Collaborative For High Performance Schools & Sustainable Minds partner to promote product transparency in healthy, high-performance schools

By Sustainable Minds on January 18, 2017

Green building organization for K-12 schools retiring its High Performance Products Database and introducing the SM Transparency Catalog in its place.

January 19, 2017 – The Collaborative for High Performances Schools (CHPS) and Sustainable Minds® (SM) have partnered to promote the use of products with environmental and material health disclosures in K-12 educational facilities. CHPS is a leading national organization working to improve student performance by building the best possible schools, incorporating integrated design, sustainable products, and leadingconstruction practices. Sustainable Minds is the first cloud software solutions provider and program operator to deliver simple, understandable and meaningful product environmental reporting.

October 2016 saw the release of the SM Product Transparency Catalog™, a simple, cloud-based catalog for AEC professionals to easily find products with product transparency information that qualify for the CHPS Criteria and other green building systems. In 2013, the CHPS Criteria incorporated credits for both EPDs (MW 7.1) and material health reporting (MW 10.1), in recognition of the importance of product transparency in helping to create sustainable, healthy school environments.

CUSTOMER STORY WEBCAST SERIES: Transparency is the New Green, Part 1: GAF and Knauf Insulation

By Sustainable Minds on December 10, 2016

Webinar recorded Thu, Dec 8 @ 2pm ET

Welcome to our new customer webcast series featuring building product manufacturers making credibly greener & healthier products. Learn how they are working to understand and improve the environmental performance and material health of their products.

Join us to learn about:

  • Which products have disclosures and why
  • What they learned from creating disclosures
  • What they've been doing to improve
  • How to use product transparency information to make better informed specification decisions

Sustainable Minds Introduces new SM Transparency Catalog™

By Sustainable Minds on October 18, 2016

Celebrating All Brands Making Credibly Greener & Healthier Products for the Built Environment

CAMBRIDGE, MA – OCT 18, 2016 -- Sustainable Minds, the first cloud software solutions provider and program operator to deliver simple, understandable and meaningful product environmental reporting, has introduced the SM Transparency Catalog™ – another first in its suite of Transparency Products. Launching with 350+ brands, representing hundreds of categories and thousands of products, the SM Transparency Catalog brings together all manufacturers who have made the commitment to product transparency – and presents their information in a simple, standardized and consistent way. The SM Transparency Catalog is the only source:

  • Of products with transparency disclosures ever assembled — in the cloud
  • To provide BOTH environmental and material health disclosures that qualify for LEED v4, Green Globes, the Well Building Standard and the Living Building Challenge –- from all manufacturers, all program operators and all material disclosure rating systems
  • To make products with transparency disclosures easy to find for AEC professionals — free access, no login
  • Designed to send users to manufacturers’ websites for more information

Sustainable Minds and GAF introduce new SM Performance Fact Sheet™

By Sustainable Minds on October 5, 2016

Cloud-Based Reports Make It Easier Than Ever to Select Products with Transparency Information

LOS ANGELES, CA/Parsippany, NY, October 5, 2016 -- 
Cloud software and services company, Sustainable Minds, is proud to introduce the SM Performance Fact Sheet™ with North America’s largest roofing manufacturer and product transparency leader, GAF. The SM Performance Fact Sheet™ is the latest in Sustainable Mind’s suite of Transparency Products. This strategic marketing and lead generation tool allows building product manufacturers to help the design and construction community make safer and healthier purchase decisions.

Leading Green Building Consortium Expands on First Anniversary

By Sustainable Minds on October 4, 2016

Program Operator Consortium welcomes Canadian standards developer CSA Group and global software and LCA services provider thinkstep

Los Angeles, October 5, 2016 — The green building industry’s first and leading consortium of program operators announced today at Greenbuild the addition of two new members and an enhanced technical advisory board. CSA Group is now a member, while thinkstep is an affiliate member.

This marks the first anniversary of the Program Operator Consortium (POC), which launched last year to provide simpler, standardized and more useful environmental product transparency solutions and to reduce complexity in the marketplace. The consortium serves as an expert resource and advocate for creating product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment reports (LCA), and verifying and publishing environmental product declarations (EPDs).

SCS Global Services Joins Consortium Promoting Product Environmental Transparency

By Sustainable Minds on September 7, 2016

EMERYVILLE, CA Sep 8, 2016 SCS Global Services (SCS), a leading third-party certifier of environmental, social, and quality performance claims, is pleased to announce that it has joined the Program Operator Consortium (POC). The Consortium is comprised of standards developers and certifiers specializing in the development of Product Category Rules (PCRs) and the certification of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), working together to advance environmental product transparency in the marketplace.

INTRODUCING The SM Performance Fact Sheet

By Sustainable Minds on August 2, 2016

Recorded Wednesday, Aug 3, 2016, 2–3pm EDT

Leverages your existing disclosures to make them findable on your website & in the cloud.

84% of architects research products on your website first.
– Venveo Marketing to Architects Research & Trends Report, 2016

With LEED v4 just around the corner, more AEC professionals will be looking for products with transparency information. Have you made it easy for them to find yours and what will they learn when they do?

We invite you to preview the SM Performance Fact Sheet™.
If you are a manufacturer who has already invested in environmental and material disclosures and want to unlock their value by making them findable and understandable by prospects, customers and your sales & support teams – watch this webinar.

Webinar: Meet the Program Operator Consortium

By Sustainable Minds on June 30, 2016

We are 3 standards developers & certifiers + 1 design, technology & innovation company. Our goal is to provide simpler, standardized and more useful solutions.

Recorded June 23, Thursday, 2pm ET / 11am PT

The Consortium (http://programoperators.org/) is your expert resource and advocate for creating standardized product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment (LCA) reports, and verifying and publishing your choice of Type III environmental declaration formats: EPDs and Sustainable Minds Transparency Reports™.

Why the Consortium? With the proliferation of program operators, complex reporting requirements and an increased demand for these services, our members recognized the value of pooling resources, jointly conducting outreach, education and communications and promoting the overall use of PCRs, LCAs and EPDs in the marketplace.

This unprecedented relationship brings increased uniformity, greater recognition and visibility for your product transparency work and greater value to decision-makers when specifying your materials or products.
 

EDU Webcasts | Showcasing great curriculum from our popular series

By Sustainable Minds on June 21, 2016

Creating Knowledge Workers for the Greener Product Marketplace
Showcasing great curriculum stories from this series, 2012–2016

Learn how to integrate Sustainable Minds into your curriculum.
Get ready for next semester!

Designed to showcase curriculum from this popular series, we selected presentations from 12 educators to create one presentation for each discipline. These diverse educators have shared how they are working with students to advance and inform lifecycle thinking. The common thread—they use Sustainable Minds to engage students in essential conversations about environmental performance and product innovation.

MAY 25 – Business & strategy
JUNE 1 – Product design & innovation
JUNE 8 – Manufacturing & mechanical engineering

2016 SM Transparency Report™ / EPD Framework: Aligning, and aligned with, the industry

By Sustainable Minds on May 5, 2016

Sustainable Minds®, a B2B cloud provider of environmental product transparency applications, services and data, has introduced the 2016 SM Transparency Report™ / EPD Framework bringing major advancements to the process of creating and delivering environmental product transparency reports.

Since the Program’s inception in 2014, the goal has been to reduce creation time and costs while increasing usefulness and value. The SM Transparency Report™, Sustainable Minds’ brand of EPD, is designed to inform greener purchase decisions by making LCA and environmental performance information understandable and meaningful, in three pages, in the cloud. They are strategic marketing tools that turn disclosure into brand value by integrating product transparency into product marketing to build a credibly greener brand.