Special Environmental Requirements for a California State Office Building

A Special Environmental Requirements specification was developed for screening building materials based on modeling maximum chemical concentrations attributable to emissions from their potential sources for use in a State of California office building. In addition, minimum requirements for recycled contents of these materials were specified. Small environmental chamber emission test protocols were developed and maximum allowable concentrations for chemicals of concern were adopted.

Contractors were required to submit emission test reports. The architect reviewed these reports for conformance with the specification requirements. Materials were accepted, rejected, or in some cases were chemically re-formulated and re-tested. While there were difficulties in obtaining emission test reports from some manufacturers, most required test reports were received. This specification will be applied to other building projects with some modifications including standardization and clarification.

 

Bernheim, A. Levin H., and Alevantis, L., 2002. Special environmental requirements for a California State office building. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, Indoor Air 2002, Vol. 4, pp. 918-923.