LEED, BREAM and WELL are changing the way we think about how buildings and communities are
planned, constructed, maintained and operated.
Sustainable design is not just a trend, it's a necessity and should be applied to all types of projects-from homes to corporate headquarters-at all phases of development.
Environmental Product Declarations, or EPDs as they are known, provide a third party verified, transparent look at a product, its ingredients and its impact across the entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal.
The latest version of LEED, LEED v4, requires that vendors to LEED projects have an EPD. The materials section of LEED v4 focuses on materials to get a better understanding of what is in them, and the effect those components have on human health and the environment.
IFS Coatings has achieved EPDs for all of our architectural, high performance powders.
IFS Coatings' - the environmentally responsible choice.
IFS Coatings has provided the environmentally responsible choice for a long time. It's part of our mission statement, we choose not to make high performance liquid coatings because of their environmental impact, and our high performance architectural powder coatings protect and decorate buildings all over the USA while being the environmentally responsible choice.
IFS Coatings' architectural range boasts a string of environmental advantages including no or low VOCs, no toxic compounds, no toxic landfill created in manufacture or application and the ability to reclaim, recycle and reuse the powder, to name but a few. It also significantly outperforms equivalent liquid PVDF coatings in every reporting category that the EPDs requires.
We have invested heavily in our architectural program to achieve EPDs for each of our architectural products: IFS 300SP our interior grade standard polyester which meets and exceeds the performance requirements of AAMA 2603; IFS 400SD, our high performance Super Durable Polyester which meets and exceeds the performance requirements of AAMA 2604; and IFS 500FP, our high performance Feve based Fluoropolymer which meets and exceeds the performance requirements of AAMA 2605, all have an EPD.
Kreg Gardner, VP Architectural Business Development explains, "We recognize that environmentally responsible design is increasingly important and we truly believe our architectural range offers outstanding protection in a vast range of colors and effects, while allowing design professionals to spec our coatings knowing they have made the environmentally responsible choice without compromising on performance. We are delighted to have the scientific data to back this up."
EPD criteria and process
SCS Global Services, an ANSI Recognized Eligible Program Operator, was retained to evaluate the IFS Coatings life cycle information including ingredients, formulations, energy usage, waste creation, water usage, packaging, application and other information and determine that IFS Coatings architectural powders satisfy all requirements of the Product Category Rules (PCR) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and follow international standards including, ISO 14044, ISO 14025, and ISO 21930 for building products. Via a legal Confidentiality Agreement, SCS cannot share any proprietary information provided by IFS. There are obviously variations in the application parameters, equipment used and the types of products that our coatings are used on, from structural to decorative. With this in mind, a variety of scenarios were given and an average taken for modelling purposes
What LEED credits are achievable by using IFS high performance architectural powder coatings?
The LEED Material Resources (MR) credit for Building Product Disclosure and Optimization - EPD has 2 options. IFS Coatings EPD applies to option 1. This recognizes LEED projects which include 20 products with 20 EPDs from at least 5 manufacturers. So, products coated with IFS architectural products will contribute to a point for the project. This is summarized below.
Credit
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Project Type
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Total points
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Requirements
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Calculations
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MR: Building product disclosure and optimization - Environmental product declarations
Option 1.
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All types
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1 point
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Use at least 20 different permanently installed products sourced from at least 5 different manufacturers that meet one of the product disclosure criteria
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IFS Coatings EPD, a product-specific EPD with third-party certification and external verification, counts for 1 whole point
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The IFS Coatings EPDs can also be used to meet the requirements of other green building ratings programs such BREAM and WELL.