Title: Reading
Course: GFM 101 Fundamentals of Green Facilities Management > Section: GFM 101 Fundamentals of Green Facilities Management

Reading

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Reading Assignment

Overcoming “Serious ‘Related Issues’ Regarding Green Products Procurement”… Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL)

Click on the links and read the information provided, they are part of your reading assignment.

As the growing global economy expands the demand for raw materials, it is no longer sensible to throw away much of what we consider construction waste. Using a "cradle-to-cradle" approach, the "waste" from one generation can become the "raw material" of the next.
- Salvage and Utilize Existing Facilities, Products, and Equipment.
- Evaluate Environmental Preferability Using a Life-Cycle Perspective.
- Consider Waste and Employ a Cradle-to-Cradle Approach.
- Specify Materials Harvested on a Sustainable Yield Basis.
- Encourage the Use of Recyclable Assemblies and Products.
- Eliminate the Use of Materials that Pollute or are Toxic During Their Manufacture, Use, or Reuse.

Related Issues

Durability of Materials

It is important that 'green' products perform the same as 'standard' products over their expected life cycle, therefore, it is valuable to develop a durability plan, which informs material and systems decisions assessing potential risk factors and damage functions. Once identified, measures can be made in the building design to address the risk factors. This process follows every phase from pre-design to building occupancy. Durability plans consider effects related to moisture, heat, sunlight, insects, material failure, ozone and acid rain, building function, style and natural disasters.

Balancing Sustainability and Security/Safety

To ensure that security strategies are appropriately implemented for the desired level of protection, designers are encouraged to conduct threat/vulnerability assessments and risk analysis. To prevent unnecessary use of resources in a project, include only the security measures identified by assessment and analysis. Evaluate the cost of comparable security measures before making your final decision. For high-risk and critical facilities, the increased use of materials and products is inevitable. In such cases, designers and builders are encouraged to specify and use environmentally preferable products to the maximum extent feasible. For example, as part of the Pentagon renovation work after the 9/11 terrorist attacks concrete rubble from damaged parts of the building were crushed into gravel and reused as aggregate under concrete slabs.

Preferring Bio-based Products

Section 9002 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-171, May 13, 2002) confers Federal purchasing preference to bio-based products on the basis of five criteria: environmental performance, cost performance, bio-based content, technical performance, and availability. In support of this legislation, a Federal rule was developed specifying that the USDA establish a "USDA Certified Bio-based Product" label. To qualify for the label, bio-based products must be evaluated for life-cycle environmental and cost performance by the NIST BEES tool.

Click here to view and read on UL Environment – UL Information & Insights.
Click here to view and read on Evaluating and Selecting Green Products by WBDG from the National Institute of Building Sciences.