Introduction
Sustainable Minds is a cloud software and services company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its main product is cloud life cycle assessment (LCA) software for eco-concept and ecodesign work. It also publishes product transparency documents and runs a catalog of building products with environmental declarations.
Purpose and Target Audience
The software is for product designers and engineers who want to compare the environmental impact of design options early. Building product manufacturers use the transparency services to publish data about their products. Educators use the software to teach LCA and ecodesign.
Key Features
- Cloud LCA: Model products and run what-if comparisons of design options during development.
- Impact results: Show results in 10 impact categories for ecological damage, human health damage and resource depletion, or as global warming in CO2 equivalents.
- Single Score: Combine the impact categories into one score with U.S. EPA normalization and NIST weighting.
- Methodology: ISO 14044 compliant assessments based on the TRACI 2.1 method of the U.S. EPA, with a published methodology report.
- Impact factors: Updated factors for materials, processes, use stage, transport and end of life.
- Transparency products: Transparency Reports, Material Health Overviews and Transparency Datasheets for manufacturers.
- Transparency Catalog: Find products with EPD, HPD, C2C and Declare documents, filtered by MasterFormat.
Benefits
Sustainable Minds makes LCA usable during concept design, when changes are still cheap. The Single Score gives a quick comparison of options, while the 10 categories show where the impact comes from. Its methodology is documented in a public report. For building product manufacturers, the transparency documents and catalog help architects and specifiers find their products.
Conclusion
Sustainable Minds fits design teams that want simple LCA comparisons in early design, and building product manufacturers that want to publish product transparency data.
