The green building industry’s first and leading consortium of program operators announced the addition of two new affiliate members: NRMCA (National Ready Mixed Concrete Association), a leading concrete advocate organization and Sustainable Solutions Corporation, an environmental consulting firm. This announcement and other progress to date will be covered in a webinar on December 14, at time 3:00pm (ET).

The Program Operator Consortium launched last year to provide simpler, standardized, and more useful environmental-product transparency solutions and to reduce complexity in the marketplace. The consortium serves as an expert resource and advocate for creating product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment reports (LCA), and verifying and publishing environmental product declarations (EPDs).

“As one of the leading EPD operators in the construction materials industry, we must consider opportunities to deliver value to our membership,” according to James Bogdan, senior director of sustainability initiatives with NRMCA. “Joining the POC allows our industry access to a network of practitioners and experts, and insight to evolving environmental disclosure reporting.”

“Sustainable Solutions Corporation is excited to join the Program Operator Consortium as an affiliate member because of our commitment to product transparency and to help ensure the production of transparency documents,” says Tad Radzinski, president of Sustainable Solutions Corporation. “We bring to the consortium our years of experience completing LCAs and EPDs, a team of certified LCA practitioners, and our objective of using LCA data to drive sustainability, product innovation and continuous improvement.”

These two affiliate members join thinkstep, a software, data and environmental consulting services company, which was the consortium’s first affiliate member. Regular members of the Consortium include: ASTM International, CSA Group, ICC-Evaluation Service, NSF Sustainability, SCS Global Services, and Sustainable Minds.

The Affiliate Member Program was recently created for industry associations, government agencies, standards developers, consultants, and data providers to have access to expertise from a like-minded community. The free program also provides education, discounted rates, and a seat at the table to contribute to creating uniformity across environmental reporting formats, data requirements, and communication.

Each consortium member is represented in the group’s Technical Advisory Board. These LCA experts oversee the harmonized implementation of the consortium’s North American two-part PCR framework, which consortium members have aligned to use and maintain over the past year. Today, PCRs created by any member will produce standardized environmental declarations, helping both manufacturers as well as decision-makers who specify green building materials and products. The first comprehensive catalog of North American PCRs and an aggregated catalog of EPDs from members’ programs are available at www.programoperators.org.

The consortium holds both in-person meetings and webinars (including 2016 in Review) with global manufacturers, LCA providers, and industry trade associations. Those interested in joining or learning more about the consortium are encouraged to contact info@programoperators.org.