Acousticians are so busy advocating for hearing comfort and noise control (noble goals in their own right), in that they often do not realize their own role in mitigating global warming and climate change through minimizing carbon emissions attributed to different building acoustic materials. This paper will demonstrate an updated software package that acousticians can leverage to be mindful of the environmental and health impacts of the materials that they specify everyday, by including data provided in Environmental and Health Product Declarations in the materials library of a popular acoustic simulation tool. The open source tool Pachyderm Acoustic is used as the simulation tool, and the open-source dataset by Broyles that conveys the environmental impacts and health effects of North American acoustic products is referenced by the software. A prototype interface is presented for discussion. Overall, this paper showcases how acousticians can provide high quality acoustic solutions in building design while being cognizant of the environmental impacts and health effects of the materials specified.
Harten et al. (Tue,) studied this question.