A condominium in The Bronx is one of six winners of the 2008 Green Building Competition for New York City, exemplifying a growing commitment to incorporate environmental factors into the city’s architecture.

The competition was co-sponsored by the U.S. EPA, the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

The Battery Park Conservancy’s maintenance facility, designed by Dattner Architects, and the Visionaire condominium building, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, were selected as this year’s grand prize winners for their exemplary integration of design and sustainability.

The maintenance facility sits in the first floor of the Visionaire, under construction between 2nd and 3rd Place and Battery Place and Little West Street in Manhattan’s Battery Park City.

The Bowery Hotel (250 Bowery Street), designed by Flank Inc., Architects, and West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.’s center (to be built at 459 West 140th Street), designed by AQC Architects PC, are this year’s winners.

Hearst Tower (300 West 57th Street), designed by Foster & Partners, and a condominium building at 1347 Bristow Street in the Bronx, designed by the Community Environmental Center, are this year’s honorable mentions.

“Greening New York City’s buildings are essential if we are to reduce our ecological footprint,” said Alan J. Steinberg, EPA Regional Administrator. “Through their vision and creativity, the winners of the Green Building Competition are helping make New York healthier and more vibrant.”

“In our city, more carbon is emitted from buildings than cars,” said New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “That’s why green design – and events like the Green Building Competition – are so important to our efforts to build a greener, greater New York City.”

Despite rejection by select trade associations and manufacturers, Green Seal Inc. is standing solidly behind its revised GS-37, Environmental Standard for Industrial and Institutional Cleaners.

Green Seal certified products are increasingly used in schools, and more and more cleaning chemicals are demonstrated to contribute to health and environmental problems. Updating the Green Seal standard for the cleaners used in schools and other institutional settings (GS-37) involved careful consideration of vulnerable population’s needs, said the organization.

Given the significance of GS-37 and the controversy that surrounds all chemical restrictions, Green Seal anticipated that consensus might not be achieved in its Scope of Work issued to all stakeholders early in the 21-month-long process. Early documents in the revision process also set out the rationale for special consideration of children, in particular, because of their sensitivity to chemical exposures and the many ways in which they may be affected during their developmental stages.

In September, the ecolabel provider was recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an accredited standard developer by the coordinator of the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system.

In addition to the ANSI accreditation, Green Seal follows the Guiding Principles and Procedures for Type I Environmental Labeling adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 14024) in developing environmental standards and certifying products.

Green Seal has been developing environmental standards since 1989. Last month, a group of trade associations and producers announced their opposition to the revised standard, saying the process Green Seal implemented to develop GS-37 fell far short of being “fair, unbiased and credible.”

The group includes the following: New York State Chemical Alliance, Alkylphenol Ethoxylates Research Council, American Chemistry Council, Carpet and Rug Institute, Consumer Specialty Products Association, Reckitt Benckiser, Inc., SI Group, Inc., The Fragrance Materials Association, The Soap and Detergent Association, Zep, Inc.

“As organizations directly involved in the development of this standard, we are deeply disappointed by Green Seal’s process and cannot recognize GS-37 as a valid, consensus-based standard,” the group said in a statement.

The statement went on to say that on August 29, Green Seal published a final standard even though:

• The most recent draft standard was rejected by stakeholder vote;

• The substantive deficiencies that led to this opposition remained unresolved; and

• Stakeholders were never given an opportunity to review the revised final standard prior to its formal release.

As a result, the current new standard is not a consensus-based standard, a stated objective by Green Seal at the start of this process, the group said.

Throughout the standard development process, our organizations consistently commented that numerous criteria in GS-37 lack sufficient scientific basis. These concerns were not adequately addressed, leading to sustained opposition when stakeholders voted on the November 2007 proposed standard. While Green Seal took some steps to address these deficiencies, we believe many areas of sustained opposition remain unresolved.

Green Seal failed to provide its stakeholders an opportunity to review the revised document, which includes definitions and language that had never appeared in previous drafts, prior to its publication. Green Seal cannot credibly claim to have overcome opposition when registered stakeholders were shut out of this critical final step. The result is a flawed standard that lacks the factual and scientific basis to guide purchasing decisions. Such an approach violates Green Seal’s own principles and procedural requirements of respected standard setting organizations that Green Seal claims to meet.

“We urge Green Seal to immediately withdraw GS-37 and reinitiate its inappropriately abrogated standard development process, engaging stakeholders to develop a truly science-based, consensus standard.”

Green Seal says it strictly adhered to the ISO standard that governs such standard development: ISO 14020 Environmental labels and declarations - General principles and ISO 14024 Environmental labels and declarations: Type I environmental labeling - Principles and procedures.

While Green Seal strived to reach consensus and took reasonable efforts to achieve consensus, it has long recognized that it is difficult to do so for environmental leadership standards that, by definition, exclude the majority of products in a market and potentially a number of manufacturers that cannot meet the standard. It is therefore no coincidence that seven trade associations object to the standard, as they are constituted to uphold the interests of all their members and members’ products.

With the extensive and intensive process involved in revising GS-37, Dr. Arthur B. Weissman, president and CEO, of Green Seal, Inc, believes one could fairly say that Green Seal went above and beyond this requirement and in fact made extraordinary efforts to achieve consensus.

In the final analysis, the success of the revision of GS-37 will be measured by the extent to which it changes the market of cleaning products to make them more protective of human health, including vulnerable populations such as children, and the environment.