ARCOM Partners with GreenWizard

September 17, 2014September 18, 2014 1464 Views ARC Engineering, Banks County, Carbon Disclosure Project, Central U.S., Colin Dyer, DirecTV, Greenprint Foundation, Hilary Hatch, James T. Powers

SALT LAKE CITY — ARCOM, a provider of building specification tools, and GreenWizard, a company that helps track green-building progress, are combining their resources to help architects identify products and materials that will fulfill green-building goals.

ARCOM is integrating its SpecBuilder+Expert platform with GreenWizard’s software. Introduced in June 2013, SpecBuilder+Expert is an online tool that helps manufacturers and product representatives who work with design professionals to create specifications for their building products. ARCOM also publishes MasterSpec, a master guide on specifications for construction projects, exclusively for the American Institute of Architects.

GreenWizard makes software for the design and construction industry that simplifies the process of managing green and sustainable construction projects. The software helps to compare and evaluate building products and their specifications, which are provided directly by the manufacturers, to evaluate if and how those products can help with attaining LEED credits.

Through their partnership, ARCOM will provide GreenWizard with the ability to populate existing SpecBuilder+Expert manufacturer sections through a jointly developed interface. The goal is to help architects and specifiers better specify pinpoint and identify products and materials that will fulfill the green and budgetary goals of their projects.

“This new connectivity will provide GreenWizard users with push button create-a-spec functionality, provided through our SpecBuilder+Expert platform,” said Matt Johnson, chief technology officer at ARCOM, in a statement. “We believe this will lead to faster integration of green products and will benefit both architect/engineers and the building product manufacturers that rely on MasterSpec for accurate specifications.”

Building-product manufacturers that are already using GreenWizard will be able to load and maintain product data by creating specs in the SpecBuilder+Expert tool.

“GreenWizard is excited that through this unique partnership with ARCOM, we can further simplify the product selection and specification process for the industry,” said Jerry Lepore, CEO at GreenWizard. “Together we will be able to deliver a series of solutions that progressively integrate the evaluation, selection and specification of products in a more effective manner for design and construction professionals and building product manufacturers."

The LEED rating system used by the U.S. Green Building Council in its certification process evaluates building products based on desired attributes for environmental impact. Points can be attained if certain limits or minimums are met, and other points require specific product information that will have to be gathered and calculated on a spreadsheet to determine their combined impact.

Products themselves can’t be LEED certified; only buildings can. But products can contribute to points toward certification, and they’re environmental and health claims can be reviewed by third parties, such as Scientific Certification Systems, Forest Stewardship Council, Green Seal and Greenguard.