CertainTeed the first insulation manufacturer to issue a "Health Products Declaration"

January 16, 2015

VALLEY FORGE, PA. – Reflecting how the chemical makeup of building products is becoming an ever-increasing issue for contractors’ customers, CertainTeed, a division of the world’s largest building products company, Saint-Gobain, today issued what it says is the industry’s first “Health Products Declaration” (HPD) for fiberglass insulation.

HPDs are an open standard that establishes a “common reporting language for disclosing information about the ingredients used to manufacture a building product,” a press release from CertainTeed says.

“The HPDs cover the company’s high-performance Sustainable Insulation batts, as well as its family of blowing wool insulation products, offering builders unprecedented insight into the chemical and material makeup of the products they choose.”

“The HPDs were issued in alliance with the HPD Collaborative, a customer-led organization committed to the continuous improvement of the building industry’s environmental and health performance, through transparency and innovation in the building product supply chain.”

CertainTeed says the HPD will “help builders and architects make more informed specification decisions when indoor comfort and occupant health are of primary importance. HPDs also contribute to important material and resource credits under the newest version of LEED, which places greater emphasis on product transparency.”

“The green building industry has embraced product transparency as a valuable tool to ensure the built environment is as sustainable, efficient, comfortable and healthy as it can be,” said Drew Brandt, vice president of marketing for CertainTeed’s Insulation Group. “HPDs are a natural next step in this evolution, and we’re proud that CertainTeed—long a proponent of the highest green building ideals—is helping to push the movement to the next level.”

“Last year, CertainTeed introduced HPDs for 24 of its ceilings product families, which represented the first such declarations in the ceilings industry. In addition to the new HPDs, the company also has Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for its blowing wool and Sustainable Insulation fiberglass batt insulation. While HPDs evaluate the chemical and material makeup of a product, EPDs provide third-party verification of environmental life cycle data, including a product’s production process impact, usage of raw materials and recycled content, packaging, health aspects and end of life impact.”

For more information, go to CertainTeed’s website here.