The Construction Specification Institute's Sustainable Reporting Data Format: GreenFormat

Abstract

The increased utilization of green building rating systems, federal and state sustainable building programs, and the interest in green building by private commercial and residential builders has generated a wide range of building product manufacturer claims about the sustainable attributes of their products. Evaluating those manufacturer claims, which range from “environmentally friendly,” “low VOC,” “all natural,” to “100% recycled,” is a major challenge to specifiers, professional designers, and others who must make product selections to meet the rating system requirements. While there are independent third party certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council, Scientific Certification System (SCS), and Green Guard, the majority of the rating systems use a descriptor as a requirement such as “rapidly renewable,” for which there is no current certification. Some professional designers want information on material transportation and extraction, or product deconstruction or recycling. Some large design firms have created environmental questionnaires for manufacturers to complete; however, the questionnaires are not standardized. Manufacturers are faced with completing different questionnaires from a variety of major design firms. The Construction Specification Institute (CSI), the publisher of MasterFormat, has created a sustainable reporting data guide named GreenFormat©. The intent of this article is to describe GreenFormat, its data categories, and to provide background on the informational transparency.