Stego Sustainability Report

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Creating a Sustainable Future From the Ground Up

SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION 4 Our Founder’s Voice and Vision 5 About This Report 10 What We Do OUR IMPACT 18 Industry Drivers 26 Material Transparency and Human Health 30 Green Building Contributions 35 Stego Footprint Project

CREATING BETTER SYSTEMS 38 Circularity 43 Value and Supply Chain

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OUR RESPONSIBILITY 47 Industry Leadership 51 Our People and Communities 59 Growth Mindset 60 Summary

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Our mission started with making buildings healthier, but this sustainability report details the way we try to expand that mission every day.

Paul Blasdel Founder, Stego Industries, LLC

OUR FOUNDER’S VOICE AND VISION

Dear Stakeholder, I am humbled every day by Stego’s success and take great pride in inviting you to read our Stego Sustainabil ity Report. This effort is another remarkable milepost in an extraordinary story of a family business that became an industry leader. Stego began in my garage. Our flagship product, Stego ® Wrap Vapor Barrier, was born out of new polyolefin technologies in the 1990’s that provided great promise to many different industries. The story of our highly engineered film does not imme diately hint of sustainable origins. But the origin story of Stego Wrap — and the growth at Stego — is deeply rooted in making buildings healthier, which arose from two major upheavals in the building industry happening at the time. First, the Southwest United States was plagued by a building crisis: mold. The air in countless gathering spaces was making people sick, from school children with asthma in their classrooms to inexplicable side ef fects in hospitals. Myriad building practices needed to evolve to account for a massive liability problem in the building industry, which was also an existential threat to human health in the indoor environment. Most of these solutions fo cused on the five sides of the building you see: the ex terior walls and the roof. There was less understanding about the contribution of mold-inducing water vapor from the first side of the building, the foundation.

habilitate residential crawl spaces (StegoCrawl ® Wrap), redevelop brownfield sites to protect against harmful volatile organic compounds (Drago Wrap ® ), reduce or eliminate the need for poisonous chemical termiticide pretreatments in new construction (Pango Wrap ® ), and permanently isolate new residential floor slabs from many soil vapor concerns (StegoHome ® ). The educational principles we brought to the industry for below-slab protection — performance, durability, longevity — have, in the past decade, also become the key principles of sustainable construction. We are de lighted that the sustainable construction industry has taken these lessons to improve best practices, protect human health, and build spaces for people to gather safely for generations. But this sustainability report is not just about green construction. We are incredibly proud of the efforts we have made to reduce our carbon footprint, produce re newable energy, provide transparency into our materi als, and invest in the health and wellness of our human resources - the key to our continued success. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our efforts. Sincerely,

Around the same time, the floor covering industry underwent its own upheaval. New EPA regulations — also directed toward the future health of buildings and people — all but mandated the use of water-based adhesives. Again, water vapor from the first side of the building was a common culprit in the breakdown of these new adhesives and created a billion-dollar floor covering failure problem in the industry. At the time, the only products addressing these two cri ses were too cheap to perform well or too expensive to gain widespread adoption. Our new-generation polyolefin film helped solve these problems for the building industry, at a competitive price. And for the past quarter century, our company has grown from the Blasdel Family garage to an industry leader by educating designers, engineers, building own ers, contractors, and concrete placement crews on the importance of protecting that first side of the building. Billions of square feet of Stego Wrap now help protect the indoor air quality and floor coverings of some of the most sensitive — and iconic — buildings in North Amer ica, and our reach expands by the day into new global markets and industry segments. Our mission started with making buildings healthier, but this sustainability report details the way we try to expand that mission every day. The same commitment to human health that launched Stego Wrap has expanded our product lines to help re

Paul J. Blasdel FOUNDER, STEGO INDUSTRIES, LLC INVENTOR OF STEGO WRAP VAPOR BARRIER

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

Our Stego Sustainability Report represents a comprehensive means to share the vision, efforts, achievements, challenges, and goals of Stego’s holistic approach to corporate sustainability.

ENVIRONMENTAL

We define corporate sustainability as striving to do business well for the long-term. For Stego, “well” means striving to balance our triple bottom line — not just economic growth, but a commitment to environmental and social responsibility .

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SOCIAL

ECONOMIC

As a construction product manufacturer in the 21st century, we know this balance must include a broad understanding of the ways our products (including their use in buildings), company operations, and extended value chain impact people and our planet. Our approach to sustainability centers on awareness and action to maximize our positive — while also reducing our negative — impacts.

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QUALITY

Develop and bring to market high-performance con struction product solutions that contribute to energy efficient, durable, and healthy buildings and homes.

TRANSPARENCY

Provide product disclosure information to help project teams make better informed decisions.

ACCESSIBILITY

Make documentation easily accessible to project teams to support green building goals and certification.

RESPONSIBILITY

Foster a responsible and ethical company culture and positively impact the communities we operate in.

Our Pillars of Sustainability

IMPACT

Seek to reduce the environmental impact of company operations and across our supply chain.

Throughout this report, you will learn how these pillars have formed and evolved at Stego. What started as a family-owned business became a market leader with far-reaching influence — and, with it, a deep sense of responsibility.

INVESTMENT

Invest in the well-being of our human capital.

Our pillars of sustainability are not fleeting, progressive concepts of how to run a business — they are central to Stego’s business principles and purpose.

LEADERSHIP

Actively participate in real market transformation as an industry leader.

Corporate sustainability, however, is a long, challenging journey. We recognize that we have a long way to go and there is opportunity for improvement, opti mization, and growth.

CIRCULARITY

Integrate circularity as a lens for product and innovation.

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At Stego, we are continually seeking out ways to reduce our environmental footprint, while simultaneously leaving a positive impact on our industry, our people, our communi ties, and our future world.

Matt Blasdel Owner, Stego Industries, LLC

ABOUT THIS REPORT

Although influenced by established corporate reporting frameworks, our Stego Sustainability Report is self- reported and a starting point to make our sustainability efforts a more transparent and impactful component of how we engage with stakeholders. Our stakeholders represent the range of individuals and entities Stego is accountable to as a product manufacturer, trusted advisor, industry leader, and employer. This includes mem bers of the design and construction community, professional and consumer customers, current and future employees, supply chain partners, and all others interested in engaging with or supporting our company. Our Hope

Our hope is this Stego Sustainability Report will:

Identify useful metrics to measure continued improvement.

Demonstrate a forward-thinking understanding of product and company impacts.

Lay the groundwork to set future goals, big and small.

As a company, we continue to grow: in our array of game-changing products; in the size, expertise, and diversity of our team; and in the influence we exert on a widening range of market segments. This growth is exciting, but we know it will only continue with a responsible, long-term perspective.

Provide context and thoughtful explanation of obstacles we face.

Offer practical guidance for incorporating Stego products on projects with sustainability targets.

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Reinforce why Stego and our products are the choice for below-slab vapor protection.

We appreciate your interest in learning more about sustainability at Stego.

Share milestones and efforts of which we are proud.

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

How to Use This Report

The information found in this report demonstrates Stego’s understanding, com mitments, efforts, progress, and remaining goals in positively and holistically im pacting human, environmental, and social health. Many members of the AECO community — architects, engineers, contractors, and owners — now, more than ever, share this approach to business, as well as in how they design and construct buildings. This includes making better choices with the building products used. When it comes to the below-slab vapor barrier, we believe Stego products are THE clear choice for aligning specifications and product selection with sustain ability goals.

With that said, members of the AECO community should evaluate Stego products in the context of their specific industry segments—e.g., under-slab vapor or soil gas retarders/barriers, physical termite barri ers— rather than to compare them to products from disparate segments across the building product industry as a whole. There are many shining examples of sustainability in the building product landscape, but they are often part of represented industry segments far more matured in reacting to demands, building infrastructure, and optimizing around sustainability. The below-slab vapor barrier segment is in a comparatively early phase in our understanding and progress in developing mean ingful action related to impacts across many categories. Nonetheless, continued market transformation is only possible if lead ers out front are rewarded. We hope this report reinforces how Stego stands out within our market segment. We are not only effectively protecting buildings and homes through unmatched product performance, innovation, and project team support, but leading the way in sustainability.

For consumers and other readers, we hope this report serves to bolster your interest in Stego and our products, particularly if the interest includes supporting, engaging, or seeking to be part of a responsibly minded company.

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WHAT WE DO

About Stego Many threats to a healthy building lurk under its foundation, and project design teams can have a hard time staying ahead. Stego’s industry-leading barriers and project support equip builders, designers, and engineers with the confidence to create resilient foundations for built environments where people live, work, learn, and gather. Beyond innovative product solutions, Stego’s strength is its people, whose relentless dedi cation to educating the construction community serves the industry with local support from project design to installation.

Since 1998, Stego’s engineered films have revolutionized the way the construction industry defends against unwanted water vapor and soil gases. Our barrier solutions provide unmatched, Life of the Building TM protection for buildings and homes of all shapes, sizes, and founda tion designs. Given the natural movement of soil vapor into building envelopes, effectively taking the ground out of play is critical to over all performance, human health, energy efficiency, durability, and other sustainability-related project goals.

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Infiltration of water vapor through concrete slabs is a major building defect liability risk...

Defining the Problems Infiltration of water vapor through concrete slabs is a major building defect liability risk with the potential to compromise the integrity of the building envelope and lead to serious problems to the concrete slab, floor coverings, and indoor air quality. EPA regulations in the late 1990s restricted the content of VOCs in construction adhesives and sealants across product categories, which prompted a switch to water-based flooring adhe sives. Although beneficial from the standpoint of human and environmental health, the move to

water-based adhesives caused the industry to experience floor ing problems at a greater rate than ever before. This was due to moisture-induced high pH that causes water-based adhesives to break down, leading to potential failure of the flooring system. This adhesive change made effective, below-slab water vapor protection critical to new concrete slabs. 1 Isolating concrete floor slabs from the ground is also necessary in helping prevent other issues associated with moisture and vapor accumulation in the slab or building envelope, such as alkaline efflorescence, mold growth, poor indoor air quality, and energy inefficiency. 1 https://www.stegoindustries.com/education/technical-articles/nuisance-or-necessity

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Stego ® Wrap Vapor Barrier is the most widely-specified below-slab vapor barrier in North America.

It All Started with Stego ® Wrap Our flagship product, Stego ® Wrap Vapor Barrier, is the most widely-specified below-slab vapor barrier in North America, earning the trust of our custom ers with proven performance and an unrivaled track record. Stego Wrap protects billions of square feet of concrete floor slabs, including some of the most sensitive and high-profile buildings around the world. In addition, Stego provides a full line of accessories engineered for Stego Wrap and designed to enable an efficient installation, saving time and resources while maintaining the integrity of the system.

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OUR BARRIER SOLUTIONS

Industry-Leading Barriers and Unrivaled Support

Beyond Stego Wrap, we have continued to innovate additional game-changing barrier solutions to help solve a range of project challenges and sub-slab concerns. Stego barrier solutions share important performance attributes — exceptionally low water vapor permeance, durability during installation, and longevity (including a Life of the Building™ Warranty) — critical to achieving overall sustainability and performance goals for buildings. For building owners, Stego barrier solutions offer unmatched long-term performance and value. They play a significant role in preventing costly flooring failures caused by moisture vapor infiltration that would otherwise require remediation and replacement. This has prevented countless amounts of failed flooring (and other building materials) from entering land fills as construction waste, as well as reduced the embodied carbon emissions associated with repair work. In addition, by keeping concrete floor slabs dry, Stego barrier solutions help allow for adaptability of buildings and flooring flexbility, contributing to overall durability. Our full suite of barrier solutions, through its unique film engineering and design, offers specialized performance and notable benefits relating to human health, building performance, environmental im pact, low-maintenance, and reduced construction waste . F T H E B U I L D I N G W A R R A N T Y • STEGO

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Stego equips you with the confidence to create resilient foundations for built environments where people live, work, learn, and gather.

WHAT WE DO

Commercial Barrier Solutions and Concrete Accessories

Stego Wrap Vapor Barrier and Retarder — designed as a superior defense to water vapor diffusion from the soil. Our Stego Wrap barriers and retarders each exceed ASTM E1745, the governing performance standard for below-slab vapor retarders and barriers to ensure necessary water vapor permeance, strength, and longevity. Stego Wrap is available in various thicknesses to allow commercial project teams to satisfy nearly any project performance and budget needs. Drago Wrap Vapor Intrusion Barrier — a uniquely designed barrier system that aids in the redevelopment of contaminated (e.g., brownfield) sites, fostering a healthy built environment. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can migrate as chemical vapors from the soil and groundwater into the building envelope, and Drago Wrap is a critical component of an effective vapor mitigation system. It is a cost- effective 3-in-1 product solution providing unsurpassed barrier protection from chlorinated solvents, hydrocarbons, and moisture vapor. Beast Concrete Accessories — vapor barrier-safe concrete accessories designed to eliminate the need for and practice of puncturing the vapor barrier prior to concrete placement as part of the screeding and forming process. Beast Concrete Acces sories are also engineered to help improve efficiency and results during concrete placement compared to traditional screeding and forming methods, saving time and money. Many Beast components are intended to be reused and can be recycled, extending their useful life.

This photo shows our Drago Wrap Vapor Intrusion Barrier.

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Engineered For A Healthy Home.™

Residential Barrier Solutions

StegoHome Below-Slab Vapor Protection — high-performance barriers, retarders and accessories to provide unmatched vapor protection, durability, and longevity below new home foundations. StegoHome offers a more effective and sustainable solution than generic, low-quality polyethylene sheeting historically used beneath residential floor slabs. Even more, StegoHome was engineered with roll weight and dimensions suited to residential project footprints and labor crews to improve instal lation efficiency and reduce waste. StegoCrawl Wrap Vapor Barrier and Retarder — uniquely engineered vapor barrier and accessories designed as a complete solution to crawl space encapsulation. Whether a new or existing home or building, StegoCrawl helps transform any crawl space into a dry, healthy, efficient, and usable part of the building envelope. With superior performance, certified low-VOC emissions accessories, and optimal roll sizes, StegoCrawl was designed with human health, low maintenance, and true value in mind. Pango Wrap Termite and Vapor Barrier — a physical barrier against subterra nean termites and moisture vapor. Pango Wrap provides a revolutionary, long term solution that may allow project teams to greatly reduce or eliminate the use of chemical termiticides, aligning with movement of green construction codes toward more sustainable protection methods of termite control. By serving as both a high-performance vapor barrier and physical termite barrier, Pango Wrap saves time and labor costs during construction. Even more, Pango was engineered with unique accessories to ensure a fully intact and dependable installation.

This photo shows our Pango Wrap Termite and Vapor Barrier.

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Industry Education and Support Stego’s position as an industry leader doesn’t stop at the consistent, high quality of our prod ucts. We back our products with a diverse and talented team focused on leadership, service, and industry support. Our Sales Team, comprised of dedicated employees throughout North America, acts as trusted advisors for project teams — conducting countless Continuing Education presentations, pro viding project-specific specification and technical assistance, and offering installation support.

SERVICE

LEADERSHIP

SUPPORT

We back our products with a diverse and talented team focused on industry leadership, service, and support.

Want to book a meeting? Connect with Stego

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Sustainable buildings and homes start from the ground up. Stego is here to provide the solutions and support to help our customers accomplish their design and construction goals.

Jeremy Clark VP of Sales, Stego Industries, LLC

INDUSTRY DRIVERS Holistic Sustainability in the Built Environment

The built environment — the physical spaces in which we live, work, play, and heal — is in a period of optimistic, transformational change with regard to its impact on our future world. At the front lines of this movement is the design and construction industry — the ecosystem of designers, owners, contractors, and product manufacturers — who collaboratively bring the built environment to life.

Buildings account for roughly 39% of energy-related global CO 2 emissions 1 . The overwhelm ing majority of those emissions come from the operation of these buildings, about 28% of global CO 2 .

The remainder, a still-signifi cant 11%, is from the embodied carbon of building products — the emissions associated with their raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation, in-service use, and end-of-life.

In addition, the construction and demolition of buildings generates roughly 600 million tons of waste in the United States alone each year 2 . Even more, risks from construction-related and everyday exposures to certain building materials continue to pose a threat to human health.

There appears to be widespread recognition from members of the design and construction community that the built environment can do better. Although there are many paths for reducing the negative impact our industry has on environmental, human, and social health, there is increasing focus and attention on building products. 1 https://www.worldgbc.org/embodied-carbon 2 https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials

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Holistically sustainable building products can often contribute to improved durability, indoor air quality, and performance of buildings.

INDUSTRY DRIVERS

Growing Demand for Holistically Sustainable Products Within the built environment, project team members increasingly want to use “bet ter” building products. This desire has led to an evolving understanding within the design and construction industry of how products can help contribute to ambitious sustainability goals. With a better understanding of the role building products play in a sustainable built environment, one outcome is that single attribute benchmarks (like recycled con tent or regional production) are not the best metrics to meet project goals. Instead, sustainable design and construction must apply a lens with a broader perspective of a product’s overall impacts. “Holistically sustainable building products”, those that are engineered, transparently reported, benchmarked, and optimized to maximize positive impacts and reduce the negative, must become the preferred choice.

This is how we think of “better” product choices.

Holistically sustainable building products can contribute to improved durability, in door air quality, and performance of buildings. This, in turn, improves human and environmental health. Furthermore, this holistic perspective also considers the social and environmental responsibility of the company (manufacturer) behind the products.

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The purpose: better understand what products are made of, their associated health hazards, and their potential environmental impacts to make better-informed design decisions.

INDUSTRY DRIVERS

Greater Transparency, Better Products

Demand for holistically sustainable building products started small. The first, powerful signal toward change came nearly a decade ago from leading design firms, who published letters seeking greater transparency in building prod ucts. The purpose: better understand what products are made of, their associated health hazards, and their potential environmental impacts to make better-informed design decisions. These early letters — and the demands underlying their creation — spurred a new sub-industry around building product transparency. New organizations into this sub-industry built a framework for consistent transparency reporting, related to product ingredients and human health hazards. This led to new transparency tools and data- bases to streamline accessibility to product information. The result of these efforts: better products. Incorporating sustainable building products into the built environment has never been easier. For real market transformation to occur, however, the progress created by this sub-industry must gain broader adoption in the built environment.

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INDUSTRY DRIVERS

CLOSING THE LOOP

Consultants

Proving Sustainability Matters

Design Professionals

Building Product Suppliers

Many building product manufacturers reacted to the clear demands from the design and construction community with positive steps toward transparency and product optimization. There has been a noticeable gap, however, between the intent of spec ifying or selecting better products and the reality of their use on projects. Too often, manufacturers — who have invested time and money in sustainability — still find their products losing out, often due to unchanged specifications when internal goals don’t align with everyday practice or value engineering by sub-contractors unfamil iar with a project’s broader goals. Product manufacturers who have taken progressive steps, but don’t see the industry following-through, may be susceptible to an unfortunate lesson: the business case for focusing on sustainability is unsustainable.

HIGH PERFORMANCE

LIFE CYCLE IMPACT

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

Contractors

Building Product Manufacturers

To demonstrate the importance of better building products, we need collaborative action in the industry, particularly in specifications and product selection.

Building Owners

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AIA Develops Materials Pledge

The adoption of the Materials Pledge by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) put a holistic view of sustainability at the forefront of building product selection for design professionals and specifiers. Signed by an ever-increasing number of lead ing architectural firms, participating firms pledge to give preference to products that support five established “buckets” of sustainability:

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BUCKETS OF SUSTAINABILITY 5

SOCIAL HEALTH AND EQUITY

HUMAN HEALTH

ECOSYSTEM HEALTH

CLIMATE HEALTH

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Even better, contractors, owners/developers, and product manufacturers across the globe heard this strong signal and made their own similar, public pledges. Finding, specifying, and selecting holistically sustainable building products is no longer an ambitious, long-term goal of the most green-minded design firms. Rather, project teams are committing to making sustainability a significant consideration in, or even the driving force behind, their decisions about more and more products.

Architecture Firms Can Sign the Materials Pledge Here

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The Goal: Close the Loop and Prove Sustainability Matters

INDUSTRY DRIVERS

AEC firms demand manufacturers provide health and environmental transparency information

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CLOSING THE LOOP

mindful Materials

Manufacturers respond with transparency documentation, innovation, optimization, and leadership

LEED

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HPD

The nonprofit mindful MATERIALS Inc. (mM), is providing leadership and direction for this collaborative approach to drive better material decisions. With a visionary and experienced approach, mM has evolved from a healthy product database to a collaborative community that exists to advocate and promote action within the design and construction community. Their goal is to make holistically sustainable products (and the companies behind them) the choice in the built environment, not just an option. Powered and digitized by technology partners, mM continues to host a newly transformed and improved Portal for project team members to search, find, and specify sustainable building products.

Manufacturers see minimal changes to specification and product selection to demonstrate better products matter

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Manufacturers struggle to make sustainability a priority without clear ROI

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Collaboration and actionable commitments across the entire product ecosystem

The Goal: Make holistically sustainable products the choice in the built environment.

A common definition for better building products streamlines specification and material selection for the built environment.

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INDUSTRY DRIVERS

Common Materials Framework Product entry and organization in the mindful MATERIALS Portal is guided by the Common Materials Framework (CMF), also developed by mM. The CMF provides a common language and foundation for how the industry can define material sustainability. Where material pledges aligned the industry around a common goal toward holistically sustainable building products, the CMF provides a roadmap to get there. The CMF represents a transformative effort to organize building product certification and disclosures into a framework of relevant sustain ability metrics. These metrics start with the five buckets of health and sustainability referenced by the AIA Materials Pledge, which are then broken down further into sub-buckets and sections related to transparency, assessment, commitment, and optimization.

The CMF is not only a powerful guide for our industry but it also established the useful metrics by which Stego seeks to approach sustain ability across our company and in the optimization and innovation of our products.

More work must be done to make holistically sustainable building products the choice on all projects. One hope for this Stego Sustainability Report is to demonstrate that all building products — even the ones you cannot see in a completed building — can contribute to our indus try’s shared goals of reducing the built environment’s negative impacts on our future world and its people.

As the industry leader in our market segment, including our efforts in sustainability, we hope to reinforce why project teams should make Stego THE choice for every project.

COMMITMENT

TRANSPARENCY

ASSESSMENT

OPTIMIZATION

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It takes immense, sustained collaboration to drive transformation. mindful MATERIALS provides the industry the trusted, neutral hub needed to enable that shift. Our work to convene the built environment and make better building product choices clearer and more accessible to all, is possible with the support of industry-leading manufacturers, like Stego. Annie Bevan CEO of mindful MATERIALS

MATERIAL TRANSPARENCY AND HUMAN HEALTH

Although there are a number of other disclosure options for manufacturers, Stego has gravitated to the HPD as an easy-to use, recognizable, and consistent ingredient and health hazard reporting tool. We were a Pilot Manufacturer of the Health Prod uct Declaration ® Collaborative (HPDC) during the initial develop ment of the HPD reporting tool in 2012.

Ingredient Disclosure

Stego has been at the forefront of the industry movement to provide material ingre dient and health hazard disclosures so that we can show the safety and sustainability of our products for homes and buildings.

After the release of the HPD Open Standard, Stego became one of the first manufacturers in the industry to publish an HPD. We now have more than 20 compliant HPDs across Stego brands , and our flagship product, Stego Wrap Below-Slab Vapor Barri er, is the first and only below-slab vapor barrier that provides chemical inventory disclosure to a 1,000-ppm threshold. This al lows Stego Wrap to contribute directly to the LEED v4.1 Material Ingredients credit. 1 1 “LEED is a green building rating system and the Material Ingredients credit is intended “to encourage the use of products...for which life-cycle information is available and that have environmentally, economically, or socially preferable life-cycle impacts.” https://www.usgbc.org/credits/new-construction-core-and-shell-schools-new-construction-retail-new-construction-data-20 The Health Product Declaration ® logo is a registered trademark of the HPD Collaborative.

As a Health Product Declaration ® Collaborative Member, Stego utilized the Health Product Declaration ® (HPD) Open Standard which provides building product

manufacturers with a standard specification to report material in gredient content and potential associated health hazards. It also of fers building designers, owners, and contractors a consistent tem plate to review and consider the potential human health impacts of products. HPDs have become one of the most used industry-estab lished reporting tools for ingredient disclosure of building materials for these reasons.

Stego Wrap Below-Slab Vapor Barrier contributes directly to LEED v4.1 Material Ingredients credit.

Stego barrier films are inert, safe products that will not pose a health hazard risk to building occupants or construction teams when used as intended.

Many Stego accessories are Certified Clean Air GOLD for VOC Emissions.

Stego barrier films contain zero VOCs and are Red List Chemical Free.

VOCs

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MATERIAL TRANSPARENCY AND HUMAN HEALTH

Safe Composition

Another significant step in our work toward continued material transparency and verifiable safeguarding has been certifying Stego accessories for low-VOC emissions. Through a leader in third-party VOC emis sion testing per CDPH v2.1, we have certified many Stego accessories as Clean Air GOLD. Many projects and project teams use third-party VOC emission information when specifying and selecting products. Educational and medical facilities, in particular, apply this information to certify under the LEED Rating System, where those project types include exterior building products within the Low-Emitting Materials credit. Although often applicable for interior building products within the framework of green building certifica tion programs, this VOC emission testing — and its underlying investment — demonstrates our continued commitment to verifiably safe products.

For the majority of Stego products, we have also been able to con firm Red List Chemical Free composition, which commonly applies to Living Building Challenge (LBC) certified projects. We are con tinuing to evaluate paths to eliminate Red List chemicals across our entire product offering.

The low VOC emission accessories that are part of our StegoCrawl (pictured above) and Pango brands, are especially critical in crawl space applications where the vapor barrier is included within the interior of the home or building. Stego barrier solutions help keep the crawl space air dry, clean, and safe!

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EXCEEDS ASTM E1745 CLASS A

MADE IN THE USA

VOCs

Productive Collaboration

Ingredient disclosure is an undertaking with real challenges, requir ing significant work. Our efforts have involved diligent collaboration between Stego’s Technical and Sustainability teams, along with our upstream suppliers. Getting to this point has included navigating sensitive trade secrets and proprietary information across our supply chain. These challenges are not unique to Stego, as many building product manufacturers face similar obstacles to provide continued and more robust transparency. Yet, in the challenge, also lies oppor tunity to:

Reinforce the importance of ingredient and product disclosure information to upstream suppliers.

While we believe Stego holds a unique position as an industry leader in material transparency — partic ularly outpacing the transparency offered by other options in the below-slab vapor barrier market — we acknowledge there is also room for our continued improvement and optimization. We feel our current efforts demonstrate a clear understanding and commitment to a better, healthier built environment. How to Find Transparency Reporting Information: Published HPDs, Red List Free letters, and VOC Emis sion certification documentation are accessible on our website or from your local Stego representative. Stego products and transparency documentation is also easily accessible on healthy product databases, like the mindful MATERIALS Portal.

Learn more about our own products.

Strengthen relationships with our suppliers.

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Stego is proud of its successes in overcoming material transparency challenges through collaboration with our supply chain. We want to help project teams make informed decisions about the products they specify and choose. Ben Vanmarcke Technical Director, Stego Industries, LLC

GREEN BUILDING CONTRIBUTIONS

Thoughtful Design, High-Performance Products

Foundation building components represent an opportunity to consider optimization around embodied carbon impact, waste re duction, and safe material composition. Even more, taking the ground out of play with a high-performance, properly installed, and long-lasting water vapor barrier is critical to improved indoor air quality, energy efficiency, and the durability/adaptability of buildings,

Although many definitions exist, a “green building” (or “green home”) is general ly thought of as one that reduces its negative impact on our natural environment compared to its “standard” counterpart. Green buildings implement design and con struction strategies that minimize adverse impacts while maximizing the health and comfort of occupants throughout its design, construction, and operation phases. Green buildings and homes often go beyond minimum code requirements to incor porate thoughtful design, high-performance products, and quality construction tech niques. Their ultimate focus is often on measurable improvement to aspects like en ergy performance, indoor air quality, and durability. Because of this, a greener home or building is likely to cost less to operate, improve occupant health and peace of mind, and reduce (or eliminate) environmental negative impacts through its lifecycle.

as well as the long-term performance of other building materials, like flooring systems. With unmatched, Life of the Building™ protection, Stego barrier solutions have been the choice for a myriad of projects, but especially ones with broad sustainability goals.

With Stego barrier solutions, sustainability starts from the ground up.

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Standards, Certifications, and Rating Systems

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Protecting the first side of the building or home from soil vapor transmission is an important component to achieving broad sustainability goals and can often contrib ute to achieving green building program certification. The performance of our barri er solutions, as well as Stego’s commitment and efforts toward material ingredient transparency, offer project teams more direct opportunity to meet program require ments or advanced pathways toward compliance.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ™ ): administered by the U.S. Green Building Council ® (USGBC ® ), LEED green building program is easily the most recognizable certification in the industry and has helped define green building in the United States and beyond. LEED offers a variety of Rating Systems depending on project type, including new commercial construction and homes. • LEED ® v4.1 , Building Design and Construction (LEED ® v4.1, BD+C)*: New Construction v4.1 MR Credit — Material Ingredients: ° Stego Wrap is the first and only below-slab vapor barrier with an HPD that provides chemical inventory disclosure to the required 1,000ppm threshold. • LEED BD+C : New Construction v4.1 IEQ Credit — Low-Emitting Materials And LEED Residential BD+C**: Single Family v4.1 IEQ Credit — Low-Emitting Products: ° Low-Emitting Materials — Primary system accessories for all Stego barrier products are low-emitting for VOCs (certified Clean Air GOLD). • LEED ® v4.1 , Residential Building Design and Construction (LEED ® v4.1, Residential BD+C): Single Family v4.1 SS Credit — Nontoxic Pest Control ° Pango Wrap is a physical termite barrier solution (2 points) • LEED Residential BD+C : Single Family v4.1 IEQ Credit — Radon-Resistant Construction ° Stego products exceed the referenced Indoor airPLUS “capillary break” requirement for radon-resistant new construction system design.

Included below are common green building standards, certifications, and rating sys tems and some of the specific categories or credits Stego products contribute to:

LBC (Living Building Challenge ® ): administered by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), LBC provides a stringent performance-based framework making it one of the more rigorous green building certification programs available. • LBCv4.0 Materials Petal — Red List ° Stego barrier solutions and key accessories are Red List chemical free.

*includes New Construction, Core and Shell, Schools, Retail, Healthcare, Data Centers, Hospitality, and Warehouse and Distribution Centers **includes LEED Residential Multi-Family and Multifamily Core and Shell

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PHIUS (Passive House Institute US): a certification based on passive house prin ciples. Passive building focuses on aspects like continuous insulation, an airtight envelope, high-performance windows, and vapor control layers to create extremely durable and efficient buildings and homes. Foundation water vapor control is a re quired component of PHIUS Certification Guidebook v3.02. PHIUS certification also earns U.S. Department of Energy Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) status. Phius Certified Consultants have completed a comprehensive training course and passed a rigorous exam. • Stego products exceed minimum requirements for water vapor control be- neath slabs and as a component of required sealed crawl space. Stego accessories are engineered to help achieve a monolithic and fully sealed installation, critical to air sealing the building envelope. Stego also has a Phius Certified Passive House Consultant on staff (see pg 49 for more information). ENERGY STAR ® : a government-backed certification for energy efficient consumer products and buildings. ENERGY STAR certified homes achieve a higher level of performance compared to code built homes through third-party verified building science measures.* • Stego products can contribute to EPA’s ENERGY STAR certified homes and apartments, as Stego products exceed requirements for the capillary break beneath slabs and covering the ground in crawl spaces outlined in the mandatory Water Management System Builder Checklist Guide. Indoor airPLUS: from the U.S. EPA, this program builds on the EPA’s ENGERY STAR program for new homes but incorporates additional focus on advanced indoor air quality provisions. Indoor airPLUS homes not only exceed minimum energy efficiency requirements but are safer and healthier. • Stego products exceed minimum requirements for slab and crawl space water vapor protection as part of the Moisture Control section.

Standards, Certifications, and Rating Systems (continued)

NGBS (National Green Building Standard)/ICC 700: administered by Home Inno vation Research Labs, NGBS is a green building certification specifically designed for homes and multi-family residential. It was developed in partnership between ASHRAE, the International Code Council (ICC), and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). • NGBS 2020: Enhanced Durability and Reduced Maintenance Section 602.1 Moisture Management — Building Envelope: ° 602.1.1.1 — Stego products exceed the vapor retarder requirement for below concrete slabs (Mandatory). ° 602.1.4.1 — Stego products exceed the vapor retarder minimum over floors of unconditioned, vented crawl spaces (6 Points). ° 602.1.4.2 — Stego products exceed the vapor retarder requirement over floors of conditioned, sealed crawl spaces (Mandatory); and below a concrete slab in crawl space (8 Points). ° 602.1.5 Termite Barrier — Pango Wrap is Home Innovation NGBS Green Certified as a continuous physical foundation termite barrier (4 Points). • NGBS 2020: Pollutant Control Section 902.3 Radon Reduction Measures: ° 902.3.1.1 Soil-Gas Barriers and Base Course — Stego products exceed soil-gas retarder minimum as part of passive or active radon mitigation systems (Mandatory to 12 Points).

*ENERGY STAR is a registered trademark owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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Standards, Certifications, and Rating Systems (continued)

Enterprise Green Communities: a green building program created specifically for the affordable housing sector. • Stego products exceed minimum mandatory requirements for the vapor re- tarder beneath concrete slabs and in crawl spaces as part of the Managing Moisture: Foundations section. • Although there are no specific categories associated directly with to a below- slab vapor barrier in the WELL Standard, there are Preconditions related to VOC Reduction, Moisture Management, and Air Quality Standards (e.g., Radon) that Stego products would contribute to on the intent or performance-based path. WELL Building Standard: a standard created by the International WELL Building Institute, focused on the health and wellbeing of building occupants. It provides a larger gap for how a building affects human health looking at concepts of air, water, light, nourishment, fitness, comfort, and mind.

Whether working in early design or advanced construction phases, project team members can find key documentation and resources for Stego products to help navigate green building certification program compliance. Please visit stegoindustries.com/sustainability or contact your local Stego representa tive for more information.

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