ERA Joins the American High-Performance Buildings Coalition
BETHESDA, Md. — The EPDM Roofing Association (ERA) is joining with other leading associations representing the building and construction industry to form the American High-Performance Buildings Coalition (AHPBC). The new coalition is committed to promoting and supporting the development of sustainable building standards which are based on consensus and scientific performance data.
“This group represents a brain trust of the best expertise in the construction and building industries. We are committed to standards that support sustainability, but we want those standards to be based on consensus thinking and scientific performance data, not on unsubstantiated perceptions,” said John Geary, vice president of Marketing at Firestone Building Products, and Chairman of ERA’s Board of Directors.
The coalition will support performance-based building codes, standards and rating systems developed in conformance with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the established voice of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system. ANSI-accredited standards recognize transparency, balance of interests represented and consensus decision-making.
The coalition announcement comes as the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) revises its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system. USGBC announced in June it was postponing plans to adopt the next version of LEED until as late as June 2013. The U.S. General Services Administration has mandated that all federal buildings be certified to LEED Gold standards despite the fact that it is not an ANSI accredited system.
“ERA has invested heavily in meticulous scientific studies to measure the sustainability of our EPDM products, most recently in a Long-term Service Life (LTSL) study and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). We will bring that same commitment to scientific certainty to our work with the AHPBC,” said Ellen Thorp, associate executive director of ERA.
To learn more about the coalition and to find a complete list of its members, go to www.betterbuildingstandards.com.
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