Making Buildings Healthier With Your Support

Bill Walsh | December 16, 2015 | Announcements

Week after week, month after month, HBN has blown me away this year. You have picked up the pace and amazed me with the quality and scope of your efforts. HBN's contributions are magnificent. -Rus Perry, FAIA, LEED Fellow, Vice President and Co-director of Sustainable Design, SmithGroupJJR

With your help HBN is getting toxic chemicals out of building products. Last April, after reviewing HBN's research, the retail giant Home Depot agreed to stop selling vinyl flooring made with endocrine disrupting compounds. Just a few weeks ago, Kaiser Permanente cited HBN research in its decision to prohibit the use of 13 antimicrobials in building materials they specify. Your financial support helps make this happen!

To cap off our 15th Anniversary year we are asking our supporters to make a $15 monthly pledge on our website, or a one-time gift of $150. Make your gift right now, so you don't forget!

Donate Now 

Here's what caught the attention of respected green building leader Rus Perry this year: HBN's five influential reports, and three new online resources: 

CompAIR is a new tool in the Pharos Project that provides themost accurate and reliable comparison of the chemicals offgassing from paints, coatings and similar products.  By providing the weight of all volatile substances that are released into the air during the application and curing of a product, HBN's CompAIR calculator is the best way to find a "low VOC" product.

Quartz is part of the groundbreaking open data initiative launched by our partners at Flux, a project launched from the GoogleX research lab. They asked HBN researchers to create the first-ever common product profiles for 100 building products included in their cloud-based collaboration tools for architects, engineers, and contractors.

Health Product Declaration (HPD) is the first open standard format for disclosing building product contents and chemical hazard information. This year we released Version 2 of the online HPD Builder, which makes it easier for manufacturers to create HPDs using our Pharos database.

Groundbreaking Reports on Recycling from the HBN research team show how we can - and must - keep toxic contaminants out of recycled building products and increase the use of recycled content. We also updated our 2004 analysis of PVC building products, and documented the chemical industry's growing influence on LEED materials credits

Now is the time to accelerate the market transformation that we have begun. Every contribution you make is valued, and helps us to continue these important leadership initiatives:

Affordable Housing: We've just started working on a new initiative that will make healthier building products available at lower prices to our nation's affordable housing developers. Your support helps us provide healthier housing to communities that are already disproportionately impacted by toxic pollution.

Pharos Project: In 2016, with your help, we will expand our world-class research team and introduce the Avoidable Hazard Index, a new expert tool for estimating the amounts of specific hazardous chemicals present in installed building materials. It will allow building owners and others to quantify the hazard reduction achieved with the products they select. Your support enables us to provide more and better tools for avoiding toxic chemicals.

Cutting Edge Research: With your support, in 2016 we will complete our extensive analysis of the recycled content supply chain. We have 6 more reports to go! Your support underwrites this independent, unbiased research.

Healthy Building News and The Signal: We offer these widely read electronic publications for free; they include news, information and analysis concerning green materials and related health issues. Your support helps get the word out!

We've been celebrating our 15th anniversary this year by working harder than ever, increasing transparency and reducing the use of toxic chemicals in building products. We hope you will agree, that we have made our mark! Your tax-deductible contribution to the Healthy Building Network will ensure that there are strong, independent resources for evaluating green building products - today, tomorrow and for the next 15 years!

On behalf of all of my colleagues at HBN, thank you for your support! Make your contribution today, and follow us throughout the year at www.healthybuilding.net and www.pharosproject.net, on Facebook (Pharos Project), and on Twitter (@HBNKnowBetter).