A Green Building Materials Assessment Tool For The Toronto Renovations Marketplace

This research paper addresses the marketplace confusion and barriers that can prevent easy and well informed environmentally preferable material selections from being integrated into residential renovation projects in the Toronto region. It establishes a template for an easy-to-use material assessment toolbox that considers environmental impact categories that reveal variation between products of similar type and that are often considered together as "eco-friendly" options. The material assessment tool developed as a result of this research provides a resource that satisfies the Toronto-based needs of both client and contractor to assess and source environmentally preferable material choices common to most residential renovations work and to understand the up-front cost implications of these choices.