Health Product Declarations and Panera
Originally published August 2017
We’re finding that more and more companies are willing to tell the world that their practices, materials, and processes need to change.
Product transparency can be a bit frightening when we deconstruct our products and discover that what we’ve been using and doing for years may need to be overhauled.
Panera famously published a list of ingredients in their baked goods that they have committed to eliminate or replace with healthier substitutes. What a remarkable effort by Panera executives to publicly tell their customers they have some work to do and make such an extensive commitment to follow through!
This same goal of providing healthier products is spreading throughout many industries including our own, driven by initiatives like WELL, DECLARE, LEED v4 and BREEAM.
The list of ingredients for many interior finish products, including ours, can be resourced within a conforming, published Health Product Declaration (HPD), an incredible effort from the HPD Collaborative.
The work we did qualifying for ANSI/NSF 342 became the groundwork for digging deeper resulting in our HPD 1.0 that we published last year. Our new HPD 2.1 has been approved by the HPD Collaborative.
Are the Len-Tex HPDs a work in progress like Panera – yes; like Panera we’ll continue the search for healthier ingredients.
Stay tuned for third party certifications and healthier interiors.
Don Lennon