materials health :: GBIG Insight

From “Data Jam” to “Datapalooza”

By Ashley White, PhD on 06 Oct 2014 • 3 minute read

Imagine being able to readily access and interpret human health and environmental attributes of any building product—ingredient lists, health and ecosystem hazards, life cycle data, assessments, and more. Making specification and purchasing decisions that prioritize h …

What’s in My Chair? Materials and Health Lessons from the Experts

By David Marcus on 06 Aug 2014 • 2 minute read

Maybe it’s a vestige from grade school, but I’ve always loved watching educational videos. I remember getting a little thrill each time the teacher broke out the VHS player (remember those?) and we got to watch an interesting video about how volcanoes form or “rid …

The Family Tree of Chemistry

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 10 Jul 2014 • 5 minute read

The periodic table is beautiful. I have no fewer than three in my office, and you can also find one in the front or back of almost any chemistry textbook. If you want to understand chemistry, it is worthwhile to spend a few minutes with the periodic table. I will spa …

Green Chemistry Innovators Help Advance Dialogue around Safer Building Materials

By Ashley White, PhD on 06 Jun 2014 • 3 minute read

Through the LEED, Materials, and Health Initiative, USGBC has been advancing dialogue around the challenges and opportunities associated with material ingredient disclosure and elimination of chemical hazards in the building sector. Last week USGBC held a workshop on …

Workshop participants, "Advancing Safer Materials in the Building Products Sector."

Challenges and Opportunities at the Intersection of Materials and Health: A Recap

By David Marcus on 19 Mar 2014 • 3 minute read

What happens when you gather 76 passionate and informed professionals in a room to discuss challenges and opportunities at the intersection of health, materials, and the built environment? Progress. That’s how I felt at the end of the day on Thursday, February 2 …

Making the Invisible Visible: A Step Toward Safer Materials

By Megan Schwarzman, MD MPH on 02 Dec 2013 • 3 minute read

As a doctor and an environmental health scientist, I field a lot of questions about how we’re affected by the chemicals that make up the materials in our everyday lives. These questions often have to do with materials used in buildings or the products that go inside t …

Identifying Better Products by Understanding Their Chemistry

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 12 Nov 2013 • 3 minute read

Very few people walk into a hardware store and say, “I am looking for a mixture of calcium silicate, magnesium oxide, clay and sand for my driveway, can you tell me how much calcium sulfate to use if I want it to set quickly when I pour it this weekend?” Most peo …

Envisioning a Perfect Building Material

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 14 Oct 2013 • 2 minute read

I am a chemist, not an architect, builder, contractor, or designer. I once built a coat rack out of a 4x4. It wasn’t pretty, but its sheer mass kept it stable in the corner of my college apartment until I moved out 2 years later. I did not build that coat rack arou …