LCA & material health results & interpretation Earthwool® Insulation Board
Evaluation programs
The Health Product Declaration®
The HPD Open Standard provides a consistent, and transparent format to accurately disclose the material contents and associated hazard classifications for a building product.
How it works
Material ingredients are screened and categorized according to the hazards that international governmental bodies and toxicology experts have associated with them, based on two listings:
- Authoritative lists maintained or recognized by government bodies
- Screening lists, which include chemicals that government bodies determined need further scrutiny, as well as chemical lists not recognized by any government body.
Assessment scope and results
What's in this product and why
Earthwool® Insulation Board products without a facer do not contain any chemicals that are on the Red List. The Red List is a list of chemicals that are not allowed in Living Building Challenge buildings. Being Red List free is our design benchmark at Knauf.
Earthwool® utilizes a bio-based binder chemistry derived from corn that is formaldehyde-free (FF) and more interior friendly than phenol-formaldehyde (P/F) systems.
The ingredients of the unfaced variant avoids the 800+ chemicals of the Living Building Challenge Red List. This is primarily because of its bio-based binder adhesive chemistry known as ECOSE® Technology. ECOSE is based on dextrose or high fructose corn syrup instead of phenol and formaldehyde. Dextrose and fructose can be used interchangeably. The ECOSE binder allows the product to be validated by the UL Environment as formaldehyde-free. Formaldehyde is a Red List chemical.
The Earthwool® Board ASJ+ and FSK facers do not meet Red List free because the facer contains a halogenated fire retardant (HFR). This is why we disclose the ingredients as an HPD rather than Declare used for all other product variants.
Red List Free is our development benchmark and we constantly challenge ourselves on elimination of Red List chemicals. An HFR is used on the faced variants because the products are for exposed applications and must meet stringent fire performance requirements. We are very aware of the concerns associated with HFRs and continually work with vendors on this issue. At the same time, fire performance is critical and current events relating to fire performance of building materials only support the importance of fire-safe products.
At this time, the product is landfilled at end of life. We take extended producer responsibility very seriously and have active programs to address end of life. There is no option other than landfills at this time.
How we're making it healthier
Knauf engages very closely with its vendors to eliminate and avoid chemicals of concern. No competitor has as many Red List free products as Knauf Insulation. We continually reduce our environmental impacts through recycled content and optimize our products by designing them to be transformative.
See how we make it greenerReferences
Health Product Declaration®
Earthwool® Insulation Board - Unfaced
Earthwool® Insulation Board ASJ+
Earthwool® Insulation Board FSK
Health Product Declaration Open Standard - all versions
The standard provides guidance to accurately disclose the material contents of a building product using a standard, consistent, and transparent format.