“What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil . . . ” begins the sonnet “Work” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We are here “to wrestle, not to reign” with “odorous oil” she writes, implying we are earth’s stewards, not its master. And in the end, the “least flower, with its brimming cup, may stand.”

Two centuries on, we no longer have the luxury of Browning’s passive optimism. We must clean up the mess we’ve made and build to accommodate humankind’s basic needs; and we must build for longevity and good health. We must be decisive and proactive, and become staunch advocates for making decisions that have a net-positive effect, rather than simply doing less harm.

The encouraging news, at least for the glass-half-full crowd, is that according to research from the design think tank ThinkLab, architects “have 26 times the specification power as the average American consumer has buying power.” This translates into a clear mandate for the designer set to begin critical conversations with their clients, manufacturers, and partners about prioritizing healthy building materials. That is very much the gist of the new report Regenerative Materials NOW: A Playbook for Designers & Specifiers, just released (and available as a free download) by the International Living Future Institute (now Living Future).

A guidebook in multiple parts

Ultimately, Regenerative Materials NOW is a play-by-play guidebook for adopting a holistic, conceptual framework for creating a healthier planet, focused primarily on what and how we build, but presented in no particular order. In no uncertain terms, if a sizable fraction of the world’s builders heeded the steps outlined in this document, the resulting work would go a long way toward reversing course on much of the damage we have wrought in our built environment.

The authors note, in the report’s background section, that “our buildings have never been more energy efficient,” and “progressive policy advances” in many corners of the developed world coupled with growing awareness of how buildings impact our health are all sources of encouragement. “This is good progress,” they write. “But focusing solely on energy efficiency and carbon or even carbon and human health is not sufficient for addressing these multiple and interconnected crises.” For all intents, this might indicate the Browning approach.

Part 1 of the guidebook opens with an abbreviated history of what could be called the healthy materials movement; a movement that, all things considered, still isn’t old enough to be in high school. “Let us go back in time to 2010,” it reads, in a nod to how far we’ve come in such a short time. Since then, the number of registered LEED projects across the globe increased exponentially, Living Future launched Living Product 50 and its Declare label initiative, design firm HKS unveiled mindful MATERIALS, the American Institute of Architects launched its Architecture & Design Materials Pledge, and similar programs and initiatives took hold.

But to make sense of a bevy of sustainability labels and standardized best practices which, to the industry’s credit, has proliferated in just the last 14+ years, the authors of Regenerative Materials NOW sought a streamlined approach. “We coalesced around this idea of five buckets of impact areas,” says Mike Johnson, senior director of materials at Living Future, and one of the paper’s co-authors. “What we need to focus on is a holistic solution and not individual solutions. So, we’re not tackling climate change alone, for example. We’re tackling all five at once.”

Finding symmetry

The five impact areas in question, outlined in Part 2, are design, materials selection, firm-level actions, education, and advocacy. Divided among these five buckets are 40 strategies, proffered as “starting points” but presented in “no intended sequence or hierarchy.” Be that as it may, strategy #1 feels like it’s setting the tone for what follows. “Base Designs in Nature” invites readers to consider how buildings can “not just emulate the way natural landscapes look, but how ecosystems work” as well. Circularity in design demands an understanding of how to dematerialize, incorporate modular furnishings, and harness nature’s forces to service energy needs, among other things.

Strategy #13, “Specify Natural and Bio-based Materials,” feels like another bulwark. According to co-author and independent journalist Juliet Grable, who cites this strategy among her favorites, its importance stems from its versatility. “Simple, natural materials can serve both form and function.” They can inform a building’s structural capabilities as well as its “finished beauty,” and “tell a story about what people are doing in the building.”

Appropriately enough, “Engage in Storytelling” (#28) offers a glimpse of how effective communication that rises “above the marketing din and complacent acceptance of business-as-usual products” can be an effective means to making regenerative materials more mainstream. Coupled with that, “Favor Manufacturers Committed to Circularity” (#20) advocates preferential treatment for those who demonstrate clear understanding of the impacts of their trade.

For her part, Erin Rovalo, Ph.D., VP of community at Living Future and another co-author, is partial to a select few strategies in the design category—“Reuse and Remodel Existing Buildings (#3), “Practice Low-Carbon Design” (#5), and “Design with a Plan for Waste” (#9)—that she views as joined at the hip. “It’s a systems issue, not just a demand issue. But it can also be a policy issue,” she says. “If we as a design community ask for the right [materials], it will force manufacturers to provide them. This creates scenarios where it’s no longer a one-off. We have economies of scale.”

The consensus among the authors, and indeed among the hundreds of designers, ecologists, and data scientists responsible for the dozens of standards, performance labels, and practice guides listed as resources under each of the 40 strategies, is that no category of thought exists in a bubble. “I’m sure there are more categories we could have included,” Grable says. “But we liked these five. We like the symmetry of it, because these five buckets echo the impact areas set forth in the AIA Materials Pledge.”

Radical collaboration

Grable’s point in well taken. Whether it’s AIA’s Materials Pledge or Framework for Design Excellence, Healthy Materials Lab’s Guides and Tools or Living Future’s Red List, LEED v.5, CALGreen, or any one of the other comprehensive resources listed, one key takeaway from Regenerative Materials NOW is clear: its authors want readers to see the forest through the trees.

“What we’ve been working on very diligently for the last couple of years is something I like to call ‘radical collaboration,’” Johnson says. “We have a lot of really great-minded individuals and organizations all heading for that proverbial north star. But sometimes that purpose [leads to] indirect competition. I think we’ve come to a point where we realize, it’s not time to do that. There’s plenty of space for us to come together and be a force of one.”

As an example, Johnson points to updates to Living Future’s Living Product Challenge and its Declare label and how these new iterations align with mindful MATERIALS’s Common Material Framework, AIA’s Materials Pledge, and LEED v.5’s new Materials & Resources category, which prioritizes embodied carbon reductions.

This level of collaboration and alignment is not just hinted at in the report; it’s positioned front and center. “Every single player in the entire built environment has a role to play,” the authors proclaim in the opening paragraphs of Part 1. They don’t limit said players to builders and developers, but to policymakers, code officials, and the media as well. “Like any ecosystem, the players are interconnected and interdependent.” Browning would indeed concur.

“It does feel like we’re on the steep part of these curves,” Grable says, referring both to industry alignment and meeting the urgent challenges of our climate crisis. “The need to act is becoming more apparent.”

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