• Building occupants use 12.2 percent of the total water consumed in the U.S. per day.
  
• Buildings, and the transportation infrastructure that serves them, replace natural surfaces with impermeable materials, creating runoff that washes pollutants and sediments into surface waters. Urban runoff constitutes a major threat to water resources, as it has been identified as the fourth leading source of impairment in rivers, third in lakes, and second on estuaries.

Although there is no magic formula, success comes in the form of leaving a lighter footprint on the environment. To achieve this we turn to materials that maximize energy efficiency, durability and performance. Most of these materials are the products of modern chemistry.

Sustainable building design goes far beyond simply creating products that benefit consumers in terms of better air environment, cost and durability. The true green building design must follow a full-systems approach and should be viewed as a process and not just a goal, which allows a broader evaluation of the environmental, economical and societal impacts of building products. True green building design must look at all products not merely in terms of their green attributes, but the sum of the attributes through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and environmental impact Assessment (EIA).