Turning Transparent in a Green World

Green Building Pages Top Ten Sustainable Products

Raising the bar, rewarding transparency and product manufacturers'  achievements in reducing the global environmental impacts of their products, and creating a more sustainable world.

Every Earth Day the Green Building Pages announces it's top ten products. This year's lineup ranges from one-man-shops to international manufacturing.

Congratulations to the winners. For a complete look at what makes them sustainable, follow the links provided.  

RainTube - for it's rain harvesting gutter system

EcoTimber - for handscraped flooring and also their Exotics and Classics line.

Forbo's Marmoleum - hard surfaced tile and sheet flooring

Robin Corell - Custom Furniture

Interface FLOR - modular carpet tiles

Panel Source International - for Purekor Platinum Composite Panels

Green Touchscreen - all-in-one touch screen kiosk software

American PERMALIGHT, Inc. - Photoluminescent EXIT signs & EXIT Path Markings

These product manufacturers have achieved exemplary performance against comprehensive Green Building Pages Benchmarking Sustainability evaluation criteria, in alignment with the ASTM-E2129 and the Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMaRT) building product consensus standard recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council.

California Green Summit Award Winners

The Wall Street pundits who need a push towards the positive should have been at the awards ceremony last night to see what success in the next market looks like.

Tom Hall, the Director of Facilities Management for the LACCD accepted the Green Building Award for the Los Angeles Valley College Allied Health and Science Center.  The building generates 50,000 kilowatts of power from it's solar array and also has a storm water retention pond that biologically cleans the rain water run off. It also has windows with a sensor that assures energy used to heat or coola room is not wasted, a white roof to bounce energy back, and high efficiencycy glazing.

Marilyn Farmer, the director for Green Building Pages presented the Award for best Green Culture to the Department of Motor Vehicles for promoting Sustainable Processes.

Other award recipients included:

CLIMATE CHANGE: County of Sonoma for Climate Change Initiatives

WASTE MANAGEMENT: Cal Fire for recycling Damaged Fire Hoses to make hammocks for zoo animals.

ENERGY INNOVATION: County of Lake, Innovation in Sustainable Community Infrastructure.

ENERGY INNOVATION: Sacramento Municipal Utility District, SolarShares Program

WATER MANAGEMENT: Orange County Water District and Orange County Sanitation District for their ground water replenishment system.

PURCHASING: Santa Clara County, Integrated Pest Management Program

Green Building Pages 2008 Benchmarking Sustainability Awards

 

The results are in and the winning products are below. FULL RESULTS HERE.

RainTube took the Best Overall Award.To achieve that you must be able to show sustainable actions in multiple areas. Doing so also put them at the top of the individual awards too (below). As GreenBiz noted today, doing well under many areas is a marketing MUST going forward.

"Identifying, planning and implementing changes in your environmental policies are not simple tasks. Yet, clear pressures from customers, shareholders and competition show that progress in this area is required."

Green Building Pagesis an aggregator of sustainable product attributes and a buying guide for those who need to know how the products can fulfill LEED credits. Those on the top of the lists are there because their sustainable design and efforts have put them there. 

Top Sustainable Product Award: Raintube

Production & Manufacturing: RainTube

Installation, Use & Maintenance:EverClean, RainTube, EcoTimber, Vitrastone, Allmet Roofing

End of Product Life: RainTube, Pacific Coast Lumber, Liberty Valley Doors

Social Sustainability Award: RainTube

Global Climate Award: RainTube, FLOR

Sustainable Innovation Award: FLOR, Celle,Mirra, My Studio Environments

RainTube takes the Sustainability Award at Green Building Pages

Congratulations to the RainTube team for taking the Green Building Pages top Sustainable Product Award. They accumulated 689 points out of 1000 possible across the Green Building Pages sustainable benchmarking system. We spoke to co-owner Steve Spratt to get an update on RainTube's sustainable progress. (Steve is on the right of CEO Bill Savage and Director of Administration, Paula Savage.)

For their full product disclosure, go here. RainTube provides LEED credit contributions for erosion and sedimentation control, water use reduction, recycled content and innovation & design.

ON THE GREEN BUSINESS FAST TRACK

RainTube went from "an idea" in 2007 to a company supporting 10 employees and 100 independent installers with international accounts with distributors in Canada, UK, Israel, Poland, and the Netherlands in 2009. Granted, they had a jump on sustainability, the entire company was designed to be green from the beginning. Instead of being bogged down with legacy issues, they took the greenest route by business model design. 

First, they looked at what was missing from the market and would be useful even if it wasn't green. (porous gutter filtering system) Second, they looked at how they could make it in the greenest way possible and still be a highly functional product. Lastly they looked at how they could establish themselves quickly as a trusted green product line.  Full history on our first post.

While the RainTube concept is anchored in solving the issue of keeping rain gutters clog free, it also solves a new problem coming along in the western states - how to harvest rainwater for later use.

GOING FROM SAYING IT TO PROVING IT

Being an unknown company with an unknown product, RainTube wanted to establish their green credibility quickly. 

"We looked around the web to see who provided the most detailed information and the Green Building Pages was the most comprehensive. Once we were listed, we could link customers and distributors to the page and they could read it for themselves".  

But they didn't stop there...

Steve and his co-owner Bill Savage knew that disclosing information on their own wasn't going to be enough, they would need to be certified. They  decided to go with C2C certification because they liked the certification's reuse philosophy and Raintube is made of 100% downcycled HDPE.

"C2C, conducts indepth testing of things. They require  a third party chemical analysis, and any heavy metals identified. It can't be over a certain level or it can't be certified as green."

But C2C certification wasn't enough for Steve...

While the company obtained a  C2C Gold level of certification on their product's composition, they still didn't have an ISO Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)which looks at how the product is manufactured and the entire supply chain inputs.  RainTube is in the middle of completing that process now.

 "The astute manufacturer, consumers and everyone else knows that green is more than fadish and they are trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff. They are looking for the third party certifier. The smartest ones [manufacturers] are gravitating that way. At first they did it because they were proud of what they are doing, but now it's more a matter of survival... The green aspects are definite edge plus our price points are right and we do hold patents on the products... Having certifications carries as much weight in the market as the patents."

WHAT'S WORKING NOW?

"Having an effective low cost product - that's the biggest one... Rain gutters didn't work well, leaves always keep them jammed up. To build up our distributor network we went after the first movers - those who hold green like a religion. One green architech will get the product in front of many homeowners... 

"The biggest problem is with the installation and roofing people only because that group knows nothing about Rain tube and sometimes they aren't interested in doing things a new way. "

"As for tradeshows, Greenbuild is exceptional because it gets up in front of the right people...   Now with investors and political people coming on board, Greenbuild adds huge credibility."

Our congratulations again to RainTube for not only creating a necessary and useful product, but for continually improving it's certifications and providing what the market wants - proof of sustainable performance. Once they have completed a life cycle assessment, they'll be able to increase their benchmarking points to the platinum level.  

Steve Spratt can be reached at info@raintube.com or by calling 866-724-6356.

Market Case Study: Liberty Valley Doors

Liberty Valley Doors recently received a Benchmarking Sustainability Award for "High End of Life" achievements from Green Building Pages. We spoke with Sustainability Manager and Marketing Director, Stephen Pastryk about the lessons they've learned in eco-marketing. (Stephen is on the left of his Dad, Mike Pastryk, the Founder of Liberty Valley Door.) For a profile their Transparent Sustainable Performance of their products go here.

GETTING STARTED
It's a classic story of going from chicken feed to feathering one's nest. Back in 1980, Mike Pastryk decided that he wanted to run his own wood working business, but all he could afford to lease was half of an old chicken barn in Petaluma. It was there he decided that his business would remain custom and not try to compete with stock door companies.

Since that decision, Liberty Valley Doors have been creating first impressions and interior experiences at wineries, churches, schools, restaurants, commercial buildings and of course, homes.

The company is long past its chicken-barn-based days, and hums along at its current location with 15-18 steady employees. 
 
EARLY RECYLING FOR SAFETY, PROFIT and SOCIAL EQUITY
As a door manufacturer they had plenty of leftover scrap wood which became a fire hazard. Rather than pay for it to be hauled away, Mike put containers of scrap out on the curb and let other budding craftsman help themselves.

"They often came back and show us what they made. Today  we set aside pallets of scrap wood for Rancho Cotati high schools' wood shop class... with all the budget cuts they still get wood every month or so. We also have a guy who stops by and picks up the sawdust to use on local farms..”

That early recycling started them thinking about what additional things they could do and soon they were analyzing everything that went into the trash.

"We were able to reduce our weekly waste by 85%; going from a 15 yard dumpster to one, 64 gallon trash can for the entire business.... we even show people what we accomplished on our website." 

A Win, Win, Win, Win Outcome
• Pay less in trash pickup
• Provide high school woodshop students with raw materials
• Provide organic material for farm animal bedding
• Have a story that inspires customers and other businesses to do the same.

MIDCOURSE CORRECTIONS
You have to admire any company that is self-funded. The money to lease the chicken barn came from the selling of Mike Pastryk's two motorcycles in 1980.  Boot strappers such as Mike are natural risk takers. When the chance to use the sun to run their business came up, he went for it and living in a sun abundant area made it and easy decision.

"We now create 100% of our energy from the sun over the course of a year as the summer sun produces more energy than we need making up for what is lacking in the winter...” 

What they didn't anticipate was the start up time and cost.
 
"...We wish we did more research on our solar contractor. The entire job took 1.5 years when it was suppose to be 4 months. That took our time away from building doors and put it into overhead management.

Like the recycling effort, however, going to solar energy gives them an additional green story to tell which has been incorporated into the website along with the energy recording visuals into their website.

ECO-INSTRUMENTAL PARTNERS
Who has helped them grow and promote sustainability?

"We've had contractors start working with us because we use FSC Certified and reclaimed wood... Hammond Fine Homes is one of them. Mahoney Architects is another. Two other alliances that have helped us get the word out have been The Green Home Center and Green By Design. 

PACKAGING SOLUTIONS
Packaging is one of those legacy issues that needs an overhaul.  Liberty Valley Door has come up with a unique solution.

"First we request that suppliers use less packaging and request that the lumber isn't wrapped in plastic. Local orders are shipped via our truck, but when we have to ship a large order out of state, ee use PODS instead of typical shipping services.  The POD offers protection as well as shipping.  It can be delivered right to the site and it will keep the rain out until it's unloaded and readied for pickup again. This way we can ship our PODS with others going across the country. That's how we shipped the doors to Noah’s Corp, a recreation center in Utah."
 
WHAT'S YOUR MARKET EDGE?
From a product point of view it's their reclaimed wood doors. While only 10-20% of their business today, their beauty and unique craftsmanship brings customers in the door, per se. 

"Using reclaimed wood greatly increases profits.  When we first started the product line in 2005 we used wood from demolition sites. The final doors were beautiful without one tree being cut. To date we've sold over 800 of them. Using FSC wood is a big draw as well. About 70% of our other custom doors are of FSC requested wood, but even if the wood is not requested FSC certified, we still build it that way. "
 
What about their communications, are they doing anything different to keep going during these down times?

"Mainly guerrilla marketing tactics, the story sells itself. The Discovery Channel – Planet Green came out for Renovation Nation and did a feature story on us. It was a 5-10 minute segment. We also write articles for blogs, use Google Ad Words and track where customers are coming from. If 15 new people contact us, whether they buy or not we've found that 12 out of the 15 came from Google.  We also attend Co-Op America's green business network and sustainability conference.... Once a month we talk to others at the green home center in San Francisco and share ideas and exhibit at West Coast Green and Live Green Live Well. " 
 
It's through conferences and tradeshow events that they have had the most luck. People they meet during the networking portion are telling others of their craftsmanship via word-of-mouth. 
 
WHAT'S HOT NOW
 
"Doors out of FSC Mahogany or Douglas Fir, they are about 70% of our volume and about 80% of that work is residential.”
 
WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU WANT OTHERS TO KNOW?
 
"Our commitment to the environment... we run on Solar power. We did that only after analyzing all parts of the business, looking at the components and garbage... like analyzing the glue for formaldehyde content...  I tell people to look at everything and see what you can do to change. We’re also very proud to be recognized as Cotati’s Business of the Year for 2008.”

Stephen Pastryk and be reached at Stephenp@LibertyValleyDoors.com

Market Case Study: EcoTimber

Our thanks to Dan Harrington, Director of Product Development at EcoTimber. Dan oversees design, sourcing and factory relations which include environmental and technical specifications. For the past eight years he's worked with EcoTimber as it grew from 3 people to 25 and became an eco-force of it's own. Dan@EcoTimber.com

EcoTimber won the Benchmarketing Sustainability Award for Installation, Use & Maintenance. For a complete look at EcoTimber’s triple bottom line facts click here.

BUILT IN INTEGRITY

EcoTimber started off in 1992 when Jason Grant, Aaron Maizlish and Eugene Dickey came together to sell and promote "good wood." They visited and vetted each forest for diversity and social equity long before FSC [Forest Stewardship Council] became the adopted label by many environmental groups. Today EcoTimber promotes FSC certified wood, but still continues to vet the process with their own on-site visits.

GETTING STARTED

The fledging founders began with a sustainable idea - harness the marketplace to support sustainable forestry. They used their own capital and that of friends to launch the concept and then in 1995 they received over a million dollars which included monies from the MacArthur Foundation. It was the first and only investment into a for-profit business that the foundation has ever made.

During these early days, no one really knew the benefits of sustainable wood. EcoTimber owners got the word out by spending lots of time talking to architects, architectural communities and to large influential corporations. They had good success and landed accounts at Nike, Banana Republic, Whole Foods, Patagonia and Disney, but it eventually spread EcoTimber too thin.

MIDCOURSE CORRECTIONS

Serving multiple products lines and markets became too difficult. In 2001, they  sold off all the inventory, keeping only the flooring and selling it with the brand to Hayward Lumber. Fast forward six years - two new investors  bought the EcoTimber flooring from Hayward and have been taking it forward ever since.  Lesson learned? Focus, focus, focus on one thing - flooring.

ECO-INSTRUMENTAL PARTNERS

Dan reports that they work with many architectural firms, and  that Gensler has been very active in specifying the FSC wood.  "Gensler goes the extra step to make sure contractors follow through and buy what is specified. Not many firms do that," Dan admitted," but Gensler does a good job of hammering it home."

PACKAGING SOLUTIONS

"We've gone to recycled cardboard and limited plastic," says Dan. "We want to improve and use even less plastic, but right now we have to protect the product from moisture and that's the only thing that will work. We're looking for plastic that will biodegrade eventually. We try to keep the cardboard at a minimum and use a simple sticker at the end of the wood vs. coating a big box with ink. The customer often doesn't see the packaging anyway. They order it online or from a dealer and by the time it arrives at their home or worksite, decorative packaging isn't needed."

CONSUMER/SOCIAL EQUITY

"We did some focus groups and found that 'saving the rain forest' came in second to health issues," says Dan, "Consumers want to know that their products are formaldehyde free and won't endanger their children. Even so, we don't slack off our original mission. We still vet the sites ourselves and don't work with factories which don't pay attention to social issues or workers rights. Customers appreciate our authenticity and level of first hand knowledge.” Dan added, “While the forest is our mission, we did change our tag line to reflect our customer’s needs and our policy regarding the use of toxic chemicals that might off-gas in the home. It went from “Quality Woods from Environmentally Sound Sources"  to  "Healthy Forests. Healthy Homes."

WHAT'S YOUR MARKET EDGE?

"I think it’s our integrity and knowledge. Customers trust the information we give them and they like having products that are in stock and ready to ship," says Dan.  

WHAT'S HOT RIGHT NOW?

Hand scraped flooring and strand woven bamboo," he said.  And yes, he assures me, it is scraped by hand by fair-wage workers in the US.  The bamboo is shredded and then resin infused (with no urea formaldehyde) to create a "tropical hardwood at a bamboo price." EcoTimber is working with a bamboo supplier that will have its FSC certification this spring.

WHAT IS ONE THING CONSUMERS NEED TO KNOW?

"I wish people did their research on standards, there is a proliferation of them out there and many are muddying the water. We've done some on the homework on our website, but ultimately the end buyer has to demand it," Dan stressed. "FSC is the best of the many forestry labels that are popping up, but it isn't perfect. Companies who buy small amounts of FSC wood can use the label in their advertising... showing the label does not mean that all the wood they carry is FSC certified. The only way a customer can have that guarantee is to ask for FSC wood and then look on the invoice and make sure the line item identifies the wood as FSC certified. We hope that as more people understand what FSC stands for the more they'll understand why so many environmental groups back it." 

Dan Harrington is a 36 year old dad of two kids, ages 2 1/2 and 4 months. Some day he'll tell them stories of how he worked to save the rain forests through sustainable tourism and then eco-commerce.

 

CoreNet Corporate Citizen of the Year - LACCD

Congratulations to LACCD and Larry Eisenberg who accepted the CoreNet Remmy on behalf of the LA Community College.

For those of you who are new to this blog, Larry Eisenberg is the executive director, LACCD Facilities Planning and Development. For the past few years, he's been championing the tandem growth of green campuses and curriculum to match. Most recently, Measure J (for jobs) was passed in LA County to help fund the building of 50 new LEED Platinum Certified buildings.

The CoreNet Remmy Awards ceremony was held last night at Warner Brothers. This award reaffirms the energy and leadership Larry has provided to not only create green jobs in LA, but also provide green job education to the manufacturers/contractors of those products plus bring "sustainable thinking" to all disciplines taught at LACCD.

What makes this an even bigger award is that fact that it was given out in Los Angeles, one of the world's largest building and trading centers. Being recognized in this market shines a big light on the work that is being done at LACCD to use their development power to change markets at the same time they are changing the lives of their 226,000 students.

Coming Clean with Rain Tube

The recent Wall Street meltdown is leaving us with two words: transparency and accountability. What that means for business-in-general is that business-as-usual is over. It's time to come clean about our practices and be transparent in our processes, but how do we start? Here's how RainTube did it.

Four years ago, Steve Spratt and Bill Savage developed their RainTube product to solve one of the irritations of home maintenance - cleaning the leaves out of the eave troughs. RainTube gave new meaning to "cap and trade;" once a gutter was capped with a Raintube, the trade off was less leaf removal, less fire igniting pine needles backing up on the roof, and more clean rain water to use on landscaping. Not a bad trade.

 

Steve told me the goal was to provide a useful product that solved a real problem first and then to make the product and the company as green as possible. Because RainTube is a small company co-created along with the original product line, they were able to build sustainability into the core of the brand rather than strap it on later.

 

From their company profile inside of Green Building Pages we learn:

[RainTube] Provides employee seminars, workshops to educate and involve in company's environmental policies and goals. Sponsors educational newsletters, education seminars for the general public regarding environmental issues. Published policies in Production & Manufacture, Product Disposal, Installation Use and Maintenance, Company Social Profile. Published goals in Production & Manufacture, Product Disposal, Installation Use and Maintenance. Facility recycling waste program in place.

They also list that women make up 20% of their management. That is a big deal if you're trying to impress consumers of which women are in the marjority. It's also a big deal for the USGBC this year, as "fostering social equity" has become part of their guidelines. I'm a member of a green Mommy Blogger group and these women care deeply about the above. As a consumer and business person, it's nice that I can just do a quick search and find the above information and so much more.

 

That's exactly why Steve chose to register with Green Building Pages two years ago. He told me that it wasn't enough that they were doing the right things, he wanted the world to know and to have some credibility in the market. Putting it in writing on the Green Building Pages was the first step. Steve admits that filling out Green Building Pages comprehensive Company and Product profile was a task, but that it provided a framework for later improvements and going after higher certifications.

 

RainTubes are sold directly to contractors who then educate homeowners and office owners on its benefits. With the shortage of water in so many places, however, the gray-water saving benefit is getting more attention than keeping the maintenance low. People want to know how to "harvest" water for later use on outdoor plants.

 

RainTube is an example of the next generation in products that are functional, pragmatic and sustainable. See them for yourself at Greenbuild next week in booth # 1767.