Laticrete has joined ecoScorecard™, a database of free, web-based, manufacturer-specific micro sites that help architects and designers search, evaluate and document environmental impacts of building products and materials against the leading environmental system.

“We decided to partner with ecoScorecard as their system has some features and benefits that our current LEED Project Certification Assistant program could not offer,” said Sean Boyle, Laticrete director of marketing and product management. “Our customers can save time and money with ecoScorecard as it is able to calculate cost-savings on a LEED project – something that our system cannot.”

Currently, Laticrete has 50 LEED-related products on the ecoScorecard website, according to Mitch Hawkins, technical services manager at Laticrete. “A great deal of the LEED process is based on calculations,” he said. “How much a product costs, and the value of each product as it is compared to the total cost, how much recycled content is there, and what is the cost of that in relation to the total cost. So, as you can see, there is indeed a lot of calculations.

Wth ecoScorecard, a customer fills in the products they are purchasing and the price – whether they are using LEED 2009 or the new LEED version 4 – and they will be credited the appropriate credits or points depending upon the system they chose,” Hawkins continued.

Hawkins also set up direct links within the ecoScorecard program to general Laticrete Greenguard certificates, and health product declarations as well.

“This is a service that we provide, and in our industry, if you can save an architectural firm time, effort and money they are going to use you,” said Hawlkins. “That is why we have other tools like our architectural guidebook that writes specifications for them; they don’t have to hire someone or have a person on staff do this. They have the entire specifications after a few clicks of the mouse.”