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

Strategies

We are extremely proud to be a 2018 Cleantech Open national sponsor.

By Sustainable Minds on July 16, 2018

As an in-kind sponsor, Sustainable Minds is offering a free 6-month subscription to its SM Eco-concept + LCA software for all members of the 2018 CTO cohort.

https://cleantechopen.org/en/page/national-sponsors-en

We kicked things off with the webinar: “Hands-on Training in Life Cycle Thinking & LCA for Cleantech Entrepreneurs.” The webinar provided an introduction to life cycle thinking and LCA and how to use the software in early stage product development to make informed trade-off decisions that can dramatically reduce impacts and drive innovation — in products, business models and systems.

Ron Blank & Associates and Sustainable Minds Announce Collaboration to Increase Specifications of High-Performance Products

By Sustainable Minds on June 18, 2018

This strategic partnership will help design professionals find the best products and benefit building product manufacturers through increased access to the design community.

San Antonio, TX and Cambridge, MA, June 19, 2018 – Ron Blank & Associates, GreenCE, and Sustainable Minds® (SM), both with a track record in innovation and education, are collaborating to help building product manufacturers increase specifications of their sustainable building products. This comprehensive program allows manufacturers to select the offerings they need to move successfully through the process of creating product transparency disclosures, through marketing those products to get selected and specified — with education and training offerings in every phase. The strategic partnership will capitalize on both company’s significant strengths.

From ‘disclosure’ to brand value: Integrating product transparency into product marketing

By Sustainable Minds on February 18, 2015

Environmental performance and material health are rapidly becoming specification requirements. But today’s product transparency information is encoded in static reports full of technical data, which limits its use – and its potential to build business. Manufacturers who can explain what that data means and what they’re doing to make meaningful improvements, are informing greener purchase decisions and building a credibly greener brand.

Environmental performance is the latest criteria in product design – and now in product marketing.

Thanks to industry drivers and growing demand, environmental performance has taken its rightful place alongside functional performance, cost, aesthetics, safety and other criteria in product creation and purchasing. Manufacturers make trade-off decisions between these criteria to determine what products to make, and how to make them. To put an end to greenwashing, the market has demanded more scientific and rigorous methods to support manufacturers’ green claims. Thus, environmental performance has become part of product marketing. 

TOTO Is The First Plumbing Manufacturer To Validate Its Products' Environmental Performance With New SM Transparency Reports

By Sustainable Minds on December 17, 2013

Company Innovates a Solution and Goes Beyond Compliance in Response to LEED v4's 'Building Product Disclosure and Optimization' Option

MORROW, Ga., Nov. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- TOTO announced today that it is introducing an innovative, new way to report product transparency that enables customers to earn LEED v4 credit for select high-efficiency toilets. Committed to environmental leadership that exceeds compliance, TOTO discovered that it was unable to comply with LEED v4's disclosure option to provide Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for its high-efficiency toilets. The company could not do this because there is no Product Category Rule for toilets (PCRs define the requirements of EPDs for each product category). EPDs are required for its building industry customers to earn the highest number of LEED points for purchasing TOTO products. To solve this problem, TOTO, already using Sustainable Minds' LCA software to help it design sustainable products, turned to the company to help it solve this problem marketing.

Sustainable Minds' New Tool Adds Approachability to Product Life Cycle Transparency

By Sustainable Minds on December 17, 2013

via sustainablebrands.com

The first company to publish its product lifecycle information with SM Transparency Reports is leading plumbing manufacturer TOTO USA. The need for a new solution became evident when TOTO was not able to comply with the new LEED v4 disclosure option to provide EPDs, for customers to earn the maximum available product credits for purchasing selected TOTO products. The company discovered there is no Product Category Rule (which defines the requirements for EPDs of a certain product category) for toilets, just as there are no PCRs for hundreds of other types of products used in building and construction.

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.

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.