Unique Tool and Product Health Rating System Will Make Green Building Professionals' Jobs Easier & Faster

vimeo.com/442932669

Global GreenTag International has dramatically increased it benefits to the global building industry, receiving news that the world's leading building certification and rating system LEED® Versions 4.0 and 4.1 now formally recognizes its ground-breaking Product Health Declaration™ (the Global GreenTag PHD™) in the USA and in over 167 countries worldwide.
Significantly Global GreenTag's PHD is the only ingredient hazard transparency report to be LEED® and WELL™ compliant and take assessment to the next level by providing a unique 'Healthiness in use' rating for products once installed in a building or home; making green professionals' jobs easier and faster while delivering healthier outcomes for their clients.
"This compliance documentation pathway comes at a pivotal time with health and wellness being at the forefront of peoples' minds now more than ever," according to Daniel Huard, LEED Fellow and the CEO of Global GreenTag Americas. "The US Green Building Council provided multiple levels of iterative reviews before ultimately approving the Global GreenTag PHD™ for LEED® projects in the USA and globally."

For manufacturers, the news from LEED makes product certification so much easier and cost efficient given that the product certifier now offers a unique one-stop certification system for products recognized by most of the major international building rating systems; enabling manufacturers to avoid multiple fees certifying with different systems in different countries.

"Our certification programs have unparalleled international rating tool reach, which is what many of our global clients seek for their products," says Mr Huard.

"The Global GreenTag PHD™ and HealthRATE™ the 'healthiness in use' rating scheme are advanced levels of health certification, embraced by advanced manufacturers who want to highlight the health attributes of their certified product lines.

SEE THE PHD PRODUCT LIST AVAILABLE IN THE USA.

The unique value of the Global GreenTag PHD™ for industry professionals is that it offers detailed toxicology information about constituent materials in products and simultaneously provides simplified ratings underpinned by peer reviewed science to clarify health impacts that products may or may not have on end users, without any need for interpretation by designers, architects or construction teams. The program also considers environmental impacts in the hazard assessments.

"This is especially important information for new construction, existing building and refurbishment projects attempts to improve the health of peoples' working and living environments while helping to protect the planet," says Mr Huard.

Global GreenTag's product certification and declaration programs are underpinned by not only deep science but also ISO, REACH and the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) standards and systems.  In 2018, they increased rigor of the Global GreenTag PHD™ program to provide industry practitioners with deeper levels of product health information with content inventory and hazard analysis to the 100parts per million (ppm) level. Mr Huard adds:

"This was a significant increase that equals the most stringent Product Disclosures in the world and the unique value of the GreenTag PHD, is that it firstly bans a comprehensive list of the worst ingredients. It then offers toxicology information about the constituent materials in products and then also uniquely informs through its Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum tiered HealthRATE™ system, the potential level of healthiness the products help deliver when correctly installed in clients' offices or homes."

The Global GreenTag International Product Certification Standard was born in Australia in 2010, under the leadership of co-founder and multi-award winning green building architect and sustainability consultant of over 40 years, David Baggs LFAIA. For more than 10 years, Mr Baggs has also been Program Director and CEO of Global GreenTag International that operates and develops the Global GreenTag International Certifications and Declarations Programs, originally conceived to support the growth of green product and building industries worldwide.  Speaking from Brisbane in Australia, Mr Baggs said:

"We are thrilled to be recognized now globally by LEED®, which is truly one of the most powerful game changers in the built environment. What LEED® certification demands at a building level, Global GreenTag certification pushes the boundaries at a product level.  It is a great day for our international team who work sincerely, professionally and passionately with the Global GreenTag Standard every day to deliver user focussed information about healthier and more eco-friendly product outcomes."

"The achievement of this latest LEED recognition is indicative of the exemplary ethos and capability of our Global GreenTag team. The major focus of their work is to support the development and growth of sustainable materials and manufacturing for not only for the benefit of design, construction, interiors, operations and maintenance procurement professionals, but homeowners too."

"Most importantly, GreenTag is a system robustly backed by world's best practice science with inbuilt and demonstrable integrity. It is built on a culture and practice of all-encompassing internal and external peer review and third party verification and certification of its own practices and processes," stated Mr Huard, appointed CEO of Global GreenTag Americas when the company opened its doors in the USA at Greenbuild 2018.

"Furthermore, Global GreenTag assessment and the inherent information generated also assists many amazing manufacturers to push the envelope of sustainability in their product design and manufacturing."

"The system also has great depth yet provides accessible and easy to follow metrics and rating scorecards to simplify green and healthy product selection" he said.

"GreenTag's goal from the beginning was to facilitate green professionals' choice of more healthy and sustainable products by encouraging greater transparency in the product manufacturing processes."

"The ultimate effect of this is to minimize project and product impacts on human health and wellbeing and ultimately to help protect, preserve and restore our fragile eco-systems all while reducing the workload on increasingly busy professionals. I am very happy to play a role in accomplishing these goals," said Mr Huard.

The USGBC updated the LEED Addenda on July 10:  www.usgbc.org/leed addenda/100002394

Read more about:

BIO: Daniel A. Huard

BIO: David Baggs