NIST Building Software Update Adds More Green Product Information
A recent update to a software package by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) updates data on more than 200 environmentally preferred products and adds 30 new products for review.
A recent update to a software package by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) updates data on more than 200 environmentally preferred products and adds 30 new products for review.
The software, Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability version 4 (BEES 4.0), measures both the environmental and economic performance of building products with life-cycle assessment techniques developed respectively by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and ASTM International.
With BEES, a user can ascertain, for instance, the environmental impact of a product at any stage of its existence — raw material acquisition, manufacture, transportation, installation, use, and recycling and waste management. The environmental ramifications of the product at each of these stages is provided for each of 12 categories: global warming, acidification, eutrophication, fossil fuel depletion, indoor air quality, habitat alteration, human health, ecological toxicity, ozone depletion, smog, criteria air pollutants and water intake.
It also offers users the option of a new set of consensus weights for scoring the environmental impact of individual building products. The option was developed by a panel of building product manufacturers, green building designers and environmental assessment experts, and allows users to evaluate environmental impacts considering short-, medium- and long-term effects.
BEES 4.0 includes a number of new non-biobased products, including carpeting from several manufacturers who agree to purchase carbon credits to offset the product’s life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, according to NIST.
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