Sign up for the convenient online course, “Clarifying Product Transparencies — Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental and Health Product Declarations,” today.
If you are a commercial architect, designer or engineer, here are three facts about sustainability you might find valuable:
- Building operations such as lighting and HVAC are responsible for 73 percent of electricity consumption and 38 percent of CO2 emissions in the U.S.
- Building operations use 13.6 percent of all potable water — roughly 15 trillion gallons of water per year.
- 73 percent of executives say sustainability is a priority on their CEO’s global agenda.
What’s the connection? The buildings you create and the processes you oversee make enormous environmental impacts, and the people who hire you are concerned about those impacts.
Transparency reports give you unprecedented visibility into the impacts of the components and materials you specify for every project. That’s why our new continuing education course is essential.
“Clarifying Product Transparencies” offers CEU credits — and important insights
This new course, “Clarifying Product Transparencies — Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental and Health Product Declarations,” lets you earn continuing education (CEU) credits for AIA, GBCI, IDCEC, ASPE and several other programs. What you learn will help you:
- Examine the need to reduce the environmental impact of buildings and the global demand for product transparency in the building industry.
- Describe the relationship between Product Category Rules (PCRs), Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and Declare Labels.
- Identify how product transparency reports such as LCAs, EPDs, HPDs and Declare Labels help meet the demand for product transparency.
- Understand how to interpret product transparency reports and apply these tools to specify sustainable and healthy building products.
The insight you gain from transparency reports can help you make more informed decisions about the products you specify, making your projects more sustainable while potentially driving down costs.
Transparency, LEED v4 and life cycle assessments
If your clients consider green building a priority, LEED v4 certification is the gold standard.
The latest version of the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED certification took effect in 2016. Its more stringent requirements aim to assess environmental impacts more holistically across the entire life cycle of a product, asking manufacturers to provide EPDs or third-party verified life cycle (LCA) assessments.
In fact, just having an EPD helps contributes to one LEED point, and three additional LEED points are available for sourcing of raw materials that “have been extracted or sourced responsibly,” using materials “that have environmentally, economically and socially preferable life cycle impacts,” and reusing existing building resources or showing a reduction in materials used.
Knowing how to secure LEED v4 accreditation for a project makes your firm a more valuable partner to clients (and potential clients) who value sustainability. And understanding the nuances and requirements of product transparency is a huge component of the LEED accreditation process.
That’s why understanding transparencies is so important — and why you should sign up for our “Clarifying Product Transparencies” CEU course today!
Sloan CEU courses
Sloan is uniquely qualified to help you learn the latest tactics in commercial bathroom design. Thousands of people have taken our online courses, and we’ve conducted hundreds of “lunch & learn” courses.
Get your 2019 off to a strong start—upgrade your knowledge and get the CEUs you need.
Stay Up to Date
Sign up for the Sloan blog to receive information on the latest trends in commercial building, technology advancements and product updates. It's the leading source of industry news for architects, designers, engineers and contractors.