April 20, 2022

The Material Transparency Movement Gains Momentum

Above: ConTech Lighting's CTL19 miniStealth Track Luminaire

There's a growing list of lighting brands Declaring the "ingredients" in their products.

The Living Product Challenge (LPC) bills itself as the world’s most advanced product sustainability standard. The framework encourages building product manufacturers to create products that are healthy, inspiring and give more than they take across their life cycles. Declare is a transparency platform and product database within LPC that aims to change the materials marketplace. And, the list of lighting manufacturers that participate in the program is growing.

An nutrition label for lighting products:
Manufacturers voluntarily disclose product information on easy-to-read Declare labels. These labels report all product ingredients and use a simple color code system to flag chemicals of concern. Further information is provided on the product’s final assembly locations, life expectancy, end-of-life options, and overall compliance with relevant requirements of the Living Building Challenge (LBC).

All active Declare labels are accessible on a free and searchable database. The database was created to be utilized by designers, real estate owners and conscientious homeowners to specify products they know they can trust and that meet the requirements of leading green building standards, including the Core Green Building, LBC, LEED, and WELL Certifications.

A product’s compliance with the LBC Red List is represented on the Declare label by the product’s Declaration Status. There are three Declaration Statuses:

LBC RED LIST FREE products disclose 100% of ingredients present at or above 100 ppm (0.01%) in the final product and do not contain any Red List chemicals.
LBC RED LIST APPROVED products disclose a minimum of 99% of ingredients present in the final product and meet the LBC Red List Imperative requirements through one or more approved exceptions.
DECLARED products disclose 100% of ingredients present in the final product, but contain one or more Red List chemicals that are not covered by an approved exception.

Below are Declare-labeled lighting product families that are currently listed in the LBC database. Only lighting products cited in CSI Section 26, Electrical, are included in the list below.