Presenters:

Robin Guenther, Principal, Perkins+Will

Tom Lent, Policy Director, Healthy Building Network

Amanda Sturgeon, Director of Sustainability, Perkins+Will

The Living Building Challenge sets a high bar for material use in the built environment by accepting no toxic “red-list” materials.  But in a day where building materials are composed of many composites, chemicals, and out-sourced products, determining a material’s ‘sustainability credentials’ often requires a bit of sleuthing.  This session will focus on radical transparency, a call to manufacturers of building materials to reveal the chemical components in their products. A panel of experts will discuss why this issue is important, what type of chemicals we are commonly exposed to, what the alternatives are, and how we move towards transparent declaration of chemical components in products. To be effective in soliciting manufacturers to disclose chemicals components, we need to create a community effort of question and inquiry. Generating that community consciousness and action plan will drive the audience-interactive discussion in the last part of the presentation.


Session Format:  LECTURE.  

Presenter Bios

Robin Guenther

Robin is Principal on the New York office of Perkins + Will. She was the principal author of the Green Guide for Health Care , the most commonly used method of tracking sustainability in healthcare spaces today. Her book, Sustainable Healthcare Architecture, was released in 2008 and she is currently working with the US Green Building Council to create the LEED® for Healthcare Reference Guide. Robin was the recipient of the 2005 Changemaker Award from The Center for Health Design for her efforts in improving and supporting the environment.

Tom Lent

Tom Lent is Policy Director for the Healthy Building Network a national nonprofit committed to transformation of the market for building materials to advance the best environmental, health and social practices.  Tom, is responsible for defining HBN's guiding philosophy and policies with regard to building materials. Tom has spent nearly 30 years working on the environmental impact of buildings, materials, and energy in both the private sector and with public interest groups. A highly regarded expert in the field of green health care facilities design and operations, Tom was a founding coordinator of the Green Guide for Health Care, sits on the steering committee of the LEED Application Guide for Health Care of the US Green Building Council, and coordinated development of the Sustainable Bioplastic Guidelines. Tom is currently overseeing the development of the Pharos rating criteria and data entry.

Amanda Sturgeon

Amanda Sturgeon AIA, LEED AP is a Senior Associate and the co-director of the sustainable design initiative for Perkins+Will nationally. Amanda has directed over a dozen LEED projects in the pacific north west including the first LEED Platinum project in Washington State. Amanda was a founding board member of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council and just completed her term on the AIA Seattle Board of Directors. She was the winner of the Living Building Challenge competition in 2007 and the Betterbricks Architect award in 2008.