standard for high-performance buildings. But, the third core
value, equity, is only peripherally addressed.

And, while the Government's use of economic (Life Cycle Cost) and
environmental (Life Cycle Analysis) criteria is consistent with LEED,
the current version does not credit the Government's (or any other
owner's) investments in equity. So where might credit for eliminating
toxics and paying prevailing wages be pursued using the current version
of LEED?

"Innovation Credits" are how LEED recognizes and awards exemplary
performance, "where the outcome provides substantial benefits." Under
the present LEED version, this appears to be the logical place.

In the LEED rating system: "environmental," usually relates to natural
resource depletion, air pollution, global warming, air and water
pollution, habitat restoration; "economic," focuses on saving money and
reducing liability; and "community," usually relates to tenant comfort,
better community quality, and conserving and protecting local resources.
Community issues occasionally address creating "a more stable and
interactive community,"3 "or instilling "a new sense of pride."4
However, more often than not, those community issues are most often
environmental concerns, such as better water quality; and economic
concerns, such as enhancing property values.

The Office of Governmentwide Policy has initiated a dialogue with the
U.S. Green Building Council, with an eye towards considering these and
other issues relevant to the Government.

**Notes:**

1\. "Beyond The Triple Bottom Line: Measuring and Reporting on
Sustainability," Occasional Paper, Victoria Auditor-General's Office,
Melbourne, Australia, June 2004.

[www.audit.vic.gov.au](http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/), ISBN 0 9752308 2
4.

2\. LEED-NC Version 2.1 Reference Guide, May 2003 Edition, p.314.

3\. Ibid, p. 20.

4\. Ibid, p. 26.

Bernece Berkman, "Gobbers! Git A Bag!!!," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Case Studies and Strategies**

**Real Cleaning**

Chaim Gross, "Construction," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Real Cleaning**

**By Stephen P. Ashkin**

Stephen P. Ashkin is president of The Ashkin Group, a consulting firm
specializing in "greening" the cleaning process. The Ashkin Group
provides green consulting services for federal, state and local
governments, commercial office building owners/managers, major school
districts, healthcare organizations, contract service providers, labor
unions and environmental groups.
(<http://www.ashkingroup.com/index.htm>)

**Abstract**

Today in the United States, cleaning is a \$150 billion industry
employing some three million custodians, the majority of whom are at the
bottom of our socioeconomic ladder. Cleaning also consumes huge
quantities of natural resources. Cleaning of commercial and
institutional buildings in the United States each year is estimated to
consume: 6 billion pounds of chemicals, most of which are derived from
non-renewable natural resources; 4.5 billion pounds of paper, requiring
the cutting of approximately 50 million trees; and, hundreds of millions
of pounds of janitorial equipment, filling approximately ten thousand
garbage trucks, headed for disposal in our landfills.

Cleaning affects our environment through energy consumed to run
equipment and illuminate office buildings as they are cleaned in the
night, as well as water consumed during both the manufacture of
janitorial products and the cleaning process itself. We have also
learned that building occupants are affected by cleaning, as we connect
it with the quality of the indoor environment and its effect on health
and productivity.1 The American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM)
1998 "Standard Guide on Stewardship for the Cleaning of Commercial and
Institutional Buildings," has identified the process for implementing a
state-of-the-art program, as well as the most common opportunities for
improvement. Cleaning programs based on it appear to have an important
role in reducing overall environmental impacts on worker and occupant
health, performance and productivity, as well as reducing environmental
impacts.

**Introduction**

Building owners in the United States currently pay, on average,
approximately \$1.30 per square foot for janitorial services.2
Unfortunately, the primary focus on this investment is not on protecting
occupant health but, rather, on maintaining an acceptable appearance
while minimizing tenant complaints and costs. The result is significant
lost opportunities to address indoor air quality (IAQ) and other
problems which are either caused by improper cleaning - or are
correctable by appropriate cleaning. These improvements can reduce
absenteeism and increase worker productivity.3

The perception among building owners and managers is that all cleaning
activities, products and services are the same. As a result, janitorial
cleaning services have become a commodity. And, if all services are seen
as equal and abundant---then the only thing to negotiate is the cost.
Thus, there is a heavy focus on simply reducing costs.

But not all services are the same. Over the past ten years, the cleaning
industry has made enormous strides. Cleaning product manufacturers have
reduced the toxicity of their products and included renewable
components, both of which benefit health and the environment.
Manufacturers of backpack vacuums and high-speed floor burnishing
machines have significantly increased the ability to capture and
eliminate finer particulates, which can adversely affect occupant
health, computers, and other building equipment.

Other equipment manufacturers have developed automated floor scrubbers
that significantly reduce water consumption and, by drying floors
faster, reduce the potential for slips and falls. Paper-towel and toilet
tissue makers now offer products with recycled content, bleached without
chlorine, again significantly reducing environmental burdens. And
finally, we know that bringing all the components together - products,
equipment and people (including building occupants) can create a
healthy, high performance environment, while reducing overall health and
environmental impacts.

Not all buildings are the same. The US Government has an enormous
variety of building types to consider when developing cleaning programs
that protect the asset itself, the occupants, cleaning personnel, and
the environment - at the most competitive price. Buildings range from
historical landmarks to new offices, to military command centers, to
laboratory complexes, to healthcare facilities; from high occupancy
buildings with many visitors, to those with few occupants and no
visitors; from the dry desert Southwest, to the hot and humid Southeast;
from buildings housing our aging veterans, to schools and daycare for
the youngest and most vulnerable children. Each building type and use
impacts cleaning requirements. One size (or one contract) does NOT fit
all. Another complication is the use of "performance-based" contracts
when there are no generally accepted performance metrics. However,
sustainable cleaning has begun with EPA's Environmentally Preferable
Purchasing Program, which has developed a model green custodial contract
with GSA's Public Buildings Service.

The performance-based contract can provide many opportunities for
addressing sustainability, but it must be clearly articulated. Many
Federal agencies are assessing the US Green Building Council's
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Rating System for
New Construction (LEED-NC) and Existing Buildings (LEED-EB), which offer
numerous credits for sustainable cleaning products and practices.

**Methods**

The following ten steps, based on our programs in over two hundred
buildings, appear to be the common thread in successful programs that
utilize cleaning to maintain a healthy, high-performance, sustainable
indoor environment. These steps deliver the best return-on-investment
relative to other cleaning programs; they provide a proven and easy
implementation process, and identify opportunities for improvement, with
the least expenditure of resources.

STEP 1. Commitment: Gaining commitment from senior management of all
stakeholders is essential for program success. This includes the
building owners, managers, tenants, and cleaning staff. Implementing a
healthy, high-performance, sustainable cleaning program must be a
priority. Commitment is demonstrated in actions taken to clearly define
goals, expectations, and performance criteria and establish
implementation plans with timetables by which the program can be
evaluated.

STEP 2. Team Development: Like senior management, so must the team
responsible for implementation make the commitment. The team should
recruit additional members, as needed, such as environmental, health and
safety personnel, union representatives, engineers, human resources
representative, and, other concerned individuals. When developing a
healthy, high-performance, sustainable cleaning program it is necessary
not only to manage the cleaning operations themselves but also to manage
occupant perception of those activities. Developing an effective project
team cannot be over-emphasized.

STEP 3. Baseline: A building investigation will identify existing or
potential indoor environmental problems, either caused by or correctable
by cleaning activities. This can include a building survey, cleaning
chemical and equipment evaluation, and review of other information, such
as complaint and IAQ records. The baseline is critical for identifying
and prioritizing opportunities for improvement and documenting them. It
is also important when participating in pollution prevention programs,
such as reducing VOCs or using biobased cleaning products. Finally,
thoroughly review existing cleaning products and procedures. With a
clear baseline, improvements can be demonstrated and management support
maintained.

STEP 4. Products: Cleaning products should be reviewed specifically for
impacts on human health and the environment. See Opportunities, below.

STEP 5. Procedures: Evaluate cleaning procedures and establish processes
that protect health and safety and minimize environmental impacts.
Traditional cleaning approaches simply focus on appearances, which may
be deceptive. Even buildings that appear to be clean can be unhealthy. A
healthy, high-performance sustainable cleaning strategy focuses on
maximizing the control and elimination of microorganisms, VOCs and
particles. Cleaning procedures should be based on requirements of
individual building areas, with specific attention on occupants with
special needs. These include individuals with pre-existing health
conditions, asthmatics, chemically sensitive individuals, children, the
elderly and other at-risk populations. Recognize that not all areas of a
building require the same cleaning, and manage workloads and scheduling
to optimize resources. The cleaning program must also be sensitive to
the needs of the cleaning personnel, especially for those with
disabilities, such as NISH contractors, who may require modified
procedures and closer supervision.

STEP 6. Training: Identify and implement training required to carry out
the new procedures. Remember: no two buildings are the same, nor are
cleaning crews. Training should include functional, procedural and OSHA
requirements. Inform and motivate the cleaning personnel on their
critical role in maintaining a healthy environment. Finally, recognize
learning, language, and other potential barriers and ensure that
training is provided in easily understandable language; especially if
cleaning personnel use English as a second language. Color-coded,
post-able materials and pictographs are valuable, especially with high
turnover of cleaning personnel.

STEP 7. Controls: Institute controls to provide consistent product
quality, greater health and safety protection, and reduced risk from the
incorrect or accidental mixing of chemicals. Automated chemical mixing
equipment can reduce consumption by 30% to 60% and protect workers from
exposure. Other, simple controls include labeling storage areas and
shelves for proper identification and storage of chemicals. Label
product containers, mops, and other equipment and develop specific
auditing tools to ensure work is being conducted as specified.

STEP 8. Communications:

Communications should foster a team effort, develop a clear sense of
shared responsibility (see STEP 9), and establish a framework for
continual improvement. An intranet message system can explain the
process and notify occupants of upcoming meetings and major cleaning
activities. Other means include letters, building newsletters, safety
fairs, and employee activities. Establish feedback loops between
management, occupants, cleaning personnel and vendors, to optimize
resources and reduce response time.

STEP 9. Shared Responsibility: The traditional cleaning approach
delegates the responsibility for the building cleanliness solely to the
cleaning personnel. But, to optimize resources and generate healthy,
high-performance indoor environments, all who share the environment must
contribute to maintaining that environment. A shared responsibility
education program should be provided for occupants, vendors, and
visitors. Occupants need to recognize how their activities impact the
building and individuals working nearby. For example, food debris in
work areas can impact the entire building's requirements for cleaning
and pest management, while the use of personal care products such as
strong perfumes can adversely affect chemically sensitive individuals in
a nearby area. Vendors, too, need to understand that the products they
use can affect indoor air quality and modify their products, augment
ventilation, or adjust product use time.

STEP 10. Continual Improvement:

Continued involvement of the project team is the key to long-term
success and program improvement. Review occupant feedback and evaluate
opportunities for improvements. And, institute periodic meetings with
cleaning personnel, both to train new workers and to reinforce correct
procedures.

**Opportunities For Improvement**

1\. Work from a Written Plan.

> All buildings should have effective operations plans that address the
> mission of the facility and its unique constraints, such as
> individuals with health conditions or sensitivities, geographical
> settings, building age, seasonal changes, and security. It should also
> have a stewardship component to involve all building occupants. A
> helpful guide is ASTM's Standard Guide for Stewardship for the
> Cleaning of Commercial and Institutional Buildings.4 For buildings
> cleaned under contract, review the contract periodically and include
> green requirements for chemicals, janitorial paper, trash bags,
> equipment, etc. And, incorporate a clear auditing process to ensure
> that sustainable cleaning methods are actually being utilized,
> especially when using performance-based contracts. Since cleaning
> standards are often very subjective, be precise. Stating, "Restrooms
> shall be clean and well stocked," might suggest to some that a
> full-time restroom matron is required in each restroom, but others
> will likely disagree.

2\. Employ Entryway Systems.

> Since 80% to 90% of all dirt enters a building on people's feet,
> installing and maintaining entryway systems can have an enormous
> impact on both people's health, as well as cleaning costs. Grills,
> grates, mats, etc. should be used both inside and outside to prevent
> dirt, dust, pollen, and other particles from entering the building.
> Entryway systems should cover a minimum of 12 feet (when walking
> across the mats, each foot should hit the mat at least twice). Systems
> should begin outdoors and be appropriate for weather and other site
> conditions (i.e. based on the types of soils--sand versus clay).
> Outdoor systems, including concrete and stone walkways, should shed
> standing water and be rough enough to scrape soils off shoes prior to
> entering the building--but not rough enough to cause slips and falls.

3\. Janitorial Closets & Chemical

Storage/Mixing Areas. Chemical and janitorial equipment storage and
mixing areas can have a serious impact on indoor air quality because
items off-gas during storage, mixing or spills. Minimize the potential
for VOC's, mold spores, particulates, etc. circulating throughout the
building, by building closets with structural deck-to-deck partitions,
negative air pressure, and separate, outside exhausts. Well-organized
closets and storage areas minimize time to find tools or cleaning
products and make it easier to identify foreign objects placed in these
areas.

4\. Floor Care Systems.

> One third of a typical maintenance budget (\$0.35 to \$0.70 per square
> foot) is devoted to the care and maintenance of floors. Maintaining
> (i.e., burnishing, stripping, and recoating) floors can create IAQ
> problems from VOCs and particles, occupational hazards to janitors,
> and huge environmental burdens. Excellent products are available that
> are highly durable and contain no metals that can accumulate and
> become toxic in the environment after disposal. Some jurisdictions may
> have local requirements to reduce discharge of metals, including those
> found in traditional floor finishes, into water systems. Equipment and
> procedures are available that extend the period between stripping for
> years. Although the first cost is higher, with more coats required,
> the payback of both labor costs and reduced exposure to cleaning
> personnel and occupants pays off.

5\. Use Environmentally Preferable Cleaning Products.

> Every year billions of pounds of cleaning products are used in
> commercial and institutional buildings in the United States. This
> number increases by a factor of approximately ten, if we consider the
> chemicals used to produce those cleaning products. Opportunities to
> reduce impacts through source reduction and pollution prevention
> strategies are substantial. Traditional cleaning products are not
> "bad" per se. Over the years, they have contributed to protecting
> public health and the buildings themselves. However, new technologies
> allow us to accomplish the same tasks, while reducing overall impacts
> on human health and the environment. Use existing standards, rather
> than developing new or even "tweaking" existing ones. Even small
> product attribute changes require manufacturers to expend large sums
> to reformulate and test products for compliance. Green Seal's standard
> for industrial and institutional cleaners (GS-37) is recommended.5
> Products not covered by GS-37 should meet or be less volatile than the
> California Code of Regulations maximum allowable.6 While no federal
> requirements exist for these product categories, many federal regions
> have voluntary goals to reduce VOC's.

6\. Biobased/Renewable Resource- Based Cleaning Products.

> In the early 1900's, Petroleum, a finite and nonrenewable resource,
> became chemical industry's feedstock of choice. Disposing of those
> petroleum-based cleaning products down the drain after a single use is
> hardly a sustainable practice. New products include solvents,
> surfactants, and other ingredients, derived from agricultural products
> such as corn, soy, sugar beets, coconuts and citrus fruits. When
> purchasing an agriculturally based product, be sure that the renewable
> resources represent a substantial portion of the active ingredients,
> not merely cosmetics such as the fragrance. Not only is using
> biobased/renewable resource-based products a more sustainable
> practice, but generally, production of these materials is more benign
> than their petroleum-based counterparts.

7\. Use Concentrated Products.

> Concentrated cleaning products reduce packaging (e.g., bottles,
> closures, boxes, etc.) and the amount of water being transported,
> providing environmental and cost savings. However, it's important to
> use dilution systems to control the concentration; otherwise the
> environmental and costs savings can be lost.

8\. Selection Of Janitorial Supplies.

> Billions of pounds of paper (e.g. toilet tissue and hand towels) are
> used every year in the restroom, substantially impacting our forests,
> and, if bleached, contributing significant amounts of dioxins to our
> environment. We can make an important contribution to sustainable
> practices by utilizing paper containing a high percentage of recycled
> content and manufactured without chlorine or chlorine compounds. Use
> plastic trashcan and other liners with a high percentage of recycled
> content. Both paper products and plastic trashcan liners are
> designated items under RCRA and EPA's Comprehensive Procurement
> Guidelines. 7

Morton Birkin, "Garment Workers," GSA Fine Arts Program.

9\. Selection of Janitorial Equipment.

> Proper janitorial equipment can make a substantial difference. Carpet
> care equipment should capture 96% of particulates 0.3 microns in size.
> Backpack vacuums can save time and money. Perhaps the simplest
> strategy is to specify vacuum cleaners that have been tested and
> certified under the Carpet & Rug Institute's Green Label Program8.
> Equipment for hard floor maintenance such as buffers and burnishers
> should be equipped with active dust control systems, including skirts
> and vacuums, guards and other devices. Carpet and floor care equipment
> should be electric or battery-powered, be durable and have a maximum
> sound level less than 70 dBA.

10\. Implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program.

> Bugs, rodents, vermin, birds, and other unwanted creatures can
> seriously affect the health of building occupants. Eliminating these
> pests through the use of pesticides can also cause serious health
> affects. An effective integrated pest management program removes the
> food, moisture and nesting and entry opportunities that allow pests to
> enter and flourish in a building thereby obviating the need for
> pesticides.9

**Conclusion**

An appropriate, healthy, high-performance, sustainable cleaning program
is an essential part of maintaining a healthy and productive indoor
environment. In addition it can play an important role in reducing
environmental impacts. The new cleaning paradigm is not focused on
appearances alone, but rather constitutes a low-cost health intervention
and productivity improvement strategy.

**Notes:**

1\. Heerwagen, 2000: Green Buildings, Organizational Success and
Occupant Productivity, Building Research and Information (London) 28
(5): 353--67.

2\. OMA, 1997: Cleaning Makes Cents (Washington DC: Building Owners and
Managers Association International), p. 57.

3\. Krilov, 1996. Impact on an Infection Control Education Program in a
Specialized Preschool, American Journal of Infection Control, 1996 (24),
pp. 167--73.

4\. ASTM, 1998: ASTM Standard E1971-98, Standard Guide on Stewardship
for Cleaning Commercial and Institutional Buildings (West Conshohocken:
American

Society for Testing and Materials).

5\. Green Seal, 2000. Industrial & Institutional Cleaners (GS-37)
(Washington DC, Green Seal Inc)
[http://www.greenseal.org](http://www.greenseal.org/).

6\. <http://www.arb.ca.gov/consprod/regs/Cpreg.doc>

7\. EPA's Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines can be found at
<http://www.epa.gov/cpg/products.htm>

8\. Information on the Carpet & Rug Institute's Green Label Program can
be found at <http://www.carpet-rug.com/drill_down_2.cfm?page=8&sub=9>

9\. Information on integrated pest management can be found at
<http://www.beyondpesticides.org/main.html>.

**Case Studies and Strategies**

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Santa Rosa (Photo: Kaiser Permanente)

**Environmental Stewardship at Kaiser Permanente**

**By Kathy Gerwig**

Kathy Gerwig is the Director of Environmental Stewardship and National
Environmental Health and Safety for Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit,
group practice prepayment program with headquarters in Oakland,
California. It includes the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser
Foundation Hospitals, and the Permanente Medical Groups.

Environmental activism at Kaiser Permanente began four decades ago when
the organization invited Rachel Carson to deliver the keynote address to
a large symposium of physicians and scientists. Her book, Silent Spring,
which has been widely credited for launching today's environmental
movement, had just been released. Her keynote address at the Kaiser
gathering was her last public appearance before her death from breast
cancer.

**The Paradox**

The environmental paradox for health care is that in the course of
providing health care to individuals, health care institutions use
chemicals and materials that are hazardous to human health.

Two examples are:

Medical waste incinerators that are among the highest contributors of
dioxin in the air we breathe. Burning polyvinyl chloride creates dioxin,
and polyvinyl chloride is ubiquitous in healthcare.

Mercury thermometers, one of which is enough to contaminate a 20-acre
lake. Heavy metals are found in manometers, fixatives, and a variety of
other healthcare products. They are persistent, and they bioaccumulate
in the environment.

The only responsible course of action is to eliminate or reduce these
hazards.

**Kaiser Permanente's Vision for Environmental Stewardship**

Kaiser Permanente's (KP's) organizational mission is to improve the
health of the communities it serves. That mission extends to the health
of the environment because healthy people require clean air, water, and
soil.

KP's vision for environmental stewardship is to aspire to provide health
care services in a manner that protects and enhances the environment and
the health of communities now and for future generations.

**A Precautionary Approach**

KP takes a precautionary approach to addressing environmental impacts of
the materials and products it uses. This approach is based on the
Precautionary Principle, which states that when an activity raises
threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary
measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are
not fully established scientifically.

**A New Way to Think About Safety**

KP pursues a concept called "the three safeties," reflecting KP's
priorities related to worker safety, patient safety, and environmental
safety.

Worker safety means freedom from on the-job injuries.

Patient safety means freedom from medical errors and harm.

Environmental safety means freedom from adverse impacts on the
environment.

These priorities are integrated through a common theme of preventing the
preventable. When we eliminate mercury, we're creating safer places for
our workers and patients and eliminating the possibility of
environmental releases. When we find safer alternatives to chemicals of
concern, we're promoting the three safeties. This way of thinking allows
KP to see its environmental efforts in a larger context, and it also
provides a method for prioritizing resources. For example, since using
the least toxic cleaning chemicals apply to all three safeties,
identifying such products is a priority.

**Environmental Stewardship at Kaiser Permanente**

KP's focus is in three areas:

Green buildings---sustainable design and construction

Environmentally responsible purchasing

Sustainable operations (e.g., waste minimization, mercury elimination)

**Green Buildings**

KP is building twenty-five new, replacement or significant additions to
hospitals, and a hundred new medical office buildings in the next ten
years. This represents enormous responsibility as well as opportunity.

KP standards and templates for all capital projects are aligned with
achieving minimum LEED® criteria.

KP has identified cleaner alternatives to interior materials, including
resilient flooring, carpet, paint, ceiling tiles, casework, and
furniture.

KP hosted a public forum that attracted four hundred designers,
contractors, architects, and engineers to share their learning and learn
stateof-the-art green building techniques. Environmentally Responsible
Purchasing KP's purchasing strategy is to incorporate environmental
considerations into nationally contracted products. Where "green"
products are not available, KP works with manufacturers to produce
cleaner, less toxic materials.

Priorities have included carpet, casework, resilient flooring, and a
variety of medical products, as well as greener cleaning products
(pursuant to the three safeties concept).

Overall, KP has focused on phasing out the use of PVC, eliminating the
presence of mercury, increasing recycled content, reducing waste
volumes, and demonstrating a preference for least toxic chemicals.

KP is methodically removing DEHP from products in neonatal units.

**Sustainable Operations**

In 2003, approximately 8,000 tons of solid wastes were diverted from
landfills. KP's overall waste volume reduction is now 30%.

In 2003, 65,500 pieces of electronic equipment were reused within KP,
redeployed outside of KP, or ultimately recycled, through a partnership
with Redemtech.

In the last few years, 100 tons of single use devices were reprocessed.

KP has eliminated the purchase and disposal of 40 tons of hazardous
chemicals through finding safer alternatives and recycling solvents.

27,000 grams of mercury have been eliminated from KP health care
operations through the phase-out of mercury-containing blood pressure
devices, thermometers, and GI equipment. KP's goal is to be virtually
mercury free by the end of 2004.

**What the Future Holds:**

KP's' Environmental Stewardship Council is pursuing two bold initiatives
in addition to the current work:

Chemical Policy: Rather than continuing to take an approach that is
problem focused (e.g., eliminating mercury, eliminating PVC, eliminating
incineration), KP wants to pursue their work from a solution-focus.

KP's new chemical policy (still under development at the time this paper
was submitted) will call for avoiding the use of carcinogens, mutagens,
and reproductive toxins (CMRs) and persistent bioaccumulative toxic
chemicals (PBTs). Clearly, it will be a long time before these chemicals
can be avoided entirely. But KP's policy will signal the marketplace
that innovation and change are necessary, and they will demonstrate a
preference for manufacturers who provide cleaner products that meet the
organization's quality and cost imperatives.

Food Policy: A new policy on food will support healthy food systems in
health care. Specifically, that means supporting food systems that are
ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. As a
start, KP has farmers' markets in operation at five medical centers in
California and Hawaii, with plans to expand to additional centers in
2004. The food policy is a way to encompass the wide reaching aspects of
food, including ecosystem health, antibiotic use, pesticide use, and
food security, as well as nutrition and weight management.

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, San Francisco (Photo: Kaiser
Permanente)

**Improving the Environmental Performance of Health Care**

Imagine how many cancers could be prevented by eliminating the use of
carcinogens in health care. Imagine how much infertility could be
prevented if there were no endocrine disrupting phthalates like DEHP in
neonatal units.

Imagine how many communities could have access to nutritious
locally-grown organic food if every hospital made it part of their
procurement policy.

What other sources of environmental health problems can be impacted?

These are questions that KP's Environmental Stewardship program aims to
address.

Isaac J. Sanger, "Flowers," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Case Studies and Strategies**

Stanley Wood, "Boulder Dam\--Government Hoist House," GSA Fine Arts
Program.

**A Collaboration to Go "Green": NISH/JWOD**

**By Blaine Robinson**

Blaine Robinson, an Operations Manager in the NISH National Office, has
worked with both the President\'s Committee and the federal government
on developing strategies associated with the \"Greening of JWOD."

When referring to a restroom with a heavy scent of disinfectant, have
you ever heard someone comment, "Doesn't this restroom smell clean?" The
public has been schooled to equate particular chemical scents with the
idea of clean. The new and more environmentally sound approach evaluates
the delivery of janitorial services based on the foundation of "green."

GSA and NISH have been strong proponents of green cleaning. NISH,
formerly the National Industries for the Severely Handicapped, is a
nonprofit agency designated by the Committee for Purchase from People
Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled (the Committee) to provide technical
assistance to Nonprofit Agencies (NPAs) interested in obtaining Federal
contracts under the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Program (JWOD). In fact,
Janitorial services represent the largest portion of the approximately
\$1.6 billion in Federal contracts currently being provided under the
JWOD Program. Over 30 million square feet of space is currently being
"Green Cleaned." for the Federal Government customer by NPAs under the
JWOD Program. These 890 JWOD contracts support myriad Federal Government
agencies including GSA and the Department of Defense.

Over two years ago, NISH and National Industries for the Blind (NIB)
signed the Memorandum of Understanding in Support of Environmentally
Preferable Purchasing and Selling Practices. The Federal Government
signatories were Department of Interior (DOI), Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and the Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind
or Severely Disabled and National Industries for the Blind.

There has been strong support for NISH to take a leadership role. "It is
just good business to create a cleaner, safer, healthier environment for
the JWOD-associated employees who perform cleaning tasks, the Federal
personnel who work in the buildings, and for citizens who visit these
same facilities," said Lee Wilson, Executive Director of the Committee
for Purchase Bob Chamberlin, NISH President and CEO, commented, "The use
of environmentally preferable products and practices is important, not
only for the protection of the environment, more importantly, to protect
the health of workers on JWOD contracts and their customers. NISH wants
to assist in the development of Green Cleaning solutions for customers
today and in the near future so that when the demand for such services
shoots upward, as we fully expect it to do in the near future---NPAs
will be ahead of the curve." That future is now . . . a Green Cleaning
partnership between a NPA, a supplier of janitorial products, NISH, and
NIB received the White House "Closing the Circle Award" for Leadership
in Environmentalism.

One of the most important initiatives that NISH has undertaken involves
the development of a definition for the term "Green Cleaning." This
definition requires mutual acceptability throughout the JWOD contracting
arena. The goal seeks to provide a shared understanding of what is
required when a janitorial contract indicates a Green Cleaning
requirement. The term "Green Cleaning" is frequently misused and
misunderstood by building managers, occupants, and janitorial
contractors. True green cleaning involves more than just using products
that are labeled environmentally acceptable (such as Certification by
Green Seal). The commitment to Green Cleaning requires a comprehensive
approach that includes the following:

Selecting the right products, including cleaning and maintenance
chemicals, janitorial paper items, tools, and equipment.

Understanding how to properly use products to reduce their impact on
janitorial workers, building occupants, and the environment.

Implementing "stewardship" (responsible leadership and caring) for the
occupants of the building where the products are being used.

Providing training for the workers on the appropriate use of all
products.

Communicating with all participants in the Green Cleaning process. Steve
Ashkin, a recognized expert in the field of Green Cleaning and one of
the leading advocates for a stronger environmental profile among
cleaning product manufacturers, suppliers, and consumers; supports the
idea of a comprehensive approach to Green Cleaning. He says, "The goal
of Green Cleaning is to reduce the total impact on both health and the
environment. This cannot be accomplished simply by switching to an
environmentally-preferable product. It requires the willing
participation of all those involved in the process."

Cleaning chemicals should not be judged to be "green' because they are
bio-based or biodegradable. The EPA recommends that multiple health and
environmental attributes of all chemicals need to be examined. Some
examples of these attributes are skin sensitization, the potential to
burn eyes or skin, and the potential to cause cancer or to be a
reproductive toxin or be toxic to aquatic life.

The organization, Green Seal (greenseal.org), evaluates products and is
leading the industry toward a standard for evaluation.

Running an effective Green Cleaning Program involves a lot more than
convincing a janitor to switch from "Product A" to "Product B". A
holistic approach to cleaning must be embraced. The changes range from
preventive measures that reduce the need for harsh chemicals to
modifying occupant activities and traffic patterns that can increase
cleaning needs. For maximum results, the Green Cleaning approach
requires the cooperation of key stakeholders, including agency
management, purchasing agents, environmental staff, facilities manager,
janitorial staff, and the building occupants.

The Green Cleaning approach designs a program to get everyone who uses a
building involved in making it a healthier place in which to work. The
outcomes achieved from a successful Green Cleaning contract include:

An optimized cleaning program that is responsive to individual occupant
needs,

A cleaner, healthier work environment,

A responsive janitorial staff,

An increase in worker productivity;

A decrease in absenteeism due to illness,

An improvement in building safety,

An enhancement of the self-respect for the individual janitorial
professionals and their team,

A more proactive understanding by building occupants of how a building
is maintained and what is occurring in the facility where they spend
more that one-third of their lives.

NISH has created a comprehensive Green Cleaning Seminar for Federal
Government Agencies and NPAs associated with the JWOD Program. The
seminar is offered several times per year on a national basis through
the NISH Training Department. Additionally, onsite seminars may be
requested by Federal Government agencies or NPAs. There is no charge for
NISH sponsored training and technical assistance for agencies
participating in the JWOD Program. For more information, contact Blaine
Robinson at <brobinson@nish.org>.

David Stone Martin, "Electrification," GSA Fine Arts Program.

Case Studies and Strategies

Well-Being and the Service Worker

The Greening of the Pentagon

Measuring and Reporting Sustainability Principles

Ethics In Action

Hugh Pearce Botts, "Construction Workers," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**Well-Being and the Service Worker**

> "One of the accomplishments I think we've made here is to help reduce
> turnover in our industry. We've got better benefits now for people to
> stay around and make it a career.
>
> "We're looking forward to that.1
>
> Kevin Rohan, lead negotiator for the Washington Service Contractors
> Association and president of contractor Cavalier Services Inc.
>
> "This agreement means we have a future we can look forward to. With
> health benefits, I'll have more peace of mind.2
>
> --- Maria Rivera, a part-time UNICCO janitor

In May 2003, the union that represents workers who clean about 85
percent of downtown Washington's office buildings reached an agreement
with cleaning contractors that paid higher wages and provided new
benefits. The agreement between the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) and the Washington Service Contractors Association included
extending employer paid health insurance to more janitors, boosting pay
significantly, increasing hours for part-timers, and securing benefits
such as sick leave. Both union officials and cleaning contractors said
that the settlement made janitors' jobs more professional.

The five-year agreement:

Extended employer-paid health coverage to 26 percent of part-time
workers.

Increased hours for part-timers from 20 hours a week to 25, in buildings
over 100,000 square feet; and - in the last year of the contract - from
25 hours a week to 30, in buildings over 500,000 square feet.

Raised weekly pay 60-90 percent; with all janitors receiving a \$2.20
per hour increase over five years, to \$10.20 an hour, for most. By the
end of the contract, with the increase in hours from 20 to 25 per week,
most janitors' total pay will increase by 60 percent.

Provided 3 paid sick days for all janitors.

Typically, building owners who have contracted-out cleaning services do
not play a part in negotiations between their cleaning contractors and
their employees. But this is changing, as major real estate investors,
like the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) begin
including "responsible contractor clauses" in their partnership
agreements.

> "The California Public Employees' Retirement System\... has a deep
> interest in the condition of workers employed by the System and its
> advisors. The System, through the Responsible Contractor Program
> Policy . . . , supports and encourages fair wages and benefits for
> workers employed by its contractors and subcontractors, subject to
> fiduciary principles concerning duties of loyalty and prudence, both
> of which further require competitive returns on the System's real
> estate investments."3

And large developers have begun to respond, too. For example, William B.
Alsup III, Senior Vice President, Hines East Regional Office, commented,
"In general, we feel that providing a living wage and health care
benefits is an important thing to try to do, as long as the costs are
reasonable"4

**Notes:**

1\. Neil Irwin, 2003 (May 2): Janitors, Employers Set Deal, Contract
Offers Better Wages, Benefits, Washington Post, E03.

2\. Ian Birlem and Cynthia Kain, 2003 (May 6): Janitors Ratify New
Contract,
<http://www.seiu.org/building/janitors/press_center2/press_releases2/press.cfm?ID=1131>

3\. CalPERS, 2004 (April 19): California Public Employees' Retirement
System Statement of Investment Policy for Responsible Contractor
Program, © 2004 by

CalPERS.

4\. Stephen Pearlstein, 2003 (May 12): Owning Up to the Plight of
Janitors, Washington Post, E03.

Harold Anchel, "Family Portrait," GSA Fine Arts Program.

**The Greening of the Pentagon1**

Gordon Waverly Gilkey, "Univ. of Oregon Library Construction #3," GSA
Fine Arts Program.

Part of the Pentagon's \$1.2 billion Renovation Program's design-build
strategy includes Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)
performance specifications built into the contract, along with
incentives and awards fees for performance. The process has been hailed
by the federal government as leading edge, innovative, and consonant
with sound business practices.

The Integrated Sustainable Design and Constructability (ISDC) Team
incorporated sustainable design into the overall acquisition and
management strategy using the EPA's EPP Program guidelines.
Environmentally preferable products for the Interior Renovation of Wedge
1 included the wood from sustainable managed forests, low-water-use
plumbing fixtures, low VOC paints and sealants, mineral wool insulation,
energy-efficient lighting, the use of recycled steel, ceiling tile,
ceramic tile, concrete masonry units, including recycling construction
debris, and using packaging, labeling and instructions made from
recycled material. Future applications for incorporating EPP into the
Pentagon renovation include the Department of Defense custodial,
operations and maintenance, and recycling programs. Health-related
environmental considerations and goals included:

Removal of 25 million pounds of asbestos

Removal of lead paint, mercury, PCB's

Cleaning of contaminated soil

Use of low VOC sealants.

Compliance with Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG) (40 CFR 247)

Minimizing of polyvinyl chlorides

Maximizing use of greenhouse gas reducing materials

Plan for erosion and sediment control from the construction site

Implementation of a pollution control plan

Limiting air pollution from the construction site

Controlling debris---limit debris entry into drainage system

Compliance with Executive Order 13123 to maximum extent
possible---Sustainable Design and Development for Federal
Agencies---categories similar to LEED® criteria

Compliance with Executive Order 13101\--Greening the Government

Compliance with Affirmative Procurement Guidelines (42 USC 6962)

# Contact Teresa Pohlman (<PohlmanT@army.pentagon.mil>) at (703) 697-4720 for more information.

**Notes:**

1\. Adapted from "Greening the Pentagon" at
<http://www.epa.gov/oppt/epp/ppg/case/penren.htm>.

**Measuring and Reporting Sustainability Principles**

**From "Beyond the Triple Bottom Line: Measuring and Reporting on
Sustainability,"**

**Occasional Paper, Victorian Auditor-General\'s Office, Melbourne, June
2004.**

Adopting the sustainability principles impacts on all aspects of an
organisation's business, from planning to operations to governance
arrangements... First and foremost, applying the sustainability
principles means going beyond traditional financial reporting to measure
and report on at least the environmental, social and economic dimensions
of performance . . . However, as critics of these models have pointed
out, they use a reductionist approach to measuring and reporting on
sustainability.

That is, they:

Break sustainability down into three or more pillars

Break each pillar down into a series of topics

Break each topic down to a series of performance indicators

Measure each indicator separately

Use 'scientific approaches' to measure each indicator.

The reductionist approach is inconsistent with the concept of
sustainability, and its principles, for two main reasons. Firstly,
sustainability is not a single thing. It is multidimensional...
Secondly, sustainability is a vision of wholeness. Breaking it down into
disconnected parts and then studying the parts individually will not
help us understand the relationships between the parts that make up the
whole. Instead, taking the reductionist approach can lead us to
oversimplify the complex nature of sustainability . . .

Applying sustainability principles has the potential to improve
performance, in the short and long terms. For this reason, governments
in many countries have adopted sustainability policies, resulting in an
explosion of sustainability initiatives... Applying these principles is
not a simple task. The interrelated nature of sustainability complicates
all aspects of organisational life, from planning to operations to
measurement and reporting... The currently available measurement and
reporting tools apply some of the principles well. However, approaches
that capture the relationships between the pillars are still evolving.
Approaches to measuring and reporting on intergenerational equity are
even more rudimentary.

**Ethics in Action1**

Vancouver City Savings Credit Union sponsors the Ethics in Action™
Awards to advocate corporate social and environmental responsibility
among the business community. Its 2000 award for Ongoing Social
Responsibility (Business) was awarded to the Chesterman Property Group
([www.chestermangroup.com](http://www.chestermangroup.com/)), of
Vancouver British Columbia, for the comprehensive application of
sustainable principles to their work.

"These real estate developers are changing the standard industry
approach to real estate development. The focus is on minimizing
environmental impact and on delivering healthy houses (minimizing toxic
materials used in building prevents unhealthy interior environments).
This focus involves extensive research into purchasing options.

"For example, President Robert Brown purchases bamboo flooring because
it is more environmentally friendly. He has conducted extensive research
to find a manufacturer who used nontoxic glue and who treated the
workers well (most bamboo flooring is made in Asia under poor working
conditions). Ecologically sustainable and healthy housing is not yet in
high demand in Vancouver, so Chesterman provides these benefits at the
same cost as standard housing. This means absorbing the costs of extra
research and labor (instead of bulldozing old buildings his workers take
them apart by hand so the wood can be reused). Brown also has to get
buy-in and support from architects and building teams. He has helped
them get experience in environmental processes, which will benefit
future projects they are involved in. He also shares his knowledge and
expertise with others in the property development industry. "Brown was a
cofounder of CBSR, and has been a longtime contributor, supporter, and
board member of Tradeworks Training Society."

**Notes:**

1\. <http://www.ethicsinaction.com/recipients/past.html>

Leonard Pytlak, "Lunch," GSA Fine Arts Program.

For more information on GSA's Fine Arts Program, visit
[www.gsa.gov/finearts](http://www.gsa.gov/finearts)

**October 2004**

**GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy**

**Office of Real Property**

**U.S. General Services Administration**

**1800 F Street, NW**

**Washington, DC 20405**

**www.gsa.gov**

**Smarter Solutions**