Add a product on GreenSpec
It feels like that with every passing day another building product appears on the market branded with the prefix 'eco'. So powerful is the pull for manufacturers to be seen to be 'green', that marketing departments now have little option but to dress products to be fit for the 'green' bandwagon or miss-out on business from an increasingly demanding audience of building product specifiers.
With few useful standards, there are equally few ways of determining the validity of a manufacturer's claim that a product is 'green' or deserves the prefix 'eco'. Within this free-for-all of manufacturers fighting to claim a portion of the green market, the specifier finds it particularly difficult to sort the green from the non-green. Without third-party guidance provided by standards, it falls to the building designer alone to check and be satisfied with the manufacturer's claims: Caveat emptor!
GreenSpec looks to remove the burden of checking claims from the specifiers' shoulders - by doing it for them. At GreenSpec, we have brought together a wide range of expertise in green building and specifying. Each product listed on GreenSpec has been closely examined by a selection panel that recommends that the product should or should-not be included. A specifier can turn to GreenSpec and confidently specify a product or material in the knowledge that the product has undergone a rigorous selection procedure.
GreenSpec filters out green products from the background noise
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• GreenSpec is the only freely available directory of ‘green’ building products in the UK.
• GreenSpec is unique amongst all product directories in that it is written by practising building designers and specifiers for the benefit of fellow construction professionals.
• In a market where it is difficult to distinguish green products, GreenSpec is widely recognised as the definitive guide.
What we do:
1 We identify building products that embody one or more positive environmental attributes or qualities that distinguish them from other products or materials in the same function category. Details of the selected products are published online in the GreenSpec product directory.
2 We write and publish detailed design and specification guidance to help and inform building professionals in the design of sustainable or ‘green’ buildings.
3 To assist specifiers in their workflow, we have developed a new and unique specification tool. The ‘My GreenSpec’ application has been designed to simplify and streamline the initial outline specification process.
Who we are:
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Brian Murphy is one of the country’s leading specifiers - with some 25 years of experience including the leading of the team that specified the construction of the new British Library (a 6 year project) as well as high profile commercial projects such as the Bluewater shopping centre. He estimates that he has specified £2405m worth of building products and materials in his professional life so far. Brian now specialises in developing ‘green’ specifications and advising on sustainable construction as well as lecturing on the subject at a number of universities. |
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Sandy Patience is an architect who has turned full circle through his current editorship of GreenSpec. For a number of years, he ran his own competition-winning practice based in central London before being reignited in his enthusiasm for sustainable architecture – fired originally in the distant past when as a student he read the Vale’s ‘Autonomous House’, and designed his first 'solar-powered' house. Sandy writes a monthly review of green building products for the Architects Journal. |
A short history of GreenSpec:
GreenSpec was founded in 2003 as a government-funded joint project with BRE to identify and catalogue building products containing recycled material. On completion of the project in 2005, the steering committee recommended the growing of the site to include all easily identifiable green building products and materials. Today GreenSpec is widely regarded as the standard source of reference in respect of sustainable construction and products – attracting an average of 1400 visits per day.
What people say about GreenSpec ...
'I recommend materials and products on a daily basis, and knowing which are more environmentally benign is a minefield. Having searched for standardised information I have found nothing that rivals GreenSpec. The website is well organised, thorough, transparent, and well researched. In a word ‘brilliant’! I’ve seen the website develop over the years and trust its content to be un-biased and truly environmentally focussed. Sandy and Brian at GreenSpec have revolutionised the way I specify materials. I consult this website first and recommend it to all colleagues and clients.'
Sylvia Juzwa, Senior Sustainability Consultant, BDP
'GreenSpec is one of the council's major reference points for green specification and construction information.'
Paul Cladwell, Wirral Council
'GreenSpec is recognised by a wide range of organisations, including government, and is an informed source in respect of sustainable construction and products'
The Joint Contracts Tribunal, - Guidance Note – Building a sustainable future together
‘…it is my first point of call for materials over the RIBA Product Selector and Barbour Index. Your 'tell it how it is' policy is in my opinion, open and honest, and should be the way all materials are chosen'
Paul Bevis, Bailey Partnership
‘I was blown away by its comprehensiveness, user-friendliness, common sense and sheer bloody brilliance.'
Suzy Edwards, BRE associate and author of 'Methodology for Environmental Profiles of Construction Materials, Components and Buildings'
‘GreenSpec is an online CPD for sustainable construction’
Pat Borer, architect and author
‘An invaluable guide to products with green credentials'
The Independent
Well-connected: GreenSpec as standard reference
Along with reference to GreenSpec in the Code for Sustainble Homes Technical Guide, GreenSpec is a standard source of information for sustainable products and materials amongst major NGOs including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Green Building Council and WRAP as well as regional and local authorities such as the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Government, Kent, Bristol, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Lambeth, Camden, Lewisham, Wirral, Durham, Dundee, Croydon, the Royal Borough of Windsor, and Maidenhead and many others.
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In 2009 the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) launched the Ska Rating (www.ska-rating.com), a new environmental assessment scheme designed exclusively for use on fit-outs – an industry worth around £6.5bn a year. In the accompanying Good Practice Guide, GreenSpec is listed as the preferred reference source in respect of sustainable products and materials. |
A growing resource:
Search Engine Rankings: 1st on Google UK!
Search engine rankings are critical to the success of an internet resource. Most users of Google click on the first 2 or 3 listings with much fewer clicking links below that.
Typically, around 80% of all visitors come to GreenSpec via a search engine. Though rating positions cannot be guaranteed, GreenSpec performs spectacularly, particularly on Google, the internet's most used search engine:
• 1st place in Google list for search expressions :
• 'green building design'
• 'green building specification'
• 'green specification'
• 'green building materials'
• 'green building products'
• 'sustainable building materials'
• 'sustainable building products'
• 38% of all products registered on GreenSpec achieve 1st place in the Google rankings.
• 81% of all products achieve places within the top 5 Google rankings.
• Where manufacturers’ own web sites are ranked on Google, 54% of GreenSpec entries appear HIGHER in the rankings.
How GreenSpec differs from the BRE 'Green Guide'
• The 'Green Guide' takes many branded products and sticks them into a uniform family - and includes them all under the same rating irrespective of how different one product might be from another. Within a Green Guide 'generic' range, there is likely to be some products that have significantly less environmental impact than others in the same range and rating - the Green Guide does not distinguish between them. GreenSpec, on the other hand, is concerned with branded products within the 'family' where each product is examined against other product family members - which results in a list of some products which are better performers than others. It is this list of branded products that constitutes the GreenSpec database. GreenSpec doesn't compete with the Green Guide because it's not doing the same job.
• The Green Guide is well known amongst critics for its promotion of the polymer PVC. This confidence runs counter to a substantial number of environmental organisations who consider PVC to be significantly dangerous both to the environment and human health.
Product promotion - so much for so little:
Providing a product is chosen to be included on GreenSpec by the selection panel (see also ‘How products are selected’), it can be expected to be published along with a wealth of information including:
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• An introductory text written by the manufacturer • A list of essential qualification metrics • Referral onwards to the manufacturers own website • Product images • Downloadable product documentation • The page is accessible through GreenSpec’s classification index; site search or Google (see below) • The product is accessible directly from inside My GreenSpec – enabling users to simply specify the product. |
What a subscription to GreenSpec costs:
What to do next:
• please complete and submit the form below
Please note that only products that have been passed for inclusion by the GreenSpec Selection Panel will be published in the directory. We will then contact you with further information:
