Health Product Declaration (HPD) Explained [2026]
A. Togay Koralturk
Last updated on October 09, 2026
7 min read
Ask a manufacturer what is actually in their flooring adhesive and you will discover how rarely that question has a public answer. The building industry's answer is a family of disclosure documents, and the health product declaration is the most thorough of them: a standardized report of what a product contains and what is known about those contents' effects on health. Among the transparency documents, it is the one that carries the most detail. This guide covers what a health product declaration is, what it reports, who maintains the standard, how HPDs differ from Declare labels and EPDs, their role in LEED, and how to find and read them.
What is a health product declaration (HPD)?
A health product declaration (HPD) is a standardized report of a building product's contents and associated health information, prepared according to the HPD Open Standard: the manufacturer inventories what the product is made of and reports the available health information for those contents in a consistent, comparable format.
The key word in that definition is standardized. Manufacturers have always been able to describe their products however they liked, which made comparison nearly impossible: one company's "proprietary blend" sat next to another's partial ingredient list, and no two documents lined up. The HPD Open Standard replaces that patchwork with one reporting format, so a specifier reading their tenth HPD knows exactly where to look for the same information they found in the first nine. One note on the acronym: in a building-industry context HPD means health product declaration, and the full phrase is worth using, because the abbreviation collides with unrelated meanings elsewhere.
What an HPD reports
An HPD reports the product's contents inventory (the substances the product is made of) together with the health information associated with each entry, in the structure the Open Standard defines, so the document functions as a detailed disclosure rather than a pass-or-fail verdict.
Depth is what sets the HPD apart. Where a summary label condenses a product's chemistry into a single status, the HPD lays out the details: the contents, listed in a standardized way, and what is known about each of them. That design has a consequence worth understanding before you open one: an HPD does not tell you whether a product is "good." It tells you what is in the product and what is known about those ingredients, and it leaves the judgment to the reader. That is exactly what makes it valuable to the consultants, healthy-materials programs, and demanding projects that prefer to make their own judgments: the HPD's job is disclosure, and it does that job thoroughly.
Ready to earn your LEED credential?
200,000+ Learners and Counting
Who runs HPDs: the HPD Collaborative and the Open Standard
The HPD Collaborative is the standards body behind the format: a membership organization that develops and maintains the HPD Open Standard through a technical committee and consensus process, and operates the free HPD Public Repository where completed declarations are published.
The governance matters for the same reason it matters in any standard: a reporting format is only useful if everyone fills it in the same way, and keeping it that way requires an organization whose job is the standard itself. The Collaborative's structure (membership, technical committee, versioned standard) follows the pattern of other building-industry standards bodies, and its repository is what turns individual disclosures into a shared resource: thousands of declarations, searchable for free, rather than PDFs scattered across manufacturer websites. For a specifier, the practical takeaways are simply these: the format is public, the documents are free to read, and the same organization that defines the rules hosts the library.
HPD vs Declare vs EPD
The three transparency documents answer different questions: an HPD inventories a product's contents and the health information about them in depth, a Declare label summarizes ingredients and screens them against the Red List for a readable status, and an environmental product declaration (EPD) quantifies environmental impacts such as embodied carbon.
| Document | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Health product declaration (HPD) | What is in this product, and what is known about those contents' health effects? |
| Declare label | Does this product avoid the Red List's worst-in-class chemicals, at a glance? |
| Environmental product declaration (EPD) | What are this product's measured environmental impacts, like embodied carbon? |
Confusion among the three is common, and the search results around these terms show the questions blurring together, so the distinctions deserve plain statement. Declare and the HPD both concern material health, but they trade depth for readability in opposite directions: Declare is the one-page summary with a status, while the HPD is the full disclosure behind that kind of judgment. The EPD belongs to a different conversation entirely, environmental impact rather than human health, which is why it pairs with carbon accounting rather than with ingredient screening. Thorough projects often use all three, each for its own question, and the easiest way to keep them straight is to remember the question each one answers rather than the acronym.
Health product declarations in LEED
LEED rewards the transparency HPDs provide: in the v5 Materials and Resources category, the Building Product Selection and Procurement credit (MRc4, 5 points) leads the credit family that pays projects for selecting disclosed, better-performing products, and standardized disclosures like HPDs are part of how products qualify.
The reasoning is simple: LEED cannot test every product's chemistry itself, so it rewards projects that use the third-party disclosures built for exactly that job. On a project pursuing the credit, HPDs play a role in two places: the design team uses them to choose products whose contents are known, and the documentation team counts them among the recognized disclosures. At 5 points, MRc4 is one of the largest credits in the category, which shows how much importance LEED v5 gives to knowing what buildings are made of. And the products where this matters most, the interior-facing ones, are the same products at the center of the low-emitting materials discussion.
How to find and read HPDs
HPDs are found in the HPD Public Repository, the free searchable database the Collaborative maintains, and on manufacturers' own product pages. Reading one means checking the contents inventory first, then the health information reported for those contents, with the closest attention going to products that will cover large interior surfaces.
Reading an HPD does not require a chemistry background; it requires a simple routine. Start with what the product is and where it will go, because location decides how much the contents matter: gypsum board, ceiling systems, insulation, and flooring cover large areas and sit close to occupants, which is why those categories are among the most commonly searched for declarations. Next, check how much of the product the inventory actually covers, because a disclosure is only as useful as it is complete. Finally, remember that publishing an HPD is itself a choice: a manufacturer that discloses has chosen transparency, and in a sensitive product category, a product with no disclosure at all is a fair reason to ask the manufacturer why. For exam candidates, the transparency documents come up on the exams regularly, and our LEED Green Associate Complete Exam Prep Pack teaches them as one connected system, with our flashcards keeping HPD, Declare, and EPD clearly separated on exam day.
Ready to earn your LEED credential?
200,000+ Learners and Counting
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a health product declaration?
A standardized report of a building product's contents and the health information associated with them, prepared in the format of the HPD Open Standard and typically published in the free HPD Public Repository. It is a disclosure document, not a pass-or-fail certification.
What is HPD in construction?
In construction and green building, HPD stands for health product declaration: the standardized ingredient-disclosure report described above. The abbreviation has unrelated meanings outside the industry, so the full phrase is the reliable search term.
Who creates health product declarations?
Manufacturers prepare HPDs for their own products, following the HPD Open Standard maintained by the HPD Collaborative, the membership-based standards body that also operates the public repository where declarations are published.
What is the difference between an HPD and a Declare label?
Both concern material health, but they trade depth for readability in opposite directions: the HPD is a detailed disclosure of contents and health information, while Declare is a one-page summary screened against the Red List to produce an at-a-glance status.
What is the difference between an HPD and an EPD?
They answer different questions: a health product declaration discloses contents and health information, while an environmental product declaration quantifies a product's measured environmental impacts, such as embodied carbon. Projects often use both.
Are HPDs required for LEED?
No specific document is required, but standardized disclosures like HPDs are part of how products qualify under the v5 Materials and Resources product-selection credit paths, led by the 5-point Building Product Selection and Procurement credit (MRc4).
Is the health product declaration on the LEED Green Associate exam?
Yes, within materials-transparency content: know that an HPD is a standardized disclosure of product contents and health information, and that such disclosures support the Materials and Resources credit family.
Is the health product declaration on the LEED AP BD+C exam?
Yes, at project depth: the v5 exam expects you to distinguish the transparency documents (HPD, Declare, EPD) by what each reports, and to know how disclosures feed the Building Product Selection and Procurement credit.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): Buildings Guide [2026]
Life cycle assessment explained for buildings: the stages and scopes, the four ISO phases, whole-building LCA, LCA vs EPD, and the role LEED v5 gives it.
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Guide [2026]
The environmental product declaration (EPD) explained: the LCA-based impact report, how one is made and verified, EPD vs LCA vs HPD, and the LEED connection.
What Is Embodied Carbon? Buildings & LEED [2026]
What is embodied carbon? The emissions built into materials and construction explained: vs operational carbon, how it's calculated, reduced, and LEED's rules.
