People Centered Environmentalism

On August 16, 2010, John Wargo, Yale professor and blogger for Yale Environment 360, posted a very good article about the LEED program.  In his opinion LEED falls short in protecting human health.  Read the article here. 

I posted the following in response.

“As a building product manufacturer, Corporate member of the USGBC and a LEED AP+, I, too, want to see LEED pick up the cause for safer building materials.

What good will it have been to have saved energy but not people?

The USGBC continues to do an extraordinary work.  Unprecedented and essential sustainability.

Wanting to add healthy building products onto that effective and successful machine is natural; we always ask more of the high achievers.

Others have been working on the problem.  The Green Guide for Health Care and organizations like Practice Greenhealth, Healthy Building Network, and Collaborative for High Performance Schools and Clean Production’s Business/NGO for Safer Chemicals are all working/advocating for this issue.

The Green Guide for Healthcare asks that we, “Imagine: Cancer treatment centers built without materials linked to cancer; Pediatric clinics free of chemicals that trigger asthma.”  www.gghc.org

A clear and supportive endorsement (in the absence of being “in” LEED) from the USGBC of the need to protect people from the effect of hazardous chemicals in building materials would set in motion the free market forces for accelerating change.  Although this is implicitly evident by the very nature of the USGBC work, some things just need to be explicit.

It’s not just about off-gassing of hazardous chemicals; it’s about eliminating chemicals of concern such as PBTs and carcinogens.

The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition, its members and others, are lobbying for, and working to educate all of us as to the need to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act.  Their publication, the Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act, is the most concisely informative piece I’ve read; supported by 3 pages of endnotes.  www.SaferChemicals.org

Government control or government support?  Control through TSCA Reform and support through enforcing existing Executive Orders and federal policies requiring federal agencies use established environmentally preferable purchasing.  See the EPA’s Final Guidance on Environmentally Preferable Purchasing, August 20, 1999. (Yes, “1999”.)

While TSCA Reform is debated in the Senate & House, and while the USGBC remains implicit, let’s thank Mr. Wargo for helping keep this issue in full view and open debate.”

This is timely for C/S because we stand in both the USGBC camp and that for chemical reform.  We not only advocate for reform, but are doing something about it as we identify chemicals of concern in our materials and replace them with safer alternatives.

Reading Wargo’s posting and the responses gives a good sense of the issues and opinions.