LCAs & EPDs: What You Need to Know

Learn the promise and pitfalls of Life Cycle Assessments & Environmental Product Declarations, and how green rating programs address them.

Through this course you will learn the promise and pitfalls of LCA and EPDs, compare how the Living Building Challenge, Living Product Challenge, LEED and Green Globes address them and examine related advocacy opportunities, how to outline the history of political debate that surrounds Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of building materials and emerging trends of environmental product declarations within the green building industry, and how to explain how various green building and product certifications are driving increased transparency about environmental impacts of building materials with a particular focus on LEED®, the Living Building Challenge and the Living Product Challenge.

This course is taught by Jim Newman. Jim is founder and Principal at Linnean Solutions. He helped found the Massachusetts Chapter of the USGBC (Now Built Environment Plus) and held the position of Chair of the Board of the Chapter for two years. Jim is a founding Board member of a the Resilient Design Institute. Created by Alex Wilson of BuildingGreen, the organization pursues research and education on resilience in the built environment. Jim is also a Board member of CLEAR, the owner of the LENSES regenerative development framework. Previously, Jim worked as the Director of Strategy at BuildingGreen. Jim is the Co-Chair of the Living Future Collaborative, and Living Future Roundtable, both hosted by BE+.

Background photo above by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash