Low Emitting Materials exports available in Green Badger:

• Low Emitting Materials Calculator (this is USGBC’s low-emitting calculator, Excel spreadsheet, required for your documentation)
• Product data sheets – Zip file of all VOC and Emissions data sheets. The zip file will contain multiple zip files for each product category.

For products to comply, they will have to show emissions compliance for every category. If it’s a paint/coating/sealant or adhesive, also show VOC compliance. There are a few types of emissions compliance out there, but they all need to say specifically – what standard are they meeting, and what’s the total VOC range. This is an example of a Greenguard Gold certificate, you’ll find it tells you very specifically it meets the California Department of Public Health standard, v 1.2-2017, and then when you come to this page it’ll say the total VOC: 0.5 or less. You’ll need this type of documentation for any product to be considered compliant for your LEED certification. If it is a sealant or adhesive, you’ll also need that VOC content, which is typically your product datasheet or SDS, that shows what your actual VOC content is of your product. In this case, it’s showing >50g/L, which is compliant.

A question we see a lot is “I’ve made an entry, it’s showing complaint, why is it showing 0?” The typical answer is that a value is not entered for cost or surface area. A positive integer is required in either one of those, otherwise, it reads as a 0 and shows as non-compliant. To fix this, put in a number. Can be any number. If everything’s compliant, it really doesn’t matter, if something’s not compliant you will need those actual costs. But once you do this, it’ll update, and now you’ll see that you are showing compliant.

There may be an occasion where we don’t have the product you’re using. In that case, when you go to add it, nothing will come up as you start to type that – either brand or product. If there are no results and it just says “new”, that means we don’t have it. Simply click the “new” button, fill in the rest of your details, pick the LEED category that it falls into, add your cost or volume, and then how does it meet the General Emissions Evaluation? You should have some type of documentation that shows this for a product to be compliant, most likely it is the California Department of Public Health standard, v 1.2-2017, or a European version. Simply pick what you have, from that certificate you will have a total VOC range, and then simply upload that certificate, and hit save, and you’re good to go.

To add low-emitting materials to your project, simply click the “Add” button in the upper-right-hand corner. Green Badger has a database of tens of thousands of products with all your VOC and emissions information. You start typing your brands, perhaps you’re using Hilti Firestop, you can type “Hilti”, then either scroll through your products or start typing to filter down, pick the product you’re using, then in this case we’ve got all the documentation, so you are good to go. If it is a sealant or adhesive paint or coating, pick the subtype that it is, in this case, this would be an architectural sealant, put in a volume or surface area (typically we recommend the volume for sealants, adhesives, paints, and coatings), if it’s any of the other product categories it’s done by cost. But fill in a value so that it calculates correctly, hit “save”, and you’re good to go.