Products must meet all of the criteria listed for the product category, which are available in the Gensler Standard tab of this webpage and in Gensler’s specifications.

Gensler has been developing and iterating the 'greening' of its material selections for many years. Starting in 2022, a team of sustainability specialists, spec leaders, and technical directors from across the firm conducted a dedicated effort to rigorously research and define a clear and consistent set of standards for products across our firm. Through their expertise, research, and outreach the following key principles for the standards criteria were determined:

• Identify high-impact sustainability attributes for the product categories included in the GPS Standards. Product categories included in the standards were determined by a combination of project impacts and market readiness.
• Align criteria with industry standards and benchmarks including federal regulations, third-party building certifications, research organizations, and product databases.
• Set baseline criteria that are reflective of the current market as confirmed through compliant product research and manufacturer outreach.
• Set market differentiating criteria that communicate the current market's best-in-class sustainability attributes and reflect Gensler's sustainability goals.
• Maintain competitive bidding while limiting challenges to project schedules and project supply chains.

We will be integrating these criteria into our specifications, and products will be vetted for compliance on a project-by-project basis. Open specification items will be evaluated for compliance with minimum sustainability criteria alongside the rest of Gensler’s performance criteria.

Compliance may be demonstrated by reporting sustainability attributes via product data sheets, technical bulletins, and by making third-party verified sustainability documentation publicly available. Sustainability information will be assessed during project submittal reviews.

Gensler created these criteria in alignment with public databases that keep their product data current. We encourage manufacturers to report all sustainability attributes for their products in third-party product databases. 

No, Gensler will not be publishing or creating a list of compliant products. See answer above for how Gensler is advocating for increased reporting to product databases. 

In order to be clear and concise, the GPS Standards do not focus on naming every acceptable declaration, certification, or form of documentation. So long as the certification uses the applicable testing standards or methodologies named in the GPS Standards, the certification complies.

Acceptable VOC Emissions testing methodologies include California Department of Public Health Standard Method v1.2 (or later), ANSI/BIFMA M7.1-2016 (or later), Ausschuss zur Gesundheitlichen Bewertung von Bauprodukten (AgBB), EN 16516, EN-717-1:2004 (or later), or ISO 16000.  

For any product declaring itself as inherently non-emitting, please provide a letter of assurance confirming that there are no components that may be potential sources of VOC emissions. Gensler will not be reviewing or confirming a product's potential sources of emissions via ingredient disclosures.

Multi-attribute certifications such as Cradle to Cradle v.4, BIFMA LEVEL, and Living Product Challenge may satisfy the standard requirements for Indoor Air Impacts, Material Health & Transparency, and Lifecycle Impacts except EPD requirements where applicable. Product categories with EPD requirements and/or Global Warming Potential (GWP) thresholds are still required to disclose the GWP of the product via a third-party verified EPD, regardless of multi-attribute certification.

As long as certifications are valid at the time of project submittal review, they are compliant qualify. Gensler is not a third-party verifier of LCA or EPD data. New-to-market products are exempt from providing EPDs until they meet the timeframe requirements of their product category rule, but are expected to meet all other Gensler Standard criteria for their product category.

No. Gensler’s product specifications are made based on many factors related to performance, aesthetics, and cost, as they relate to the specific project. As such, Gensler cannot guarantee that any product will be specified, but compliance with our GPS Standards will allow Gensler project teams and their clients to consider your product alongside other products with similar qualifications.

At present, the GPS Standards are specific to the US, Canada, the EU, and the UK. In the future, we will be evaluating product sustainability standards for other regions where Gensler operates.

No. Manufacturers are not permitted to claim their products are certified by Gensler.

Market Differentiator criteria are not required. These criteria were identified for clients and projects wishing to go further than the standard, but with an understanding that there may be cost or availability issues for the products they seek. Market Differentiator criteria are also a means for us to communicate to manufacturers the attributes that we'd like to see in the future as products are developed and improved.

Products must meet the following Market Differentiator criteria at a minimum to be considered a Market Differentiator product:

• Meet the Global Warming Potential limit for the product category; and
• Meet the recycled content threshold (where applicable); and
• Meet one of the following:
  • Provide either a Multi-Attribute Certification
  • Meet the requirements for chemicals of concern (i.e. LBC Red List, Cradle to Cradle Material Health Certificate, or avoid the named Chemicals of Concern).

A publicly available action plan or statement addressing your company’s commitment to sustainable practices, with clear actions intended to be met within a defined timeframe is valid. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports satisfy this standard requirement although they are considered market differentiators.

For the product categories with EPD requirements, EPDs must be third-party verified and reported in accordance with ISO 14025, ISO 21930, or EN 15804. This requirement applies to both product specific EPDs (reflect the manufacture of a particular product by a specific manufacturer) and industry-wide EPDs (reflect generic baseline information for a specific product category).

EPDs must be appropriate to the geographic scope of manufacture. Non-domestic EPDs will be accepted only in the absence of domestic production. Draft documentation of an EPD does not qualify. Gensler is not a third-party verifier of LCA or EPD data.

Gensler only accepts industry-wide EPDS from participating manufacturers.

In the GPS Standards, Global Warming Potential refers to the sum of the ISO 14025 Stage A1-A3 (Raw material supply, Transport, and Manufacturing) total global warming potential impacts over 100 years (GWP-100), measured in kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO2e) per functional unit according to the Product Category Rule, as reported in the product’s EPD. For products manufactured in the United States, US EPA TRACI 2.1 indicators should be used. For all other locations, CML indicators are acceptable.

Biogenic carbon removal or sequestration in Stages A1-A3 can be accounted for in the total GWP following ISO 14067 and ISO 14025/EN 15804 only for sustainably harvested materials. All other types of sequestration and offsets not reportable in Stages A1-A3 are not included in the GWP values. .

We are committed to providing our clients and industry partners with every opportunity to work with us to reduce the carbon footprint of their projects. The availability of low-carbon products and reliable data to understand the carbon impacts of material selection is critical to the success of that mission.

We are prioritizing the materials which have the largest impact on our projects’ embodied carbon footprints, have a sufficient volume of product-specific EPDs available, and which demonstrate a sufficient range of performance to make product-based substitution a meaningful decarbonization strategy. If these criteria are not yet met, we encourage manufacturers to publish EPDs for their products and create an optimization plan. We intend to continue updating the GPS Standards by adding targets for more categories as carbon data matures.