The Health Product Declaration™ (HPD) provides a standardized way of reporting the material contents of building products, and the health effects associated with these materials. The HPD is developed according to the directions set forth by the Health Product Declaration Collaborative, and is considered to be complementary to life cycle documentation such as LCA and EPD. Currently, the HPD is the only open standard document in the construction and design industry related to the potential health hazards of building products.
In 2010, The Materials Research Collaborative (led by the Healthy Building Network and BuildingGreen) started to develop ideas for the Health Product Declaration[1]. In 2011, a group of industry experts from the building and manufacturing community which included designers, owners, contractors, specifiers, material researchers and non-profit organizations assembled to develop a standard format to report building product content and associated health information. The primary goal was to develop a standard format to educate designers and specifiers about the impacts on human health, and to minimize the burden on product manufacturers juggling multiple types of information requests and reporting formats.
The HPD plays a crucial role in the LEED rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)[2]. The LEED rating system rewards design teams that utilize HPDs for construction projects under the LEED version 4, Materials and Resources – Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Material Ingredient Reporting credit[3]. The LEED rating system encourages the specification of products and materials for which life-cycle information is available and that have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable life-cycle impacts. To be considered complete, the Health Product Declaration must include information for each intentional ingredient and known residual. Top AEC firms in the U.S. have already begun requesting HPDs from manufacturers. Firms such as Perkins+Will, Smith Group JJR, HKS, and ZGF are all encouraging building product manufacturers to provide HPDs in order to be considered for product specification[4].
Since the HPD plays a significant role in building product specification for LEED projects, manufacturers have been encouraged to develop the product transparency documentation. Third party verification and quality assurance protocols have been established by a pilot group that includes industry experts NSF International, UL Environment, and GreenCE[5]. Building product manufacturers can develop an HPD using the HPDC's builder software or they can hire a third party consultant to create the document if they do not have a chemist, biologist, or industrial hygienist on staff.
