Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs: Green Product Labels

By Scott Kriner, Green Metal Consulting

In the 1980’s the recording group Tesla did a remake of a famous song about Signs. Who can forget the phrase, “long-haired freaky people need not apply”. Comedian Bill Engvall made the phrase “Here’s Your Sign” a popular joke. And probably the best bar pick-up line ever suggested was “What’s Your Sign?”. Our society lives by rules, obeys signs and learns from labels. Pop culture has made many of the signs and labels very popular.

We check the nutrition label on the food and drinks that we buy. We read the warning labels on medication and tobacco products. We examine the MPG labels on cars that we buy. In California, the 2009 model cars are now required to show a label that includes not only estimated MPG, but also a Smog Score and a Global Warming Score. Why should the green building construction market be any different?

It seems that there are labels everywhere for green buildings and for green products. We’re all familiar with LEED or Green Globes building certification programs. The end result is a sign and/or label indicating that the building has achieved a certain level of certification. In the residential market the NAHB’s Green Building Standard (ICC-700) awards different levels of certification to homes that comply with their program. Labeling a building based on its energy or sustainability performance is not new. In fact it is now required in most parts of Europe, and is slowly being introduced in some states in the US.

Energy rating labels of buildings in the US are becoming more common. A Home Heating Index label has been introduced to indicate a building’s heating performance. The accompanying Home Cooling Index label is soon to follow. Another building label, Sustainable Facts, would capture energy and environmental impacts of a home or building. It has been proposed by an architectural firm, and the label resembles the nutrition labels we are accustomed to seeing on our food products. ASHRAE just revealed their prototype label for their new Building Energy Quotient program, to be implemented this fall. In the hotel industry, AAA just announced that their 2010 TourBooks will include an Eco Feature rating of the recommended hotels.

Labeling of “green” products has been going on for many years. The construction industry is already familiar with UL and FM labels regarding third party certification of electrical, fire and safety performance claimed by the manufacturer. UL has now embarked on their UL Environment program to do the same third party validation and verification of green claims by product manufacturers. Not to be outdone, the ICC-Evaluation services organization now has their Sustainable Attributes Verification and Evaluation (SAVE) program to verify specific environmental claims of certain building materials, including cool roofing. The Cradle-to-Cradle program identifies those products that meet the stringent criteria with their own label.

Construction products that line the shelves of Home Depot have been labeled with their Eco Options signage to indicate those that have a lower impact on the environment. . WalMart just announced that they too will be requiring Eco labels on all of their thousands of products. Other construction products such as lumber carry the FSC label to indicate that the wood has come from a sustainable forest. Windows come with the NFRC label to indicate that a third-party testing organization has rated the performance of that fenestration product. The Cool Roof Rating Council modeled their certification program around the NFRC and as a result have labels assigned to roof products that have had their radiative properties measured according to specified testing methods. Roofing products carry an Energy Star label when meeting their criteria for solar reflectance. Similarly, home appliances, doors, fans, and other household products carry their own Energy Star label for comparative energy performance ratings. Environmentally Preferred Products carry their own label. As do products that meet requirements in the Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMART) certification program.

Building interior products such as carpeting, paints, sealants, adhesives, etc. can feature a Green Seal indicating their low VOC levels which improve the indoor environment quality. Some might say, we need something like a Good Housekeeping Green Seal of Approval. Well, be careful what you wish for, because the Good Housekeeping magazine announced that they will in fact be introducing a green seal of their own. Details are not yet available.

So when you are considering how to determine if a building product is green, it’s best to ask “What’s Your Sign?” to learn if a third party organization has evaluated , validated, verified or tested the green claims. Does this mean that a product or building that carries a “green” label is really green? Well, that depends on how you define “green” in the first place. Remember that Big Brother is watching closely too, as the Federal Trade Commission remains committed to enforcing their Green Guidelines to prevent “green washing”. Exaggerated claims of a product’s green properties can often be filtered out through the plethora of green labels and green signs. Unfortunately, with different criteria for each program, Everywhere There’s Signs does not always make things less confusing.

Scott Kriner is the president and founder of Green Metal Consulting Inc. He is a LEED Accredited Professional who began his career in the metal construction industry in 1981. His company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the California Association of Building Energy Consultants and the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). Scott can be reached by email at skriner1@verizon.net, or by phone at (610) 966-2430. You can also visit him on the web at www.greenmetalconsulting.com.  

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