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San Francisco — Dec. 11, 2014 – The Building Health Initiative held its inaugural Building Health Forum at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Mission Bay. During this first event of its kind, a working group of the Initiative’s partners, including Adobe, CalPERS, Facebook, Genentech, Google, Kaiser Permanente, Troon Pacific, and UCSF, announced simple, impactful steps they are taking to foster healthier environments within their local and global projects.
“A healthy environment can be a catalyst for innovation, productivity, and the overall well-being of the people who work there,” said Bill Weihl, director of infrastructure, sustainability and efficiency at Facebook. “We have focused on collaboration and open source to drive progress in developing better infrastructure, hardware, and buildings — not just for our employees but for all communities. This new initiative will help us continue our efforts toward building healthy environments at scale.”
Unveiled publicly for the first time on Dec. 11, the group’s efforts include:
• Requesting greater transparency from architects and building product manufacturers about the chemicals used in their products
• Using their collective market influence to create demand for new and innovative products that improve the health of the built environment
• Recruiting and retaining the best workforce by providing healthy and productive workplaces
• Increasing awareness of healthy environments in buildings.
“At Adobe, we have been committed to designing and building the most creative, innovative, and healthy workspaces for our employees,” said Michelle Crozier Yates, the company's director of corporate responsibility/ "This initiative will not only simplify our efforts, but provide all companies with what they need to improve the indoor environments for our greatest asset – our employees.”
The powerful working group is one of a handful of subgroups of the larger Building Health Initiative, an ambitious platform in which industry leaders from multiple sectors pledge to affect positive change for healthier built environments.
The unique coalition of 45 companies and institutions includes commercial building owners, technology giants, healthcare leaders, celebrated architects, engineering firms, product manufacturers, mission-driven nonprofits, and legal professionals.
“We’re excited to see so many prominent organizations come together to ask for transparency and better materials,” said Anthony Ravitz, real estate and workplace services green team lead at Google. “As an industry, the more we know about what’s in different products, the more informed choices we can make.”
Partner companies participating in the Building Health Initiative have made specific pledges in a defined area where they could affect the most change, such as demanding transparency in building materials, conducting groundbreaking research, promoting health and wellness, and proving consultation and education, among other areas.
“We’re building the ‘business case’ for healthy buildings,” said Brian Back, senior vice president of the Building Health Initiative. “This is a rare opportunity to foster widespread collective impact on an issue that resonates deeply with people. Both on Silicon Valley tech campuses and in underserved low-income communities across Northern California, our overriding purpose is to reframe green building as a health issue.”
The Dec. 11th Building Health Forum brought together nearly 300 of the world’s preeminent experts and thought leaders pioneering the healthy buildings and healthy communities movement for a series of provocative keynotes, educational sessions, tours, and networking receptions aimed at doing just that.
For more information about the Building Health Forum or the Building Health Initiative, visit build-health.org.
