Eco Build Directory — Eco building materials | ecobuilddirectory.com
Four schemes, four sets of numbers: what Passivhaus, Cradle to Cradle, USDA Biobased and the formaldehyde rules actually require before a product or building can claim them.
Passivhaus is a whole-building performance standard, not a product label. It limits space-heating demand to 15 kWh/(m² per year) or less and airtightness to 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 Pa. For an extension, those numbers work as a voluntary design target even where no certification is sought.
Cradle to Cradle Certified assesses products across five achievement levels — Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum — and certificates run on a 2-year cycle. Two practical consequences follow: quote the level, not just the logo, and check the expiry date before writing a certificate into a specification.
USDA Certified Biobased Product requires a minimum of 72% biobased carbon content for most product categories. That threshold is the reference point when a brief calls for plant-based materials such as wood fibre insulation.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
CARB Phase 2 and TSCA Title VI cap formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products: 0.05 ppm for hardwood plywood, 0.11 ppm for MDF and 0.13 ppm for particleboard. These boards — sheathing, flooring, cabinetry — typically sit adjacent to the insulation layer in an extension build-up.
Recycled content feeds the material credits of green building rating systems; loose-fill cellulose at 80–85% recycled newspaper by weight is the standard example of a high scorer. Rating systems revise their credit rules between versions, so confirm current thresholds in the scheme's own documentation before relying on them.
This reference lists only thresholds it can state with certainty. Where a scheme's numbers are version-dependent, the correct move is always the same: ask for the certificate, read the level and the date, and verify against the current edition.
Further reading