• VC-21A-C060 - Materials Health in HVAC Equipment and Systems

VC-21A-C060 - Materials Health in HVAC Equipment and Systems

ASHRAE , 2021

Publisher: ASHRAE

File Format: PDF

$8.00$16.00


A growing body of environmental health research shows that commercially available products, including building materials, contain chemicals hazardous to human and environmental health. Since approximately 2005, healthy materials certifications and databases have incentivized healthy materials in architectural products to compensate for the EPA’s lack of materials regulation in the US. However, the HVAC industry lags behind architectural trades in implementing healthier materials - as of August 2020, there are only 64 Health Product Declarations for MEP-related products, but several thousand are available from other trades (Arup, 2020). This research investigated the underlying causes of this gap and proposed potential solutions.

Starting in April 2019, a team of Arup engineers and sustainability specialists compared known hazardous chemicals against common materials in MEP systems. The team then contacted over 40 US HVAC equipment manufacturer representatives to investigate healthy materials in the industry and barriers to healthy materials options in HVAC equipment. Finally, a working group discussed the results to distill underlying causes and propose new methods to move forward. An internal report summarized the results and an abstract was submitted to the ASHRAE 2021 conference. Since this submission, the research was broadly discussed in Erin McConahey’s October 2020 ASHRAE Engineers Notebook article "Material Concerns for HVAC Products." This conference paper discusses the findings from Arup’s internal research in further depth.
The research indicates that many HVAC equipment manufacturers lack awareness of healthy materials in the US market, especially manufacturers of complex equipment with extensive supply chains. The team also found five primary barriers restricting implementation of healthy materials: limited knowledge of green buildings ratings systems other than LEED, lack of published manufacturer information regarding materials, international companies with supply chains lacking in transparency, insufficient EPA regulation, and little current market financial incentive to adopt healthy materials standards (Arup, 2020).

To combat these barriers, the team suggests requesting the material composition of HVAC equipment to incentivize manufacturer materials transparency; to aid these requests, this paper includes a list of common problematic materials. Also, the research presents a tiered strategy to define the scope of healthy materials for HVAC equipment on projects, considering that a healthy materials approach can focus only on health impacts to building occupants or can be expanded to the embodied carbon and lifecycle of all equipment used on the project. Ultimately, this paper will help engineers initiate the necessary engagement with manufacturers to provide healthier materials for healthier buildings and a healthier planet.

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