Aluminum in Green Buildings

The Aluminum Association developed Aluminum in Green Buildings: A Guide to Green Building Development and Certification with Aluminum Products and Aluminum in Green Buildings: A Guide to Environmental Declarations to assist and support aluminum end-users - architects, designers and engineers - in making informed decisions about aluminum products.

Green Building Development

The A Guide to Green Building Development, released in 2015,  was developed to assist stakeholders in understanding how aluminum contributes to green building development and achieving certifications like Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED). The publication features key information including:

• Aluminum’s unique properties and building applications
• Aluminum building products and systems that contribute to credits for LEED® v4 certification
• North American aluminum’s life cycle environmental performance (Environmental Product Declarations)
• The North American industry’s sustainability strategies, metrics and major achievements  

To download A Guide to Green Building Development, click here.

How A Guide to Green Building Development Was Developed

The Guide is based on key requirements of the current, most-commonly adopted green building certifications systems and construction codes. The Guide elaborates how those requirements can potentially be met or exceeded through the use of aluminum products and systemic aluminum solutions. The Guide incorporates the most up-to-date understanding of aluminum’s technological solutions to challenges of the building and construction industries, as well as the results of the aluminum industry’s extensive sustainability research and studies.  

Environmental Declarations

A Guide to Environmental Declarations, released in 2016, is intended to assist and support aluminum stakeholders in understanding how to appropriately conduct environmental assessments for aluminum building products and develop environmental declarations. Environmental product declaration (EPD) is becoming a significant component of US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED™) V4 program and is replacing the traditional recycled content method for material credit in the previous LEED versions. 

To download A Guide to Environmental Declarations, click here.