The Year of Living Transparently

Peter Syrett, Chair of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative, announces the launch of the HPD V1.0 from the Greenbuild Expo floor. Dwayne Fuhlhage photo

In this guest post, PROSOCO’s Sustainability and Environment Director Dwayne Fuhlhage offers a look at the state of materials and chemical disclosure and avoidance, and transparency in labeling heading into 2013.

The Year of Living Transparently
by Dwayne Fuhlhage, CHMM; Sustainability and Environment Director

Welcome to 2013! Are you ready for emerging building sustainability trends?

The annual US Green Building Council (USGBC) Greenbuild conference in San Francisco capped off 2012 with a preview of some major trends and memes for this year and beyond:

1. The sustainable building movement is already a prime player in building and community resiliency. USGBC and its partners will be part of the conversation on taking resilience to the next level.

2. What is inside building products matters and the design community will begin scrutinizing content through transparency oriented standards like the Health Product Declaration (HPD). The LEED ratings system will reward transparency and select chemical avoidance by a yet-to-be-finalized mechanism in new Materials and Resources credits in LEED V4 and through new Pilot Credits.

3. Despite rumors to the contrary and aggressive lobbying on the part of some chemical industry players, the LEED ratings system will continue to be a prominent trendsetter in the push towards improved building performance.

As a member of the LEED Indoor Environmental Quality Technical Advisory Group (IEQ TAG) and participant in the Health Product Declaration (HPD) pilot project, I’ve had the privilege of seeing the debate on materials and chemical disclosure and avoidance play out in real time over the last year and a half.

Author Dwayne Fuhlhage (right) takes a minute to smile for the camera with fellow volunteer members of the LEED Indoor Environmental Quality Technical Advisory Group at Greenbuild.

To say this involves a diverse set of stakeholders is an understatement. The discussions were at times loud and fractious, but we collectively had the same goal of improving communication on the presence of hazardous materials in construction products.

The LEED V4 Materials and Resources credit approach will be settled between now and membership balloting later this year. This credit will be a big deal as LEED V4 is phased in project by project through 2015 and it is currently available in the form of a Pilot Credit. In the meantime, I’m going to let you in on a little secret:

Chemical disclosure and avoidance is already here.

Shortly before Greenbuild, the HPD working group incorporated as a non-profit and became the HPD Collaborative of which PROSOCO is a Founding Sponsor.

We’re in good company with design and specification firms including HDR, PERKINS+WILL, Turner, CANNONDESIGN, boora architects, Gensler, SERA, HOK, and SKANSKA among others.

You can see the list and support the Collaborative at http://www.hpdcollaborative.org/support.

These firms have taken a leadership position that will be emulated by others. Google has claimed this project as one of its own through sponsorship of the HPD Collaborative and a grant of $3 million to the USGBC for policy research on chemicals of concern.

Seriously, if any of these decision makers requests Health Product Declarations as a condition for specification, how will manufacturers react? Will they respond by saying “I don’t want your business”? Some might, but I think they would be outliers. The HPD is set to become the new normal in a relatively short time.

This should not imply that HPD preparation will always be easy. Manufacturers must pick apart every component of every raw material to find out what is inside. Communication through the supply chain is a challenge, with many suppliers having their own intellectual property priorities. Supply chains change and some raw materials have component variability.

Intellectual property is a difficult discussion topic between finished product manufacturers and transparency advocates as well. PROSOCO’s default position will be to increase transparency on chemicals of concern while maintaining key bits of information on functional ingredients as intellectual property in accordance with the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. That sounds like legalistic, weasel wording, but pay close attention to the phrase “chemicals of concern”.

The core list of chemicals of concern comes from Clean Production Action’s GreenScreen tool http://www.cleanproduction.org/Green.php.

From my perspective, prioritizing disclosure of chemicals of concern is the right approach as it gives innovative manufacturers some space to create better technologies without losing their competitive edge.

Beyond that, I think it appropriate for coatings and sealants manufacturers to be able to highlight their efforts to eliminate chemicals of concern. As an example, PROSOCO has systematically eliminated California Proposition 65 chemicals whenever possible over the last fifteen years. This has been a priority in creating the Consolideck® finished concrete flooring product line from the ground up.

Prove it — Rick Fedrizzi, Founder of USGBC, shares his perspectives on proving performance and health characteristics of building products at the USGBC 2012 Opening Plenary at Greenbuild.

The policy behind chemical avoidance priorities is a long way from being settled. The debate will continue and it will likely be contentious.

Some common materials, including crystalline silica and titanium dioxide, are listed as chemicals of concern absent the context of only being toxic by inhalation of fine particles. On the other hand, some technologies only exist because of legacy chemicals that are rapidly falling out of favor. Manufacturers dependent on legacy chemicals are putting up a good fight. Regardless, I think the broad usage of Health Product Declarations will help separate the wheat from the chaff.

There are a lot of “green” products on the market that don’t look so green once we strip off the marketing veneer. As an example, I look forward to our competitors openly divulging the need to use solvents to dilute their products before application. We need a level playing field and building professionals and owners deserve accurate information.

Consolideck® products will be the first in PROSOCO’s lineup to received HPD chemical reviews as designers are most concerned with occupied space. This is in conjunction with PROSOCO’s implementation of an enterprise level software tool, the WERCS, for producing new OSHA Globally Harmonized System (GHS) conformant Safety Data Sheets (SDS).

The GHS regulation requires a total revamp of the former MSDS and professional use product labels by June, 2015. You will see the first batch of SDSs in the near future.

This combined effort would be a challenge for manufacturers of any size and has set a high bar for PROSOCO’s staff in its 75th year. We’re committed to making this work because, frankly, we need to live with our specifying customers.

Additional Reading:
Sustainable Industries on trends for 2013: http://sustainableindustries.com/articles/2013/01/green-building-watch

BuildingGreen on the Google grant: http://www.cleanproduction.org/Green.php

LEEDUser forum on LEED V4: http://www.leeduser.com/blogs/leed-v4-public-comment-forum-leed-takes-new-direction

PROSOCO’s coverage of Greenbuild 2012 on Storify: http://storify.com/John_at_PROSOCO/the-building-envelope-at-greenbuild-2012

About the Author

Dwyane Fuhlhage

Dwayne Fuhlhage is the Sustainability and Environment Director for PROSOCO. He is a member of USGBC’s LEED Indoor Environmental Technical Advisory Group (IEQ TAG) where he serves as the coatings and sealants subject matter expert and participates in the drafting and maintenance of LEED standards. He has been involved in AIM VOC rulemaking activities at the district, state and federal level and is an active member of related ACA and CSPA committees. Dwayne is a member of the greener chemistry oriented NSF/GCI 355 ANSI Joint Committee and a Liaison member of the NSF/UL ANSI Health Based Emissions Standard Joint Committee.

HPD Collaborative leaders facilitate a discussion on “Using Your Own Power to Transform the Materials Ecosystem” during a Greenbuild educational session. Dwayne Fuhlhage photo

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Happy hundredth, Grand Central!

Grand Central Terminal, New York City, turns 100 years old Feb. 2, 2013, and still looks pretty good in this shot from 2007. photo courtesy of MTA/Metro North Railway

Happy hundredth birthday, Grand Central Terminal.

You might not remember us from here in the nation’s heartland. But in 1980, when you were a mere 67 years old, our crew here at PROSOCO in Kansas helped to give you your first-ever exterior cleaning. You needed it too. Sixty seven years in the industrial Northeast, amid the coal-burning factories, and later, the automotive traffic, did a job on your beautiful cream-colored limestone.

A black mantle of atmospheric soiling and staining covers Grand Central Terminal after 67 years without an exterior cleaning in the industrial Northeast. PROSOCO photo

Horn Waterproofing Corporation, Long Island, was set to do the actual cleaning. But nothing’s ever that simple. You see, after 67 years, all that black carbon soiling hadn’t just piled up on your walls — up to three-quarters of an inch thick in places, according to PROSOCO Vice President John Bourne who was there and remembers you well — it had sunk into your stone fabric.

That’s the difference between soiling and staining. Soiling stays on the stone. Staining comes from contaminants that have soaked in over the decades.

Horn Waterproofing could’ve blasted it off with high-pressure water and harsh chemicals. Unfortunately, that would’ve damaged your limestone walls, and all the beautiful carved ornamentation on your upper reaches. So the architect, Hardy-Holtzman and Pfeiffer asked PROSOCO for input on cleaning methods and materials.

After several months and 28 field tests, PROSOCO developed the way to get you clean.

It wasn’t easy. John remembers how they did a handful of cleaning tests, all of which turned out beautifully — until 24 hours later, when brown stains developed in the middle of the cleaned test panels.

Gerry Boyer, the son of PROSOCO’s founder Al Boyer, and father of PROSOCO’s current President David Boyer, came out to have a look. Gerry is one of the nation’s pioneers of restoration cleaning.

Armed with PROSOCO products and procedures, HORN Waterproofing does battle with the black coating of carbon soiling and staining on Grand Central Terminal, 1980. PROSOCO photo

The diagnosis was an inadequate rinsing of cleaning residues from the stone. In addition, alkalinity from the non-acidic cleaner required better neutralization.

To fix it, Gerry worked with the company’s laboratory crew to retool PROSOCO’s limestone cleaner. They made it thinner, so it could rinse off more easily, as well as go in after the staining more effectively. They made it less alkaline so it could stay on the stone longer, and use a less aggressive acidic neutralizing agent.

Sure Klean T-556, made just for you, Grand Central, worked so well that it became the starting point for creating the most advanced system ever for cleaning limestone buildings — Sure Klean 766 Limestone PreWash and Sure Klean Limestone & Masonry Afterwash.

Many an historic building has profited, Grand Central, thanks to what you taught PROSOCO about cleaning limestone.

Sure Klean T-556 worked so well at Grand Central Terminal, as these cleaned columns can attest, that it became the genesis of PROSOCO’s new standard for restoration cleaning of limestone claddings. PROSOCO photo

Getting all the different groups involved to agree on exactly how clean you should be was almost as hard as figuring how to clean you, John recalls. Some believed a light patina of atmospheric staining belonged on you as part of your history.

There was the architect, the NYC Landmarks Commission, the Municipal Art Society, the Historical Society, the railroad — even Donald Trump was involved. It’s not commonly known, John says, but Donald donated the money to do the cleaning.

John and Gerry met Donald during the project, but only briefly. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was actively involved with the Municipal Art Society also visited you, Grand Central. But the paths of John, Gerry and Jackie never crossed.

All the groups eventually agreed you should be cleaned to reflect the vision of your original 1913 design team, headed by Alfred T. Fellheimer, which is to say — as clean as they could get you.

Restoration cleaning takes a lot of water. You have to soak the surface down before applying the cleaner. After the cleaner has done its job of breaking the bond between soiling, staining and stone, you rinse it all away with more water.

So it didn’t help that the city had a water-shortage that year, and the water to pre-wet and rinse you had to be trucked in.

Along with the cleaner developed specially for you, Grand Central, Gerry and John also came up with a special way to pre-wet and rinse you to ensure no harm to your historic limestone exterior and ornaments. Soaker hoses wetted your stone for three to four hours at a time for a thorough but gentler pre-wetting than the usual pressure-wash.

They found specialized high-pressure steam jennies generating a relatively gentle 350 psi, but putting out 3-4 gallons of water per minute in steam, compared to the standard one-gallon. It’s the amount of water that dictates the effectiveness of the rinse, not the psi — another fact that’s not commonly known.

In the end, all the time, trouble and testing paid off, as PROSOCO methods and materials helped free Grand Central Terminal from 67 years of atmospheric soiling and staining. Interesting note on the MetLife Building in the background — according to Wikipedia, a 1987 poll conducted by periodical “New York” revealed the MetLife tower to be the building New Yorkers would most like to see demolished. PROSOCO photo

In the end, all the time, trouble and tests paid off. Using PROSOCO’s product and procedures, Horn Waterproofing safely stripped away the clinging black mantle. The work restored you to the beautiful and iconic Beaux Arts palace you were always meant to be.

With an end to coal-burning factories, and cleaner auto-emissions, that awful black coating hasn’t recurred.

Since then PROSOCO has returned for occasional exterior spot cleanings and work on your splendid interior marble walls, though nothing as dramatic as that original 1980 project.

Happy birthday, Grand Central Terminal — 100 years old tomorrow. What could be grander than that? And should you ever need us again during your next hundred years, PROSOCO will be there.

In honor of Grand Central Terminal’s 100th birthday, the Metro Transit Authority/Metro North Railway shares these terrific glimpses of the iconic building.

The famous Tiffany clock crowns Grand Central Terminal.

Ticket windows attract customers in the Grand Concourse.

The famous Zodiac ceiling of the Grand Concourse actually shows a mirror image of the constellations. The Vanderbilt family offered the explanation that it’s the view God has, looking down from Heaven.

Patrons enjoy the casual atmosphere at Grand Central Terminal’s famous Oyster Bar Restaurant.

Commuters hurry for their trains during the morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal.

Now rented out for events, stately Vanderbilt Hall just off the Main Concourse once served as a waiting room for arrivals and departures.

Passengers hurry for trains in the tunnels below the terminal in this photo titled “Whispering.”

Happy hundredth, Grand Central Terminal. PROSOCO will always remember.

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