By Kristin Brubaker
Head of Sustainable Construction Services
A material library helps design and construction teams research building products, vet them against sustainability criteria, and save the approved products for reuse on future projects. Green Badger, the LEED compliance and green jobsite management platform, now lets teams create their own material libraries right in the platform. Instead of starting from scratch every time a project has LEED, embodied carbon, or AIA Materials Pledge requirements, your team can pull from a library of products someone has already vetted.
Green Badger launched this material library functionality in 2026. It brings product research, sustainability vetting, firm-wide sharing, and contractor handoff into the same platform many project teams already use for green building compliance. Below, I walk through how teams build material libraries in Green Badger, what to look for when vetting products, and how that work carries over from design into construction.
Why do architects need a material library?
Most firms run into the same problem. A project team spends hours researching insulation, flooring, or ceiling tile that meets the project’s sustainability goals. The project wraps up. Then the next project starts with similar requirements, and someone repeats the same research.
That cycle costs time on every project. A material library breaks it by turning product research into a firm asset instead of a one-time task.
This matters more as requirements stack up. A single project might need to support LEED v5 certification, a reduced embodied carbon target, and reporting for the firm’s AIA Materials Pledge. Each one asks different questions about the same products. When the vetted answers live in one place, project teams stop reinventing the wheel.
What kinds of material libraries can you create in Green Badger?
Green Badger lets teams create two kinds of material libraries: project material lists and a corporate materials library.
A project material list is the record of materials used on a specific project. You can build out individual projects in Green Badger to track those materials, and you can duplicate a project’s list when a similar project comes along.
A corporate materials library is a firm-wide collection of preferred, pre-vetted building products that everyone in the organization can see and use. In Green Badger, a firm’s head of sustainability (or anyone tasked with setting material standards) selects vetted products and saves them at the organization level. Anyone in the organization with a Green Badger account can then see those products and know they are preferred choices.
How do saved products work in a Green Badger material library?
Green Badger uses two markers to keep saved products clear. At the very top of the material library, under saved products, you will see:
- A gold star, which marks products saved at the organization level. Everyone in the company can see these.
- A blue star, which marks products an individual user has favorited for their own work.
The two levels work together. Firm standards stay consistent, while specialists keep their own short lists. For example, someone who works on many healthcare projects may rely on products specific to that sector. They can favorite those products without adding them to the broader corporate library. Both sets stay ready for repeated use, so building out a new project takes minutes instead of days.
How does material vetting work in Green Badger?
Material vetting checks a product’s documentation and performance against the sustainability goals that matter to your project or firm. Green Badger makes vetting searchable, so you filter by the criteria first instead of digging through product data sheets one at a time.
The Green Badger product database is built to show three kinds of sustainability information at a glance:
- AIA Common Materials Framework scoring. The Common Materials Framework is the AIA’s shared set of categories for evaluating building products: human health, climate health, ecosystem health, social health and equity, and circular economy. You can see which categories each product contributes to.
- LEED v5 credit weighting. You can see how each product is weighted for the LEED v5 Building Product Selection and Procurement (BPSP) credit, which rewards projects for choosing products with verified sustainability attributes.
- Embodied carbon and GWP. Global warming potential (GWP) measures the greenhouse gas emissions tied to making a product, and it is typically reported in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). Green Badger shows each product’s GWP and how it compares to the baseline for that product type.
From there, you can narrow your search by manufacturer, product type, or attributes such as EPDs and Cradle to Cradle Certified status. Through its EC3 and HPD integration, Green Badger makes more than 125,000 products searchable.
Once you have a short list, you can compare up to three materials side by side. That makes trade-offs easy to see. One product might have the lowest GWP, while another offers additional attributes that support AIA Materials Pledge reporting or LEED v5 documentation. When you find the right fit, save it to your project, your personal favorites, or the corporate library.
How does a material library support the AIA Materials Pledge and LEED v5?
The AIA Materials Pledge is a commitment by architecture firms to prioritize building materials that support human health, climate health, ecosystem health, social equity, and a circular economy. Signatory firms report on their progress, which means someone has to gather product information across many projects. When every product in your Green Badger library already shows its Common Materials Framework categories, that information is organized before reporting season arrives.
LEED v5 raises the bar on materials, too. Beyond the BPSP credit, LEED v5 BD+C includes a prerequisite, MRp2 Quantify and Assess Embodied Carbon, that requires teams to understand the embodied carbon of their projects. Products with EPDs and clear GWP data give your team a head start on both.
The same applies to firms with their own reduced embodied carbon goals. Seeing GWP against a product type baseline makes it easier to choose lower carbon options early, when changes are cheapest.
What happens to the project materials list once construction starts?
Material selection in design is only half the story. What actually gets installed on site determines whether a project meets its sustainability goals.
Because the material library lives inside Green Badger, design teams can hand off the project materials list to the general contractor (GC) in the same platform. The GC then tracks the actual implementation of those materials, including exact quantities and costs. That data feeds the calculations needed for LEED, embodied carbon reporting, and other green building requirements. More than 80 percent of the top 25 green general contractors already use Green Badger, so there is a good chance your GC partner knows the platform.
What should architects look for when building a material library?
Not every tool covers the full workflow. When comparing options, look for a platform that can:
- Search products by the sustainability criteria you report on, including AIA Common Materials Framework categories, LEED v5 credit weighting, and GWP against a baseline.
- Save vetted products at both the firm and individual levels.
- Compare products side by side before you specify them.
- Keep project records you can duplicate for similar work.
- Hand off the project materials list to the GC so they can track installed quantities and costs through construction.
Green Badger gives teams all five in one platform, which makes it a strong choice for firms building a corporate materials library from scratch.
Frequently asked questions
What is a material library? A material library is a shared collection of building products that have been researched and vetted for sustainability performance. It lets firms reuse vetted products across projects instead of repeating the same research every time.
What is the best way to build a material library for an architecture firm? The best approach is to use a platform that handles research, vetting, firm-wide sharing, and construction tracking together. Green Badger, a LEED compliance and green jobsite management platform, added material library functionality in 2026. Teams can create corporate materials libraries and project material lists, search products by AIA Common Materials Framework category, LEED v5 credit weighting, and GWP, compare products side by side, and hand off the project materials list to the general contractor.
What do the gold and blue stars mean in a Green Badger material library? A gold star marks a product saved at the organization level, visible to everyone in the company. A blue star marks a product an individual user has favorited for their own projects.
Can a material library help with AIA Materials Pledge reporting? Yes. Green Badger shows which AIA Common Materials Framework categories each product contributes to, so the product information needed for AIA Materials Pledge reporting is already organized.
How many products can I compare at once in Green Badger? You can compare up to three materials side by side, including GWP, LEED v5 credit weighting, and other sustainability attributes.
Does material vetting carry over into construction? Yes. Design teams hand off the project materials list to the general contractor in Green Badger, and the contractor tracks actual quantities and costs for LEED and embodied carbon calculations.
Make your next project easier with a material library in Green Badger
Every project with sustainability requirements shouldn’t start from scratch. A material library lets you vet a product once, save it for the whole firm, and reuse it with confidence on the next LEED v5 project, embodied carbon target, or AIA Materials Pledge report. Green Badger lets teams create material libraries, vet products against the criteria that matter, and carry those selections through construction, all in one platform.
Ready to stop re-vetting the same products? Schedule a demo with Green Badger to see how your team can build its own corporate materials library and save time on material verification.
