International Effort to Standardize Materials Data

Three new committees have been established within the France-based International Union of Testing and Research Laboratories for Materials and Structures (RILEM). Together with one committee established previously, these three aim to assess international standards for reporting on environmental impacts of building materials and on the structural design of entire buildings. Where standards seem inadequate to the needs of the building community, they will recommend appropriate changes. The new committees held their first meetings in December 1996 and aim to complete their work by the end of 1999.

The first committee, Systematics of the Environmental Impact Databases of Building Materials (TC EID), seeks to provide a system for classifying and measuring environmental life-cycle data in a way that allows weighting of criteria by region. Wayne B. Trusty of Merrickville, Ontario, Canada, co-manager of the Athena™ project initiated by Forintek Canada Cor­poration, is chairing this committee.