As clients increasingly request technologies friendly to both the environment and bottom line, the Greenguard Environmental Institute (GEI), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization is stepping up with scientific, third-party-vetted information to establish environmental standards for interiors and building materials. The independent organization claims its certification and labeling program is the only testing program worldwide for low-emitting products.

Specifying professionals can choose from 1,000 low-emitting products in the free online Greenguard Product Guide and from more than 10,000 Greenguard Indoor Air Quality certified products. Several manufacturers offer Greenguard-certified products in office furniture, wall coverings, flooring, insulation, textiles, HVAC, paints, and engineered woods. According to the GEI, more than 11,000 specifiers visit the product guide each month.

Developing IAQ standards
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recognized indoor air quality as a major part of green building in their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED™) program. Indoor air quality accounts for 23 percent of all LEED™ credits, but Greenguard officials say more work is needed, because current scorings are based heavily on chemical content and not actual tested or verified chemical emissions. To this end, in the summer of 2002, the Green Building Council introduced a pilot of LEED for Commercial Interiors™ (LEED-CI) requiring furniture and furnishings to be tested for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emissions, including formaldehyde. Now, the Greenguard designation or its equivalent specifications are required for LEED certification.

After developing testing protocols for various types of VOC emissions, Dr. Marilyn Black, chief scientist and chief executive of Air Quality Sciences, helped launch Greenguard in June 2001 as a nonprofit online registry of low-emitting indoor furnishings and building materials. The plans resulted in the Atlanta-based Greenguard Environmental Institute, founded to oversee the group’s certification and labeling program. Manufacturers’ and companies’ licensing fees fund the program.

The group’s long-term vision, says Henning M. Bloech, Greenguard’s director of communications, is to increase awareness about the implications of indoor air quality, promote a more holistic approach to the evaluation of indoor air quality, and help standardize ongoing programs to create internationally accepted standards for low-emitting gasses.

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