As architects search for building materials that minimize negative environmental and health impacts, products containing soy-biobased materials provide some optimal solutions. George Washington Carver and Henry Ford pioneered the use of plants in many different materials. Today, U.S. manufacturers of textiles, building materials, cleaning supplies and much more make their products with parts of the soybean, which is a rapidly renewable crop grown every year by more than 570,000 U.S. family farmers. The global demand for soybeans in livestock feed and human food has left an abundant supply of soybean oil for such uses.

Federal government contracts are required to specify biobased products under the Federal BioPreferred® Program that Congress established and is supported by Federal Sustainability Executive Order 13693 “Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade.”