by Lauren Richardson
Sustainability Manager at Green Badger
Two of the most important forces in sustainable building materials share a common mission. Here’s how they reinforce each other — and how Green Badger helps you act on both.
What is the Common Materials Framework?
The Common Materials Framework (CMF) is a structured evaluation tool developed collaboratively by organizations including the Healthy Building Network, USGBC, and others. Its purpose is to standardize how building materials are assessed and disclosed across the industry — giving architects and designers a shared language to make more informed material choices.
The CMF’s value is that it moves the conversation beyond single metrics like carbon or VOCs toward a holistic picture. Instead of chasing one certification, you weigh trade-offs across six interconnected dimensions. It also serves as a meta-framework that aligns existing tools such as HPDs, EPDs, Declare labels, and FSC Certified, so practitioners can see how they fit together rather than navigating a fragmented landscape.
The Categories of the CMF
Human Health: Ingredient Transparency in Practice
Material health evaluation asks what’s actually in this product, and whether it’s safe. The tools that help answer this include Declare labels, Health Product Declarations (HPDs), and Cradle to Cradle Material Health certification. Together, they form a growing body of disclosed, optimized product data that architects can rely on when specifying.
Climate Health: Embodied Carbon and Lifecycle Assessment
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are a tool for quantifying lifecycle impacts. They provide transparency around global warming potential (GWP) and other environmental impact categories. Global Warming Potential (GWP) is a metric that shows how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere relative to carbon dioxide (CO₂), usually over a set period (e.g., 100 years). Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of materials – the total climate impact of a material across its lifecycle.
Whole-building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA) requirements are increasingly tied to this category, making it one of the most pressing areas of sustainable specification. Embodied carbon accounts for a significant share of global emissions and requires urgent action.
Ecosystem Health: Responsibly Sourced Wood and Biobased Materials
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) sets standards for wood product manufacturers to ensure responsible forest management to prevent deforestation and habitat loss. The FSC provides a chain-of-custody certification to track products from harvest to distribution. It also addresses fair wages, working conditions, and the rights of local communities near forest areas.
Biobased materials are products other than food that are biological products or renewable agricultural materials. Manufacturers with notable biobased product lines include:
Social Health & Equity: The Human Side of the Supply Chain
Are workers paid fairly? Are communities near extraction sites protected? These questions sit at the heart of social equity in materials, and several certifications help address them:
Circular Economy: Design for Disassembly and Take-Back Programs
Circularity requires materials to be recovered, separated, and reused at the end of a product’s life. Two mechanisms drive this: Design for Disassembly (DfD) and manufacturer take-back programs.
Cradle to Cradle is widely considered the gold standard for circularity — its Product Circularity category addresses material loops directly. The SCS Global Recycled Standard (GRS) covers over 2,000 products with verified recycled content.
Manufacturers with products designed for disassembly include:
Structural Systems
- Steelcase – modular office systems with demountable components
- Lindner Group – demountable wall and ceiling systems
- DIRTT Environmental Solutions – prefab demountable interior systems
- Teknion – reconfigurable architectural wall systems
Façade & Cladding
- Kingspan – insulated panel systems with reversible fixing
- Trespa – cladding panels with mechanical (non-adhesive) fixing systems
- Solaripedia / STO – rainscreen systems designed for panel replacement
Flooring
- Interface – modular carpet tiles
- Tarkett – modular flooring with take-back programs
- Milliken – modular carpet systems
Steel & Structure
- Nucor / BlueScope Steel – bolted steel framing (inherently disassemblable)
- Simpson Strong-Tie – mechanical connectors enabling reversible joinery
Ceiling & Interior Systems
- Armstrong World Industries – suspended ceiling grid systems
- USG – demountable ceiling and partition systems
- Ecophon – modular acoustic ceiling tiles
MEP / Building Services
- Uponor – push-fit plumbing systems (tool-free disassembly)
- Legrand – modular wiring and cable management systems
- Victaulic – grooved mechanical pipe joining (no welding)
Furniture & Fit-Out
- Vitra – office furniture with documented disassembly paths
- Herman Miller – furniture made for disassembly
- Haworth – demountable walls and modular workstations
Notable take-back programs worth knowing:
Cradle to Cradle: A Strong CMF Ally — With One Gap
Products certified under Cradle to Cradle Certified® align strongly with the CMF across multiple categories: material health, circular economy, social equity, and ecosystem stewardship. Certification is awarded when a product meets requirements across all five C2C categories, with the overall level matching the lowest category achieved (Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum).
However, while C2C includes a “climate” category, it does not fully meet CMF’s more rigorous climate health expectations, especially whole-life embodied carbon reduction and alignment with project-level decarbonization targets. This makes C2C complementary to the CMF but insufficient alone for the climate dimension.
The AIA Materials Pledge
The AIA Materials Pledge is a commitment framework by the American Institute of Architects encouraging design professionals to prioritize healthier, more sustainable materials in their work. Signatories pledge to advocate for ingredient transparency, specify products with disclosed and optimized chemical content, and support manufacturers moving toward safer products.
The pledge is rooted in a fundamental truth: architects wield enormous purchasing power that can drive market transformation away from harmful chemicals and toward more sustainable materials.
How the CMF and AIA Materials Pledge Reinforce Each Other
The AIA Materials Pledge provides commitment and intent. The Common Materials Framework provides the structure and vocabulary to act consistently on that commitment. They are most powerful when used together.
The two frameworks are complementary in several important ways:
- Shared foundation in transparency. Both focus on the idea that better choices require better information; ingredient disclosure is foundational to each.
- Demand and supply are in alignment. The Pledge activates demand as architects commit to specify better products, while the CMF structures what “better” means, giving architects a coherent vocabulary to act on their commitment.
- Reducing market fragmentation. The CMF addresses a key barrier for pledge signatories: the proliferation of competing certifications (Declare, HPD, C2C, CDPH, etc.). A shared framework makes it easier to fulfill pledge commitments without navigating an overwhelming landscape of standards.
- Industry transformation, not just compliance. Neither is purely a certification or audit tool. Both aim to shift market norms through collective action, including pledges, shared frameworks, and sustained professional commitment.
For firms that have signed the AIA Materials Pledge, the CMF provides the operational vocabulary to deliver on that commitment project by project, not as an aspiration but as a demonstrated practice.
Green Badger: Bridging Intent and Action
The CMF gives architects a vocabulary for what “better” means. The AIA Materials Pledge gives them a commitment to pursue it. But neither tells architects and designers which specific products meet those standards on a given project.
Green Badger’s 2.0 platform closes that gap. By showing the CMF alignment, LEED v5 attributes, and embodied carbon data for each product, it turns abstract frameworks into actionable product decisions.
Green Badger 2.0 gives architects and designers clear insight into how every material choice influences their LEED v5 and CMF objectives. It eliminates uncertainty and streamlines the documentation process. Acting as the backbone of design decisions, the platform helps teams make strategic choices, complete documentation efficiently, and show real, measurable results.
