Leading Green Building Consortium Expands on First Anniversary

The green building industry’s first and leading consortium of program operators announced today at Greenbuild the addition of two new members and an enhanced technical advisory board. CSA Group is now a member, while thinkstep is the group’s first affiliate member.

This marks the first anniversary of the Program Operator Consortium, which launched last year to provide simpler, standardized, and more useful environmental-product transparency solutions and to reduce complexity in the marketplace. The consortium serves as an expert resource and advocate for creating product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment reports (LCA), and verifying and publishing environmental product declarations (EPDs).

CSA Group, a Canadian standards development organization, joins existing members of the consortium: ASTM International, ICC-Evaluation Service, NSF Sustainability, SCS Global Services and Sustainable Minds. “CSA Group is pleased to be joining the Program Operator Consortium and working together to ensure EPDs and PCRs are developed in a consistent fashion, following ISO standards and industry best practice, in order to showcase a product's true environmental impact,” said Michael Leering, the organization’s director of sustainability.

The first affiliate member of the consortium is thinkstep, a software, data, and environmental-consulting services company that works with 40 percent of the Fortune 500. “Standardizing the PCR and EPD creation process is essential to lowering costs and scaling up the use of products that reduce environmental impact,” said Nuno da Silva, thinkstep’s director of product sustainability. “We’re delighted to contribute our expertise to this effort.”

The Affiliate Member Program was recently created for industry associations, government agencies, standards developers, consultants, and data providers to have access to expertise from a like-minded community.  The free program also provides education, discounted rates, and a seat the table to contribute to creating uniformity across environmental reporting formats, data requirements, and communication. 

Each consortium member is represented in the group’s Technical Advisory Board: 
•    Jim Mellentine, Senior Manager, Sustainability, Ramboll Environ (chair);
•    Birdie Carpenter, Life Cycle Engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory;
•    Nuno da Silva, Director, Product Sustainability, thinkstep;
•    Jack Geibig, President, Ecoform (representative for NSF Sustainability);
•    Keith Killpack, Manager, LCA Services, SCS Global Services;
•    Kimberly Lewis, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Minds Transparency Reports;
•    Douglas Mazeffa, Environmental Project Manager, The Sherwin-Williams Company;
•    Joep Meijer, Principal, theRightenvironment;
•    Alex Mlsna, Senior R&D Engineer, Kimball International;
•    Carrie Pearson, LCA Supervisor, 3M; and,
•    Wayne Trusty, President, Wayne B. Trusty & Associates (representative for ASTM International).

These LCA experts oversee the harmonized implementation of the consortium’s North American two-part PCR framework, which consortium members have aligned to use and maintain over the past year. Today, PCRs created by any member will produce standardized environmental declarations, helping both manufacturers as well as decision-makers who specify green building materials and products. The first comprehensive catalog of North American PCRs and an aggregated catalog of EPDs from members’ programs are available at www.programoperators.org.

The consortium holds both in-person meetings and webinars with global manufacturers, LCA providers, and industry trade associations. Those interested in joining or learning more about the consortium are encouraged to contact [email protected].