ASSA ABLOY: Declare labels make environmental standards transparent

A new college building meeting high environmental standards was able to trust in ASSA ABLOY’s door opening solutions thanks to its Declare labels stating the products’ material ingredients.
 

Customer

Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, US. The college, being environmentally focused, sought to construct a new classroom and administration facility to reflect this ideal.
 

Challenge

The R W Kern Center at Hampshire College is a classroom and administration facility constructed according to the Living Building Challenge (LBC), the built environment’s most rigorous sustainability performance standard.

The intent of the LBC is to build structures that are free from harmful chemicals, protecting not only those that live and work within, but also the people constructing the building, the workers that produce the building materials and the environment as a whole. To achieve this designation, a structure must avoid building products – including door openings – that contain ‘red list’ chemicals.
 

Solution

Achieving this goal requires selection of building products with accompanying transparency statements that openly list the material ingredients. Finding products with transparency labels can be a challenge.

ASSA ABLOY helped the construction firm building the Kern Center, Wright Builders, by providing Declare labels that list material ingredients for its door opening products used in the project.

“Having companies like ASSA ABLOY declare that they meet standards, and provide ingredient lists, was an incredible help,” says Andrew Solem, assistant project manager for Wright Builders.

“The labels allow architects, designers, specifiers and builders to know immediately whether or not that the product will meet most green building guidelines, including the Living Building Challenge.”