Impact Areas ("Buckets")
This impact area is defined by the ways that products and materials (or the chemicals and processes used to create them) affect the human body.
What is "Human Health"?
This sub-impact area refers to the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials.
What is "Embodied Carbon"?
Achieved when a product has demonstrated or exceeded a particular level of achievement or improvement versus the baseline, as designated by a standard.
What is "Optimization"?
While the full Common Materials Framework includes upwards of 600-plus distinct factors, this number represents the amount of factors that have been prioritized by the CMF as the most important.
What is "50"?
The year in which a letter was drafted calling for the establishment of a 'north star' of holistic material sustainability, in an effort to move on from the mis-directed singular focus on either just embodied carbon or health as areas of concern.
What is "2019"?
This impact area is defined by the ways the production of materials affect elements of our natural ecosystems, such as water, air, biodiversity and wildlife.
What is "Ecosytem Health"?
This sub-impact area refers to how the manufacture of a product impacts animal and plant species and habitats, and protects and improves natural resources according to principles that will ensure their highest economic or social benefits.
What is "Biodiversity + Conservation"?
Defined as a deeper investigation of the impacts of disclosed data.
What is "Assessment"?
Another name for the most needed information, the questions manufacturers already have some answers to, and data that is already publicly available.
What are "First Factors"?
Completed in its initial form in 2021, this evaluation tool has been both formally recognized by the AIA Materials Pledge and commited to by green building certification leaders like ILFI, USGBC and IWBI as the foundation for their materials requirements and allowing for alignment across future standards.
What is the "Common Materials Framework"?
This impact area is defined by the ways a material or product's design takes into consideration a product's material inputs, and end of life streams, to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials at their highest value, and regenrate nature.
What is "Circular Economy"?
This sub-imapct category refers to where products are manufactured and with what type of inputs. The CMF includes factors in this section like: salvaged, regenerative, renewable, or recyclable inputs, whether the materials used have social co-benefits (like carbon sequestration, pollution removal such as ocean plastics, etc) among other factors.
What is "Sourcing"?
Refers to the public or third party disclosure of data.
What is "Transparency"?
The number of sub-impact areas, or "sub-buckets", that the first factors exist within.
What is "10"?
Term identifying materials that are safe for our bodies and ecosystems, and which actually sequester carbon emissions from our atmosphere, create great jobs that sutain families and communities, and enable local economies and communities to thrive through local fabrication and craft.
What is "regenerative"?
This impact area is defined by the ways in which individuals involved in the production or living near the production or disposal locations of products and materials are affected by these operations.
What is "Social Health + Equity"?
This sub-impact category refers to the interconnected journey that raw materials, components, and goods take before their assembly and sale to customers. Includes all those involved in the extracting, refining, processing, manufacturing, distributing, storing, selling and installing of a material or product into a building.
What is "Supply Chain"?
Defined as a public statement, via a third party, of a company's intent and plan to improve the health profile of a product.
What are "Commitments"?
Defined as the 'question' to drive the Metric.
What is a "Factor"?
Name for an as yet unrealized common materials workflow tool that would be a key step toward achieving the regenerative materials economy vision.
What is the "Materials Eas(ier) Button"?
This impact area is defined by the ways in which products and materials (and the energy used during their production and operation) contribute to our changing climate.
What is "Climate Health"?
This sub-impact category refers to a company's overall chemical footprint across all their product lines, not just the specific product being evaluated. The CMF includes factors in this section like: chemical policies and footprints, supply chain disclosures and footprints, chemical impact reduction plans and policies, among other factors.
What are "Company Human Health Impacts"?
This Impact Category is the only one that falls within the widest range or spectrum of achievement in terms of understanding where a product or company is in its journey towards fostering a regenerative environment.
What is "Social Health + Equity"?
This is equivalent to the data point(s), or rather, how to answer the Factor question.
What is the "Metric"?
Name of an NFP that will be key in synthesizing third-party verified data into a common language that can then be shared with future workflow tools; similar to their existing efforts with the digitization of embodied carbon and life cycle assessment data.
What is "BuildingTransparency"?