The built environment contributes to the improved health of all people, especially lowest-income communities.
Healthy Materials Lab (HML) at Parsons School of Design uses a range of communications strategies and tools to translate technical and scientific data about healthier building products into informational products and tools that influence decision makers in the affordable housing industry. Changing industry behaviors will result in reduced exposure throughout the system by decreasing or eliminating known harmful chemicals from widely used building products.
Key Audiences
HML aims to engage design professionals (architects, interior designers, specifiers, designers) with varying degrees of knowledge about healthy building materials:
Those who are unaware of our mission, who are looking to grow professionally and have an interest in healthy materials but have not heard of HML and its message
Observers who know who HML is but have not taken action to learn more or commit to using healthy materials
Supporters who have taken action through HML to learn more about or pledge to use healthy materials
Advocates who have actively committed to furthering the movement for healthy materials
Image: Big Duck
Goals
Build awareness about the importance of healthy materials and HML through physical and online engagement
Develop resources that enable practitioners to take action
Create new pathways that enable people to change practices
Build new networks to support advocacy efforts for the long term
Approach
As part of a systems-based approach, we first identified a lack of awareness of the issue of toxics in the built environment as a fundamental barrier to change. To address this need for incremental behavior change, we worked with Big Duck to develop a ladder of engagement to help us to predict how we can shift the mindsets of participants to become material health advocates and practitioners. Based on this framework, we connected all of our in-person and digital activities to specific goals. The strategy enabled us to strategically shift participants to higher levels of engagement and expand our network – increasing our potential influence.
As an outcome of developing a ladder of engagement, the HML team determined that the following categories of initiatives would be effective leverage points for building capacity and shifting mindsets of practitioners in the building and affordable housing industry:
The development of robust and accessible Healthy Material Reference Libraries, both virtual and physical
Strategic communications to build awareness about toxics in everyday materials
Events to introduce designers to healthier alternatives for building materials
Accredited education and professional development opportunities
Impact
To measure our impact and evaluate our ecosystem of initiatives, we tracked metrics such as the number of participants, financial investments made, as well as participants’ level of engagement. We successfully increased our number of in-person and virtual Material Reference Library users, and also developed and launched our eLearning online certificate program and 3-week Facebook campaign raising awareness about toxics in everyday building materials. In addition, we were able to engage design students, members of the industry, and manufacturers through a series of Lunch and Learn events over the year.
e-Learning program Launched
2018
Reference Library users
7,566
Facebook campaign reach
369k
Lunch and Learn attendees
600+
Roles
Design Strategy, Communication Strategy
Team
Jonsara Ruth (Director of Design), Alison Mears (Director), Abby Calhoun (Project Manager), Lena Kouvela (Researcher), Thanos Stathapoulos (Researcher), Eve Deangelis (Researcher), Allison Sloan (Research Assistant)
Partners
Parsons School of Design, Healthy Affordable Materials Project, Big Duck
Dates
2016 – 2017