WHITE PAPER August 8, 2012. Perkins+Will prepared this report on behalf of the National Institutes of Health, Office of Research Facilities, Division of Environmental Protection. A compilation of data on substances in the built environment that may cause or aggravate asthma, this list is intended to be a valuable resource for identifying asthma triggers and asthmagens, minimizing their use in building materials and furnishings, and contributing to our larger goals of fostering healthier built environments.

IN THE NEWS
January 2012. GreenSource. GreenSource magazine cites Perkins+Will's Transparency site in this article about uncovering information about the environmental and health impacts of products. Exposing the hypocrisy between the ubiquitous availability of nutritional information on cereal boxes and the inaccessibility of building products ingredients, the author asks: "Why isn't this sort of information available for the products going into our buildings?" The article lauds Perkins+Will for illustrating how such information on product constituents can be used by the design community through the prototype product label created for Construction Specialties.

IN THE NEWS
February 2, 2012.Precautionary List co-authors Chris Youssef and Peter Syrett discuss material health in a Q&A: "To Help Make Sure Your Home Is Healthy, and Ingredients List" with New York Times contributor, Fred Bernstein. Touching on everything to building product labeling to the most sustainable building product (it will surprise you!), Peter and Chris share important insights into why we need to demand greater transparency in the face of limited government regulation.

PRESS RELEASE
November 2011. The built environment's first free, universally accessible database aimed at creating greater transparency into building materials containing substances that are publically known or suspected to be associated with an adverse finding in relation to human and environmental health.

PRESS RELEASE October 5, 2011. PR Newswire. In October, 2011 Construction Specialties (C/S) and Perkins+Will revealed the industry's first building product transparency label detailing the complete make-up of a product, highlighting critical lifecycle information and potential human health impacts. This intensive effort, launched at Greenbuild 2011 in Toronto, Canada, is a collaborative step toward market transformation through increased disclosure on the part of building product manufacturers.

BUILDING PRODUCT TRANSPARENCY LABEL
October 2011. Perkins+Will and Construction Specialties developed the industry’s first building product transparency label with hopes of helping people make informed decisions when they fabricate, specify, install, use and dispose of building products. Designed to make environmental and health disclosure easier for any manufacturer who chooses to adopt the template, the label offers a forthright declaration of the make-up of a product and its potential impacts in multiple formats.

RECOMMENDED READING
October, 2011. Read more about the Building Product Transparency Label in recent articles from Forbes, Fast Company, Huffington Post and more!

POSTER October 2011. A building product has impacts from extraction through disposal. The extent of environmental damage and human exposure is of particular concern. Who are the impacted parties and what does building product transparency mean to them? What does it mean to you?

WHITE PAPER Perkins+Will has put forth this report on the use of fly ash in concrete in order to assist building owners and design professionals in their decision-making processes about the safety and ecological implications of using this building material. While the use of fly ash in concrete still has no consensus with regard to opinions on environmental harm and human safety, this paper is a consolidation of the many diverse opinions, mutually agreed upon facts, and minimal independent scientific research on this topic.

RECOMMENDED READING
Want more? The following list highlights some of our favorite books on material health a good primer for anyone hungry for more!

IN THE NEWS March 24, 2011. Metropolis Magazine, Point of View Blog. Blogger Kadie Yale explores common challenges in finding healthy building materials, citing the Precautionary List as a tool that makes “understanding chemical compositions in the design world easier.” Referencing the foundation of the Precautionary Principle, she asks: "Even if there's only a chance of a material containing something harmful, why use it?"

VIDEO June 2011. Metropolis Magazine. In Metropolis Magazine's special "Three Decades of Architecture and Design" issue, Robin Guenther, Principal and Sustainable Healthcare Design Leader, is featured in a video interview discussing material health in healthcare design.

IN THE NEWS September 1, 2011. BuildingGreen.com. Tom Lent of the Healthy Building Network has created a fascinating diagram to illustrate how several chemical hazard lists in the industry relate to each other. Looking at the Green Guide for Health Care, Perkins+Will's Precautionary List and the Living Building Challenge's red list amongst others, the diagram visualizes some of the key chemicals cited on every list and challenges the design community to find safer chemicals and materials.

POSTER April 2011. Living Futures Conference. These posters present a set of common-sense principles to recalibrate the way we think about building materials. These twelve MATERIAL RULES (developed with Healthy Building Network and with credit to Michael Pollen's Food Rules) continue to develop and evolve.

PRESENTATION Coming soon. A PDF slideshow to assist in the explanation of material health, how it affects you, and how to best utilize the Perkins+Will Transparency website.

INTERVIEW January 24, 2011. BNA's Environmental Compliance Bulletin. How the Precautionary List came to be, it's critical role in market transformation, and how focus on material health has positively impacted big names such as Kaiser Permanente and Herman Miller.

PRESS RELEASE November 3, 2009. Reuters.com. Official press release of the original Precautionary List launch, unveiled to the world at the GreenBuild Conference in 2009. An online tool listing chemicals on Governmental risk lists, and providing healthy alternative substances.