NSF Sustainability, a division of global independent public health organization NSF International that provides sustainability standards development, testing, certification and claims validation for commercial and consumer products, has assessed and verified a health product declaration (HPD) for Alpar Architectural Products’ deTerra biobased polymer* wall protection in the color “natural.” HPDs provide accurate reporting of potential chemicals of concern in products and place each ingredient into the larger picture of human and environmental health.
The HPD Standard defines known environmental and human health effects which are identified in an HPD and used by builders and designers as a product transparency reporting tool to provide a complete inventory of the materials and ingredients in a building product. HPDs are one alternative to earn credit in the LEED v4 green building rating system under the Materials and Resources credit (MRc), Building Product Disclosure and Optimization—Material Ingredients. This includes MRc Option 1, where full disclosure of known health hazards is provided, and MRc Option 2, where the product is assessed at 100 parts per million (ppm) and no known GreenScreen® Benchmark 1 hazards are present.
With the introduction of LEED v4 and its emphasis on transparency reporting, Alpar Architectural Products chose HPDs as a means to provide product transparency reporting and help its customers work toward the LEED v4 MRc, achieving both Option 1 and Option 2 requirements. A manufacturer of wall protection products for use in healthcare, commercial and institutional buildings, Alpar Architectural took the extra step to achieve full disclosure of all intentional ingredients to provide builders and designers the highest level of confidence that the data is accurate. View Alpar Architectural’s HPD listing.
“Alpar Architectural Products’ HPD provides an important tool to builders and designers striving to achieve green building certifications with an important tool. HPDs are a significant addition to the expanding portfolio of product transparency reports for specifiers, buyers and end users to utilize a standardized set of third-party verified, transparent data and information,” said Tom Bruursema, General Manager of NSF International’s Sustainability Division.
“Alpar Archiectural was an early adopter of chemical disclosure. Our HPD helps illustrate our commitment to transparency and third-party verification through NSF International was a logical next step. We are looking to release our next verified HPD, which includes additional pigments, very soon,” said Lisa Britton, President and Director of Alpar Architectural Products.
The NSF team of toxicologists, chemists and biologists assess and verify HPDs through a desk audit of documentation to verify compliance to the Health Product Declaration Standard from the HPD Collaborative™.
HPD verification complements NSF Sustainability’s expanding portfolio of green chemistry and sustainability services, including Clean Production Action’s (CPA) GreenScreen, EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE), and GreenBlue’s CleanGredients™ analyses, and product category rule (PCR) development and environmental product declaration (EPD) certifications.