Perspectives on greener product development and manufacturing from Sustainable Minds, our partners, customers and contributors.

Materials & processes

SM Transparency Catalog DEMO: The Educational Marketing Platform for Product Transparency

By Sustainable Minds on June 30, 2017

Find, understand, learn, share, reward...change.

NEW release! 500+ brands, 1000s of products and growing.

First Program Operator Consortium Launched for Environmental Product Declarations Market at Greenbuild 2015

By Sustainable Minds on November 17, 2015

WASHINGTON, November 17, 2015 — On Wednesday, four key green-building stakeholder organizations (ASTM International, ICC Evaluation Service, NSF International and Sustainable Minds) will launch the first Program Operator Consortium in the industry. The signing will take place at Greenbuild 2015 at the ASTM International booth (#3313) at 10:30 a.m.

The consortium will serve as an expert resource and advocate for creating product category rules (PCRs), reviewing life cycle assessment (LCA) reports, and verifying and publishing environmental product declarations (EPDs). The consortium members will pool resources, leverage existing relationships, jointly conduct outreach, marketing, education and communications, and promote the overall use of PCRs, LCAs and EPDs in the marketplace.

Manufacturers, design professionals and others will begin to see co-branded, verified EPDs from the consortium members, providing value to decision makers when specifying materials and products while helping manufacturers gain greater visibility for their product transparency work.

Creating SM Transparency Reports using any PCR

By Sustainable Minds on November 16, 2015

Recorded Thur, Nov 12 | 2pm ET/11am PT

Liberating manufacturers from having only one EPD option: a technical disclosure

Our compatibility process enables manufacturers to create SM Transparency Reports, our brand of EPD, using any PCR in any industry ensuring the LCA rules are the same, only the Type III environmental declaration is different.

SM Transparency Reports are strategic marketing tools that showcase both functional and environmental performance in a concise, easy to understand format for decision-makers to make informed greener purchase decisions.

  1. They describe what manufacturers are actually doing to make products greener.
  2. Add material assessment results & interpretation for comprehensive reporting.
  3. They're in the cloud, freely available and in one click, connect buyers and sellers.

Leverage your investments in product transparency and help your customers earn LEED v4 credits by making LCA, environmental performance & material health information understandable and meaningful.

New SM Transparency Reports(TM) Facilitate and Accelerate Greener Product Purchase Decisions, Alternative to EPDs

By Sustainable Minds on November 19, 2013

Sustainable Minds®, TOTO USA and NSF International Demonstrate Thought Leadership In Standardizing Transparency Reporting

Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, Philadelphia, PA – November 20, 2013 – In response to market demand and LEED v4, three companies with a common mission to bring credibly greener products to the marketplace have introduced a new product for manufacturers to transparently report the environmental performance of their products. SM Transparency ReportsTM are a new alternative to Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) – with equivalent verification and credibility.

NSF International, a global public health organization that writes standards, and tests and certifies products for multiple industries to minimize adverse health effects and protect the environment, is providing the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) verification and report certification. Today, SM Transparency Reports can be used to meet LEED v4 MRc2 Option 1 for product-specific declarations by presenting the results of a publicly available, verified ISO 14044 LCA. Their designation as a USGBC approved program to earn EPD equivalency is in process.

Webcast: Creating Knowledge Workers for the Greener Product Marketplace Part 6: Teaching Sustainable Manufacturing at UC Berkeley

By Sustainable Minds on September 12, 2013

On August 29th, we held the sixth in a series of webcasts featuring educators from leading colleges and universities demonstrating how Sustainable Minds is being used in education. From graduate to professional degree programs, educators at UC Berkeley are using Sustainable Minds to enrich and expand these programs, teaching lifecycle thinking through hands-on experience.

Building a Lifecycle Dataset of Nonwovens Brands

By Sustainable Minds on August 2, 2013

In this July 24th webcast, Sustainable Minds CEO Terry Swack and nonwoven material innovation expert Rich Chapas, Principal of Chapas, Chinai & Associates officially introduced the Sustainable Minds Branded Data Program and the special Premier Participating Brand offering to jump-start building the nonwovens lifecycle dataset by showcasing brands that are leading the way.

View the entire webcast:

No magic formula… but Sustainable Minds is removing the complexity and cost of LCA for the nonwovens industry

By Sustainable Minds on June 13, 2013

This month Sustainable Minds was featured in Sustainable Nonwovens, the leading publication for the twenty-eight billion dollar global nonwovens industry. Download the PDF to read the complete article. >

At this year's IDEA 2013 Conference & Expo in Miami, it was announced that nonwovens industry body INDA is joining forces with Sustainable Minds (SM) – the global leader in cloud-based life cycle assessment software. Sustainable Nonwovens editor, Adrian Wilson, caught up with SM’s CEO Terry Swack to find out how the company’s nonwovens solution is progressing and its industry sponsor relationship with INDA.

Webcast Replay: Introducing v3.0 - Part 1: What’s New

By Sustainable Minds on June 12, 2013

In this webcast, Terry Swack (Founder & CEO) and Joep Meijer (LCA Technical Expert) introduce SM v3.0. Now Sustainable Minds can partner with manufacturers to get visibility for their brand and make product data available to manufacturers, consultancies, educators & students worldwide – making it easy and cost-effective for raw material and component manufacturers to get ready to meet their customers’ reporting requirements and win business.

Announcing SM v3.0 – New data, your data, Branded Data

By Sustainable Minds on May 14, 2013

Thank you for making Sustainable Minds the #1 Cloud LCA software for greener product innovation – now used in 600 locations in 60 countries. We are excited to bring you SM v3.0.

Sustainable Minds’ easy-to-use, standardized Life Cycle Assessment solution makes it possible for manufacturers across the value chain – large and small – to dynamically evaluate, compare and improve their products' environmental performance by integrating life cycle thinking and LCA into their product development processes. The company has been recognized by Gartner® in its 2013 Cool Vendor Report, in Product Design and Life Cycle Management, as 'innovative, impactful and intriguing.'

Now with SM v3.0, Sustainable Minds can partner with manufacturers to get visibility for your brand and make your product data available to manufacturers, consultancies, educators & students worldwide.