Some clients have already made the commitment to sustainability while others are still walking the fence. But do those who have jumped on the bandwagon know what they are doing? Are they actually practicing what they claim? Recently, one of BCRA’s clients asked us to put them to the test.

Group Health is a regional healthcare provider in Washington state that has developed a pallet of materials for use on the interior finishes of their facilities as well as furnishings for use. They rate these products against a series of criteria such as patient safety, infection control and, now, green/sustainability. BCRA was charged to review these products for true green/sustainability.

Discovery

To begin the review process of Group Health’s finishes sustainability, we first had to identify a standard to rate them against. After much research, two guides were identified as being leaders: LEED-CI (Commercial Interiors) and GGHC (Green Guide for Healthcare). Each guide was found to have pertinent and well thought out ideas, but combined together they created a very solid building block for defining what was truly “green.”

The study became a side-by-side comparison of each guide and the credits that pertained to interior finishes and furniture. The difficulty was to analyze both guides and compare what credits were similar, which were most applicable for our situation, and choosing pertinent credits from both guides that were not included in the other. Through the process of combining the two guides, a set of new standards was achieved against which to evaluate materials. Having created a stricter set of standards to follow, the next step was to see how the client’s materials rated.

Digging Deeper

Rating whether a material passed the newly defined sustainable standards involved asking numerous questions to product manufacturers. It quickly became apparent that the questions posed to manufacturers were not simple “yes” or “no” questions; we were embarking on new territory. We found that our questions began to make some manufacturers nervous. Although they believed their company was being sustainably responsible, our questions began to make them second-guess how they and their product would really stand up.

As always, there is room for improvement, especially on the “green scale,” and broaching these types of questions begins to show each party involved how much room for improvement there actually is. As design professionals, what are some of these important questions to be asking manufacturers? Following are a small sampling of the questions we found to be the most relevant to our clients needs and, sometimes, the hardest to get real answers for:

· Are you using low-VOC products – paints and adhesives?

· Does the product contain any known carcinogens, reproductive toxins, or endocrine disruption agents?

· Does the product contain added urea formaldehyde?

· Where is the product manufactured? Is it really green when it is being shipped from thousands of miles away?

· Is your product recyclable, even down to the component parts?

· Does anyone actually recycle it?

· Is your product clearly labeled for recycle?

· Do you have a buy-back or refurbish program?

There were many more questions to be asked, and this is a challenge we would like to pass onto the reader.

Sharing What We Found

After completing our research, we presented our findings to Group Health. We were happy to report the majority of their standard materials evaluated passed the criteria with flying colors.

After presenting our finding to our client, we did not feel as though we could stop there. We were eager to share our new knowledge with the design community and accepted an invitation to speak at IIDA’s Healthcare Forum to help spread the word.

Our presentation “Greenwash – Truth or Dare?” was designed to help others understand the task Group Health had given us, explain how we went about conducting our study, and the results discovered. We shared that the study lead us to find that there are many people out there claiming to be “green” when sometimes that is not always true. The hope is that people are not intentionally misrepresenting themselves; they just don’t understand how challenging it is to be “green.” The important lesson we wanted people to take away from our presentation was that you have to ask questions -- lots of questions. If we start asking these tough questions during design, it becomes clear that there is a demand for “green” performance on a greater level. Demand a better and greener product from your manufacturers. Be a student and a teacher. Help yourself become more knowledgeable, and share your findings with those around you.

Determining whether Group Health was doing a good job wasn’t as easy to decide as those involved thought it would be. The questions to be reviewed turned out to be more difficult than anticipated; in many cases, figuring out the answers wasn’t simple. However, the learning that came out of it was phenomenal for everyone involved and made us realize many of the answers still cannot be determined.

In general terms, yes, Group Health appears to be providing a conscientious effort to be sustainable. That being said, there’s a lot more that can be done, but we need a lot more knowledge to figure out how to really get there.