Harvard’s Healthier Materials Playbook

In 2016, Dr. Joseph G. Allen and Heather Henriksen co-founded the Harvard Healthier Building Academy (HHBA), with a mission to design, build and operate healthier buildings. One focus area of the Academy has been on changing the purchasing practice on our campus and beyond toward materials without toxic chemicals. The result is a two-part playbook now codified in Harvard’s Green Building Standard.

Creating Workplaces Free of Forever Chemicals

Forever chemicals are toxic and widely used in buildings yet remain on the rise globally with little regulation. At Harvard University, leaders are following a simple, two-part playbook: Demand transparency and avoid entire classes of chemicals.

Read the Harvard Business Review article

Healthier Material Choices Free of Harmful Chemicals

Over 80,000 chemicals are widely used in commerce, the vast majority of which haven’t been tested for human safety. For over two decades, we have researched chemical exposures from building materials and products.

Read the Washington Post Op-Ed

An Insider's Guide to the Healthy Buildings Movement

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How PFAS were cleverly rebranded as “Forever Chemicals”

Joseph Allen coined the term “forever chemicals” to describe perfluorinated or polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) that persist in our bodies and never break down.

Read the Fast Company article

Harvard Healthier Building Academy (HHBA)

Funded in 2016 in collaboration with the Harvard Office for Sustainability, HHBA aims to identify and reduce harmful chemicals and guide purchasing decisions based on cutting-edge research.

Learn More about the Harvard Healthier Building Academy

Ending the Chemical “Whack-a-Mole”

For decades, our team has advocated for making healthier materials the standard and stopping the replacement of chemicals in products due to unclear regulations.

Learn More on Harvard Health Magazine

Healthier Materials Research


Harvard Healthier Materials logo

In 2016, Dr. Joseph G. Allen and Heather Henriksen co-founded the Harvard Healthier Building Academy (HHBA), with a mission to design, build and operate healthier buildings. One focus area of the Academy has been on changing the purchasing practice on our campus and beyond toward materials without toxic chemicals. The result is a two-part playbook now codified in Harvard’s Green Building Standard.

Read Harvard’s Healthier Materials Playbook


Illustration of a modern, open office space

Choosing healthier furnishings can help lower “forever chemicals” levels without costing a fortune.

Read more about PFA levels in buildings with healthier furnishings


An office work space with a series of graphs overlaid on top

Our study found that office workers are commonly exposed to hormone-disrupting chemical mixtures in the work environment.

Read blog post

Healthier Materials Impact


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Meet the Team Materials


Joseph Allen, DSC, MPH, CIH

Director of the Healthy Buildings Program

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Gadea Aguado Sierra

Master's Student with the Healthy Buildings Programs

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Buildings represent one of the greatest public health opportunities of this century. Help us turn this opportunity into reality and join the Healthy Buildings Movement today! A gift to the Healthy Buildings Program is a gift to improve the lives of all people, in buildings and beyond, everywhere, every day.

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