This Puppy Can Sniff Out the GREEN in ANY Product

The Challenge
As the world entered a new millennium, the construction industry began to swing in a radical new direction.  “Green” used to mean unseasoned or brand new.  A lead architect (now LEED) used to be the guy in charge.  And LCA referred to the Landscape Contractors Association, not Life Cycle Assessment.  We advised our clients that we believed that “green” or sustainable construction was the wave of the future. 

Manufacturers, both clients and non-clients alike, were asking us for guidelines to allow them to assess the sustainability of their products and to interpret the newly-released USGBC LEED Rating System™.

Objective
With a client base that ranges from roofing materials to glass windows to flooring, we needed to come up with a creative yet accurate way of determining the various sustainable attributes that could universally be applied to all building materials.  We identified several common themes – energy savings, recyclability, etc.  We just needed a template or measurement standard to evaluate them.

Approach
The agency collected and sorted data from the USGBC LEED Rating System, from the ASTM E-2129 guide for sustainable products, and from every other source we could find.  We developed and tested our theories on anyone who would talk to us.  We used our advanced Web programmers to write the code for a software report generator that we aptly named LEAD DOG®.  Just like a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) reports various hazards associated with a substance, LEAD DOG measures a product’s Green Quotient on a scale from 0 to 100.

Outcome
LEAD DOG has become extremely popular with both manufacturers and architects alike in determining a product’s “greenness” as well as its suitability in a LEED certified project.  Although it was originally written nearly four years ago, our software remains as popular as ever with over 900 copies in circulation.  As the industry continues to embrace products that save energy and preserve the environment with concepts like life cycle analysis and energy modeling, we are already at work developing LEAD DOG II.