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Morrow, Ga. — Oct. 22, 2014 — TOTO, the largest plumbing manufacturer in the world with $5.1 billion dollars in annual sales, has announced that it has strengthened its position as a leader in sustainable product design and marketing by introducing 10 new Sustainable Minds (SM) Transparency Reports for select high-efficiency commercial products.
The new reports showcase 15 products across four categories: toilets, sensor faucets, sensor flush valves, and ultra high-efficiency urinals.
Harnessing the life cycle assessment (LCA) results of TOTO's new commercial products, TOTO’s SM Transparency Reports are the first to demonstrate this innovation in the design of ISO 14025 Type III environmental declarations. The objective of ISO 14025 environmental declarations is “to encourage the demand for, and supply of, products that cause less stress on the environment, through communication of verifiable and accurate information that is not misleading, that stimulates the potential for market-driven continuous environmental improvement.”
To truly achieve this goal, SM Transparency Reports provide comprehensive information about a product, not only the required LCA and environmental data. They present functional and environmental performance information together in a comprehensive and concise three-page, cloud-based report. The environmental performance and LCA data is presented in an understandable format and made meaningful by enabling TOTO to describe what the company is doing to reduce its products' impact on the planet. They are credible and effective strategic marketing tools that bring consistency and standardization to environmental product transparency reporting.
“Our product development process includes rigorous assessment, then concrete action to reduce our products' impact on the environment, with the goal of continuous improvement,” said Bill Strang, president of operations for the Americas. “We must be able to transparently provide the design-build community with accurate scientific data in an easy-to-understand, standardized format, so they have information they can trust and are empowered to make sound decisions when implementing environmental performance improvement strategies for their projects. SM Transparency Reports enable us to meet this market demand.”
NSF International verified, TOTO's new SM Transparency Reports for select commercial products enable the company to accurately describe to the design-build community what it is doing to improve the environmental performance of its products across their life cycle from cradle to grave — from product design and raw material selection to manufacturing, use, logistics, and end of life.
Armed with this information, the design-build community can evaluate and compare plumbing products from TOTO’s portfolio (and in the future, from others in the plumbing industry when they report on product transparency) and make well-informed greener purchasing decisions that help improve the environmental performance of the buildings they erect.
“When selecting products for a building project, owners, architects, designers and other members of the design-build community do not have time to wade through and interpret the highly technical kinds of information provided in traditional environmental product declarations (EPDs), which rarely include much needed product marketing information or substantiation of what the company is doing to make its products greener,” said Jason Fitzsimmons, vice president of sales for the United States. “Further, the presence of an EPD does not mean the manufacturer has a greener product or has made improvements. It only means they’ve done an LCA, according to industry requirements.
"Our commercial products' new SM Transparency Reports convey all the needed information in a clear, concise, and transparent manner and demonstrate that TOTO understands the impacts of its decisions. They offer a manageable approach for the design-build community to do their due diligence when specifying products.”
This year, TOTO has developed SM Transparency Reports for its popular high-efficiency commercial toilets, EcoPower sensor faucets and flush valves, and ultra high-efficiency urinals.
