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Session: Built Environment Institute III: Building Health Back Into Community - Toward he Creation of a More Sustainable and Less Toxic Built Environment, Part I
3333.0: Monday, November 8, 2004: 4:30 PM-6:00 PM
Oral
Built Environment Institute III: Building Health Back Into Community - Toward he Creation of a More Sustainable and Less Toxic Built Environment, Part I
This presentation will explain the links between environmental health, occupational safety, and sustainable development. Topics will include living wages and elimination of persistent toxics, and their importance in specification of products and services for facilities. The rapidly growing U.S. green building movement is primarily focusing on only two of the three basic principles of sustainable development - pursuit of economic prosperity and environmental quality. The third element - social equity - must also be considered if our facilities are to be truly sustainable. We are rightly concerned about the health and safety of building occupants and the workplace, in general. When creating those workplaces, we should be equally concerned with the living standards, environmental health and occupational safety of those who produce and install the products that go into them, and of those who maintain the resulting facilities. For example, bamboo flooring, a leading “green” product, is credited as a rapidly renewable and low-emitting material. But what is its environmental impact on the South and East Asian countries producing them? What are the conditions under which the workers harvest and process them? And, are they earning a living wage? There will also be a presentation of educational tools and a strategy for institutional change to insure that all three elements of sustainability are considered equally. By introducing social, environmental health, and occupational safety considerations into our everyday decisions concerning the built environment, we can create facilities of long-term value that are truly sustainable.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: § Explain the links between environmental health, occupational safety, and sustainable development. § Understand the importance of social factors in the lifecycle cost evaluation of “green” products. § Develop a program for incorporating social factors into everyday decisions concerning the built environment.
Organizer(s):Neal L. Rosenblatt, MS, MS-C
Karla R. Armenti, ScD, MS
Moderator(s):Jonathan Herz, AIA
4:30 PMGreen Construction  [ Recorded presentation ]
Karla Armenti, ScD
Part 1 
4:50 PMWhy Equity is a Core Value of Sustainable Development  [ Recorded presentation ]
Jonathan Herz, AIA
5:10 PMSocio-Economic Impacts in Product and Building Life Cycles: Broadening from Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Sustainable LCA
Gregory A. Norris
5:30 PMBringing Environmental Health To Green Building
Bill Walsh
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Environment
Endorsed by:Community Health Planning and Policy Development; Community-Based Public Health Caucus; Health Administration; Occupational Health and Safety; Public Health Education and Health Promotion
CE Credits:CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing

The 132nd Annual Meeting (November 6-10, 2004) of APHA