June 22, 2007—The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) recently released the newest version of it software tool for selecting environmentally preferred, cost-effective building products.
BEES 4.0 (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability version 4) updates data on more than 200 products and adds 30 new products for review. It also offers users the option of a new set of consensus weights for scoring the environmental impact of individual building products.
BEES 4.0 measures both the environmental and economic performance of building products with lifecycle assessment techniques developed respectively by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and ASTM International.
With BEES a user can ascertain, for instance, the environmental impact of a product at any stage of its existence—raw material acquisition, manufacture, transportation, installation, use, and recycling and waste management. The new consensus weight option allows users to evaluate environmental impacts considering short-, medium- and long-term effects.
Comprehensive economic performance data are similarly available for the costs of initial investment, replacement, operation, maintenance and repair, and disposal. Environmental and economic performances are combined into an overall performance measure using the ASTM standard for Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis.
BEES 4.0 includes a number of new non-biobased products, including carpeting from several manufacturers who agree to purchase carbon credits to offset the product’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. These and other products, such as biobased carpets, roof coatings, building maintenance products, and fertilizers that qualify for a government “green” preferential purchase program, could increase builder participation in the nation’s green building drive, asserts the BFRL.
For more information on BEES 4.0, which can be downloaded for free, visit the BFRL Web site.
