The Green Roundtable/NEXUS has launched the Green Product Association (GPA) to advance the sustainability of building products and help manufacturers promote their products.

The GPA's main aim is to bring sustainability to all of the products used in buildings and make those products' performance criteria and metrics transparent and available to anyone.

Founding members of the GPA include Xerox, CBC Flooring, Jandris & Sons and Bostik, and UL Environment has teamed up with the GPA to bring in its trusted third-party product certification services.

The Green Roundtable/NEXUS, a non-profit focused on mainstreaming sustainable design, developed the GPA as an outgrowth of its Green Building Resource Center.

The association was also partly inspired by a survey NEXUS conducted last year, in which the majority of its 16,000 building industry subscribers said that the main issue affecting their ability to make informed decisions about products was "access to unbiased product information."

The GPA will help connect architects and others with green products; provide education, training and networking; and partner with international trade, industry and media groups to help companies spread the word about their products.

The association will also connect companies that produce waste material and companies that can reuse or recycle those materials.

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