Imagine a world where you can access highly organized, holistic sustainability data in the tools you already use for design and procurement. Where you can quantify the embodied impacts of social health equity, human health, carbon, biodiversity, and circularity of a building and actively report impact reductions and ESG metrics to clients and investors. Where you can actually track how product-level decisions reduced the embodied impacts of a project.
mindful MATERIALS’ CEO Annie Bevan has long highlighted material sustainability as the most complex and time-consuming aspect of green building certifications. I’d say we all concur, right? Material embodied impacts often go unaddressed due to complexity, resulting in confusion, increased costs, low adoption, and minimal impact.
Enter mindful MATERIALS (mM), the nonprofit dedicated to reducing, and ultimately reversing, the embodied impacts of the built environment.
“We are uniquely positioned to do this work,” Bevan often says. “Think of mindful MATERIALS as the UN of Sustainable Materials, bringing together people, certifications, standards, pledges, organizations, and workflows to build common ground and alignment. All so we can accelerate the creation, specification, and use of holistically sustainable materials.”
Earlier this year, the non-profit launched three Catalyst Forum Groups (Owners, AEC, and Manufacturers), assembling proven materials leaders to find common ground, identify alignment opportunities, build shared resources and knowledge, and accelerate impact by sending a clear market signal.
The Forums established milestones for the years 2023–2025, focusing on alignment, implementation, and actualization of goals. Last fall these groups convened in Minneapolis, Minn., for the inaugural Cross-Forum Summit, an opportunity to unpack and overcome any remaining hurdles to alignment, celebrate early wins, and agree upon action plans to move into greater alignment across industries on the “Aligned Ask,” Common Materials Framework, and 50 Data Hotspots.
Through my work with mM, I was able to attend the Summit and the energy, excitement, and commitment to this work were palpable. One of my favorite statements made came toward the end of day one from Tim Conway, Vice President of Sustainability for Shaw Industries and a former board member of mM.
“The Forum’s ultimate work is to move us past the science and into the story,” says Conway, “and right now, we’re in the science weeds, so to speak. But this deeply technical work we’re doing will result in an ‘easy button’ to evaluate product specifications across all five impact categories, AND see how these impacts may change based on different product choices and design when this system, and more quality data, is readily available in tech systems and workflow tools.”
As the Forums transition into 2024, their focus shifts to gaining industry-wide buy-in for the Aligned Ask and the 50 Data Hotspots. The public release of that information in early spring 2024 aims to engage more organizations across the building ecosystem. Increased collaboration and standardized demands will expedite progress and enhance accessibility to sustainable practices.
Bevan said it best at the end of the Summit —
“We’re not only doing this alignment and ask to save time, money, and energy for everyone, we’re also doing this to drive clear demand across holistic impacts,” she said. “We want more data of quality and quantity across all impacts to exist so we can measure the holistic embodied impacts of products in projects. Our work is to close the gap and make better, more mindful decisions, making more accessible to a wider majority of professionals working to design and build the spaces in which we spend much of our lives. This is the building industry’s materials holy grail.”
Looking for a little more on the Forums, the Aligned Ask, and the 50 Data Hotspots? Check out mindful MATERIALS full update on Year One of the Forums > https://www.mindfulmaterials.com/mmaterial-ideas/2023/12/14/foundational-action-to-achieve-materials-holy-grail
Jen Levisen is a writer, editor, and content strategist passionate about connecting and storytelling and using both to highlight impact. She is the Director of Communications for mindful MATERIALS and is the host of the Impact Icons podcast, an Imagine a Place Production. Connect with Jen on Linkedin or contact her by email.