Green Building Materials

Material selection is full of trade-off

decisions, and effective strategies vary
widely based on your goals and
situation. Sustainable materials can
mean many things, and this page
explains some considerations besides
the materials energy performance.

As discussed on the Resource Use and Buildings page, good thermal performance of the
materials in the building envelope can help the building save energy and is usually the
most important factor in building material selection (for example, insulationor thermal
mass).
Lifecycle Assessment is the most thorough way to determine the environmental impacts
of your building materials. However, LCA can be very costly, varies project-to-project,
and is not yet extremely prevalent. Instead, the building and building products industries
have a host of measures and certifications for green building
products. BuildingGreens Green Building Product Certification Guide is a fantastic
resource for understanding this (sometimes intentionally) complex world.
The following is a quick rundown of factors about how the material is produced and
disposed of that can be important to consider.

Recycled Materials
Materials using recycled
content not only require
less virgin resources, they
also use less energy and
chemicals to process. For
instance, recycled

photo: Jeremy
Faludi
Steel recycling plant, with cranes sorting scrap

("secondary") aluminum has 90% less embodied energy than virgin ("primary")
aluminum.
It is beneficial to both use recycled material, and design your constructions to be recycled
as well.

Using Recycled Materials

To use recycled content in your building, call suppliers to source recycled materials. Be
sure to verify the physical properties (strength, stiffness, etc.) of the material with
recycled content. If they are lower-performance, you may need to alter your design to
use slightly more material. This is usually still a net benefit environmentally.
Perhaps the easiest way to create a large improvement from recycled content is in
concrete, because it is used in such large quantities. Concrete can recycle fly ash from
coal-fired power plants, and slag from the blast furnaces of steel production, among other
materials. Be aware, however, that these materials may contain toxins like mercury; if so,
they should not be directly exposed to occupants.
Some building materials already have recycled content by default. For instance, most
structural steel contains 90% recycled content, while sheet steel usually contains around
25% recycled content. Aluminum for curtain walls generally has no recycled content.

Making Recyclable Constructions

Materials are only recycled when the monetary value of the materials is greater than the
cost to separate them out from other materials.
To make your building (or parts of your building) recyclable, design for disassembly.
That is, make it easy to separate different kinds of materials from each other. Some
strategies for this include using as few different kinds of materials as possible, using
undoable fasteners (e.g. screws rather than nails or epoxies), and using larger assemblies
that have greater value than small pieces.

Reused Materials
Reused materials are even more beneficial
than recycled materials, because in addition to
saving natural resources, they also require far
less manufacturing. However, it may not be
photo: Jeremy Faludi
Reclaimed wood often requires
processing

zero manufacturing. Reclaimed wood, for instance, is often planed or otherwise cleaned
up for reuse.
You can also make it easy to reuse the materials from your own building by designing for
disassembly. This means using constructions that are easy to separate from each other.

Sustainably Harvested Materials

Sustainable harvesting is the practice of
harvesting a resource no faster than it can
regrow, so that there is no net depletion of the
resource or damage to the ecosystem.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is

the most widely recognized third party
sustainable forestry certification.

The most common form of this is sustainable forestry for wood products.
The proof of sustainable harvesting is generally in third-party certification. The most
widely-recognized and credible international standard is Forest Stewardship
Council ("FSC") certification.
Some tropical hardwoods grow so slowly and are from such delicate ecosystems that
there is controversy about whether they can be sustainably harvested while still remaining
economical for use in buildings. You may wish to avoid sourcing these, or perform extra
due diligence when sourcing them.

Rapidly Renewable Materials

Rapidly renewable materials are those that grow
back very quickly. These can be sustainably
harvested at a fairly high rate, so there is less
burden of proof for certification as for wood
products.

Rapidly-renewables get many

harvests in the same time as one
tree harvest

Many rapidly-renewable materials allow many harvests from the same plant. For
instance, cutting bamboo is like clipping grass, and cork trees are skinned of a layer of
bark rather than cut down.

Even some plants that do not provide more than one harvest are rapidly-renewable.
Products made from agricultural waste can qualify both as rapidly-renewable and as
recycled content.
These products are generally used for interior finishes, though some buildings have used
bamboo for structural elements as well.

Non-Toxic Materials
The toxicity of a material is measured and published in its Materials Safety Data Sheet
(MSDS). However, these documents can require chemistry expertise to understand.
For those without toxicology expertise, some organizations and green building
certification systems have created lists of substances to avoid. Here is once such list,
from the Living Building Challenge:

Asbestos
Cadmium
Chlorinated Polyethylene and Chlorosulfonated Polyethlene
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Chloroprene (Neoprene)
Formaldehyde (added)
Halogenated Flame Retardants
Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs)
Lead (added)
Mercury
Petrochemical Fertilizers and Pesticides
Phthalates
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
Wood treatments containing Creosote, Arsenic or Pentachlorophenol
(source)
These substances are usually not advertised in products, but can be present as fire
retardants, adhesives, stabilizers, refrigerant gases ("working fluids"), and other
ingredients. Some of these substances are classified as Volatile Organic Compounds
(VOCs) which can slowly off-gas and can cause health risks in buildings that
arent properly ventilated (see Indoor Air Quality).

Even materials that do not cause concerns about indoor air quality for the building's
occupants can still carry toxicity risk for construction workers and manufacturing
workers. Some materials can also leach toxins to groundwater when they are rained on.
Manufacturers are starting to communicate more about the presence of VOCs in their
products (like paints and composite wood products). However, some due diligence is
required to ensure harmful chemicals and VOCs are not present in the products you
source.
In addition to lists referenced above, the health impacts of specific building products are
becoming easier to understand and compare because of industry efforts like the Pharos
Project (from the Healthy Building Network).

Local Materials
Local materials are any
kind of material grown
500 mi (800 km) radius around Seattle, Washington, USA
or manufactured within
a certain radius of the building site. They are also called "regional" materials, because
the radius is often large, such as 500 miles (800km).
The goal of local material use is to avoid the ecological impacts of transportation, and to
support local economies. For most materials, transportation is a much smaller impact
than resource extraction and manufacturing, so it is a low priority environmentally
(source Journal of Green Building: Winter 2012, Vol. 7, No. 1).
However, local materials benefit to local economies can be significant. One of the
only ways green building certifications encourage local economies is by giving credit for
local materials.

Other lifecycle considerations

High structural performance, being strong but lightweight.

High durability, giving the building a long life.
High acoustical performance, absorbing or blocking sound for better occupant comfort.
(This helps lengthen building lifetime and increases use.)
- See more at: http://sustainabilityworkshop.autodesk.com/buildings/green-buildingmaterials#sthash.soEjqLAb.dpuf