How mindful MATERIALS is Creating a Framework for a Healthier Built Environment
Mindful MATERIALS (mM) is many things to many people. For some, it’s a resource library for healthy and sustainable building materials. For others, it’s a collaboration hub, advocacy vehicle and even a mastermind group of sorts. And though it has become an indispensable tool for countless professionals across the building industry, from designers to architects to manufacturers, it grew from humble beginnings.
In 2014, mM started as a way to fulfill the need of one architecture firm––HKS. It launched as an internal project within the firm to learn more about the ingredient makeup of the materials and products they were specifying on projects. As they identified the ingredients, they funneled this data into a spreadsheet and created a labeling system for their internal materials resource library. They knew this system was working for their team, but what they had yet to discover was they had stumbled onto something that would soon become a global movement.
Others in the design community started to catch wind of this labeling system and as interest grew, HKS decided to make it publicly available. They figured if the architecture and design community could form a united front, it would drive demand for material transparency. In relatively short order, mM evolved into a global community and movement to catalyze building material health and sustainability throughout the industry.
Rapid, but mindful evolution
By 2015, various design firms throughout the country were implementing the mindful MATERIALS program, however, it was becoming somewhat fragmented as firms took the framework and created their own program variations. This inconsistency was creating more confusion and rework for manufacturers who were attempting to meet the varying ingredient requirements and demands of various designers and firms.
This prompted the creation of the mM Collaborative, a unified national endeavor to develop a common strategy for documenting material transparency. Within a year, the mM Collaborative grew to more than 600 user and manufacturer members who were utilizing and contributing to the evergrowing database of Google spreadsheets that housed the product libraries. By 2017, the spreadsheets had become unwieldy and it became clear they needed to evolve once again.
That next evolution came in the form of a cloud-based system that also provided direct access to other reporting body databases like HPD Collective, Cradle2Cradle, Declare, and others. This new system completely transformed the way architects and designers searched for and identified healthier and sustainable products––allowing them to specify the brand name, product category or certification.
Within a year of launch, the user base grew 500%. Clearly, the need was there.
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From database to mastermind
Over the years, mM has continued to evolve––and this evolution is being driven and orchestrated by the industry. Today, mM is officially classified as a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization with the stated mission of reducing, and ultimately reversing, the embodied impacts of the built environment through mindful material selection. And it aims to do this through three primary pillars: The collaboration hub, Common Materials Framework and digital portal.
“At the time, mindful MATERIALS, around 2017, was really one of the first aggregated product databases with all different sorts of material sustainability information,” said Laurel Christensen, director of engagement for mindful MATERIALS. “From there it grew from a database into an industry-wide movement. This was a group of folks from the manufacturing, architecture and design side who were really trying to prioritize healthy materials that had transparency documentation available and wanted to educate the market about why that was important and where they could find those materials.”
As mM continued to attract stakeholders from all corners of the building industry who were passionate about proliferating healthy materials action, it prompted the need for more formalized groups. Soon, the A&D Engagement Group, Manufacturers Engagement Group and Community Working Group were born.
These groups have become somewhat of a blend of think tank, mastermind and incubator for professionals working across the building industry––many of whom are navigating uncharted waters. Within the groups, members are sharing solutions, lessons learned, and best practices or tackling issues together.
“Our manufacturing group talks a lot about the process of getting transparency documentation, or how to evaluate and go through the process of removing harmful chemistries that may be in their products, how to conduct an in-depth supply chain analysis, or how to manage product data in a way that is sustainable in the long term,” Christensen said.
The Community Working Group is focused on taking on the broader issue of creating cohesion and consistency across the industry. Change management is a major part of the equation as the shift toward transparency and material health represents a massive disruption to the way things have traditionally been done in the building industry. The Community Working Group is working to make that transition smoother.
Collectively, these groups represent a significant part of mindful MATERIALS vision: to create structure and unity.
Mindful and collaborative structure
“mindful MATERIALS role is not to be a central place that everyone goes to find the products, but rather to create a structured system by which product sustainability data can be reported,” Christensen said. “That system is what we call the Common Materials Framework or the CMF. It's a very deeply layered framework for evaluating the holistic impacts of materials.”
The CMF was intentionally designed to align with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Architecture and Design Material Pledge, which prioritizes materials that support:
Human health
Social health and equity
Ecosystem health
Climate health
A circular economy
Those five areas also happen to be the criteria for the Common Materials Framework, which is aiming to help provide a way to not only evaluate materials on these criteria, but also provide a mechanism for reporting against pledge goals.
Christensen said there’s a very clear and strong market signal that firms and designers are prioritizing holistic material health, but there’s still a lot of questioning around how to evaluate human health, what certificates to look for and even how to evaluate impact.
“Our work is really to start to bring the structure so that we can all be speaking the same language around how we're evaluating what those impacts mean,” she said. “There needs to be alignment around that, and that's what the mindful MATERIALS Common Materials Framework really seeks to provide. To have the momentum, we really need to all be aligned––and that's mindful MATERIALS role.”
In fact, Christensen said they often refer to themselves as the UN of sustainable materials, because they’re bringing together and fostering collaboration between the supply and demand side. When all sides can come together to purposefully steer the sustainability ship, everyone stands to benefit.