Green Ump

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.

LACCD is Selected to Host the UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference 2010

The Los Angeles Community College District has another "first" on its list of accomplishments. It's the first community college system selected for the annual UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference which will be held at the LACCD's Los Angels Trade-Technical College in 2010.

Here is the rest of the news release:

Conference organizers say the District was selected to host the event largely because of its leadership in sustainability and academics, as well as the partnerships it developed with neighboring schools, including USC. The statewide conference has been a resource on sustainability issues since 2001.

.
"Hosting next year's UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference is a tremendous honor and opportunity for the District," said Sylvia Scott-Hayes, a member of LACCD's Board of Trustees who helped bring the conference to the District. "It solidifies our hard work and commitment to green building and helps bring greater awareness to the role community colleges are playing in advancing sustainability. We are thrilled to have this exciting opportunity."

.
“It is an incredible honor that our District will be the first community college to host this remarkable conference,” said Marshall E. Drummond, chancellor, LACCD. “We take great pride in this opportunity to share our Sustainable Building and Net Zero Energy Programs with an audience that is as devoted to green building and to saving the planet’s resources as we are.”

.
Next year’s conference will be held June 20-23, 2010, and will bring together teachers, researchers, staff, students and others interested in campus environmental issues from the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges.

.
This year’s event, "Working Our Way to Zero," at UC Santa Barbara will explore best practices in such topics as green building, energy, social equity, environmentally friendly purchasing and academics. Early registration for the June 21-24 conference ends May 19. For more information, visit www.sustainability.ucsb.edu/conference.

.
News of the District’s selection as the 2010 conference site comes as it also is being recognized with awards by CoreNet Global and the Society for Marketing Professional Services, Los Angeles Chapter.
LACCD won CoreNet Global's 2009 Sustainable Leadership and Design Development Non-Profit award for its innovative, $5.7-billion Sustainable Building Program. As part of the program, the District plans to construct about 90 green buildings at LACCD’s nine colleges, making it one of the nation’s largest environmentally friendly building projects. The award was presented today (April 27) at CoreNet Global's "Buck the Trend" Summit in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit: http://www2.corenetglobal.org/summits_events/dallas_2009/index.vsp.

.
The District also is among 10 international finalists being considered for the 2009 Global Innovator’s Award, which is given to the agency with the most innovative project. Finalists will give presentations to CoreNet’s selection committee at Emory University in August and the winner will be announced at the organization’s North American Summit in Las Vegas, October 12-14.

.
The Society for Marketing Professional Services, Los Angeles Chapter will present its Public Sector Industry Honor Award to the LACCD at the 27th annual Leonardo Awards Program on June 11 at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles. SMPS/LA honors agencies that use creative marketing and innovation in promoting building projects. For more details, visit: http://www.smps-la.org/events9-53/27thAnnualLeonardoAwardsProgram.

 

Dear Fellow Revolutionaries...

Happy Earth Day - if you haven't pulled yourself away from the screen and felt the sun on your face, do so now, I'll wait. Seriously, take a moment to walk in the sun and reflect on all that you've accomplished for the sake of this spinning ball.

Because of you and millions of others, the tipping point for awareness has been reached. The next two years will consist of refining the direction and rules of this firmly entrenched movement.

My grateful thanks goes to all who have lead the way providing the framework to help business make a controlled turn and our future more sustainable.

Build-LACCD Furniture Vendor Reach out - May 4th

Attention all sustainable furniture manufacturers, dealers, specifiers and suppliers. You're invited to come learn about the FF&E procurement process, master agreement bidding and contract opportunities at the Los Angeles Community College District.

The after hours event will run between 5:30-7:30 pm on May 4th and held at the LACCD SourcePoint, resource center, 811 Wilshire Blvd., downtown LA.

RSVP to Lilian.Magallanes@build-laccd.org by April 29, 2009.

Speaking:

• Larry Eisenberg, Executive Director of Facilities Planning and Development, LACCD
• Tom Hall, Director of Facilities Planning and Development, LACCD 
• James Sohn, Program Director, Build-LACCD

For more info go here. 

The Green Tide Raises all Green Boats

According to Ad Age today, green is showing signs of being recession proof. Consumer goods with packaging containing the words, "sustainable, environmentally friendly or eco-friendly" are holding their own.

Tom Vierhile, general manager at Data Product Launch Analytics noted, "It looks like the green trend is going to survive the recession."

Green Trend?!? This isn't a trend, this is a way of business life. It's a foregone conclusion that unless global catastrophe happens, the capitalistic world will turn green. You might as well say that capitalism is a trend.

The article continues talking about green as if it's the latest fashion phase. I find that level of conversation annoying. I expect more from Ad Age.  The research validated common sense, i.e. talk about something more, advertise it more, put it on the packaging more and golly consumers start buying it more. Go figure. It's the same reason that millions of Snugglies sold over the holidays (those blankets with arms otherwise known as robes worn backwards), repetition works.

That rant said, it's good to see Ad Age picking up the drum beat. The more that  business talks about it in mainline public, the more that companies will compete trying to be greener, safer, nicer, more durable than the next. This morning I noticed that the Today Show changed their screen bug to green, probably for the sake of Earth Day, but nice to see them coming on board. Every message counts and helps to reconfigure society. 

The article provided 4 tips for green consumer markets:

1. Combine environmental with Economic sustainability: add in social causes to the your environmental attributes.

2. Retailer support matters: There are 298 different environmental certifications for consumer brands, and consumers aren't buying it - not yet anyway. What they do trust is the retailer making the pre-buying decisions for them.

3. Opportunities remain: Health and Sustainability consumers are on the upswing and will need more products in their "like" range.

4. Consumers think that the quality of the products is lower as the price goes higher. They more or less trust what is being said, but think that the product won't perform as well 

Read the full article here.

If there is a trend to be had, it's the trend that Ad Age and others are starting to merge the "green buyer" with the "pink" buyer. The green consumer isn't uni-gender - it's dominately female. The buyer doesn't change just because the packaging message did. Up until recently, most of the green consumer research I read contained 50/50 studies of men and women.

As trend spotting goes, that's exceptional news. It means that green has gone mainstream and as consumer maven, Martha Stewart would say, "That's a good thing." The green tide will keep rising.

Turning more than transparent...

Each major furniture manufacturer started the same way, usually with one man needing to create something that was unique, functional and would stand the test of time.

When Robin Correl sits down at his lathe he turns out pieces that make you think twice before sitting down. You may just want to stand there and stare in appreciation. He says he "embodies the spirit of the client".

Because he's a one-man show, Robin's furniture has a very low environmental impact. That makes getting high sustainability scores easy to obtain, easier than trying to manage a multi-million dollar supply chain anyway. Maybe that's not such a bad way to go. Is that cheating or is that pointing us into a new direction for furniture the same way that growing your own vegetables is gaining momentum.

I'll let the eco-philosophers debate that one, for now I just like seeing furniture that you never tire of and would carry a wow-factor for a bedroom or a board room. Yes, we all have to turn green, but we don't have to be boring about it.

ANSI Sustainable Workshop: two days and no conclusions except...

If you couldn't attend the ANSI Workshop last week, you can read every document covered the ANSI event wiki. (Don't you love transparency?)

Some takeaways were on the "tell me something I didn't know" level and others are beginning to point us in direction of general agreement. See all presentations, ANSI Sustainable Product Standard workshop here and highlights below.

CLOSING SUMMARY By Joe Bhatia, ANSI President and CEO

• We need various viable options
• There is no one organization that covers everything that's needed
• The solution must be a private-public partnership
• There isn't a one-word answer for what is green and what isn't so we need to allow for gray
• The solution must be economically viable
• The solution must seek social goodness.
• A standards-based approach is a good idea
• It must be scientifically based
• Good performance should be rewarded and baselines moved up.
• Consensus matters, but not to the determent of "lowering standards"
• Being an ANSI accredited standard means that it will mesh with the global ISO standards and be part of the 313,000 other standards that ANSI has on it's database.

BREAK OUT SESSION HIGHLIGHTS

• "Need for multi-pronged approach - government regulations to set the floor and voluntary leadership standards to raise the ceiling. Variety, multiplicity of approaches provides competition and rigor, but adds to confusion"
• Marketing matters - but shouldn't be the determinate of a great standard. "The buying public has very little real knowledge about the credibility of standards or process used; they go on impressions of reputation and how often they see the standard (i.e. how well the standards organizations markets itself)"
• GUIDANCE for credible standard criteria...
  • Harmonized definitions of terms
  • Have an overarching body to provide guidance (gov and private sectors)
  • International in scope
  • Have an inclusive set of the right stakeholders at the table
  • Balance achievement against lowest common denominator)
  • Measurable, science-based that do not stifle innovation
  • Evaluate demand and ensure reasonable scope
• Attributes and weighting
  • Include environment,economy, social welfare
  • Determine a common set of attributes for all products
  • Transparent reporting with end user determine the weighting
  • Or weighting determined by stakeholders
• Multiple attributes lead to more credible standards and improved confidence
• Single attributes are easier to understand, but more complex to coordinate and could lead to green wash as one attribute is heralded and others ignored.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is still confusing and needs to be defined.
• How to measure environmental and societal outcomes determined by lists of how to measure, what to measure and what is the baseline for measurement.

Validation is a great thing. As I look down this list of confusion it's nice to know that Green Building Pages already covers the issues and helps you search for the best answers furing this transitional times.  

Did anyone attend the sessions? What were your impressions of next steps?

What do Project Planners Want in Sustainable Product Information?

What do they want? That's what you want to know right after, "Who's the decision maker", right? To find out the answers we spoke with decision maker Jen Brennan, LEED AP and Job Captain for RRM Design Group. 
 
Jen has been with RRM for two years. It has over 150 employees in the California cities of San Luis Obispo, San Clemente, Sausalito, Oakdale and San Diego. In her position, she ferrets out products and solutions long before they get to the Project Manager's desk. She also reverse ferrets, per se, when contractors choose one product and she looks for more sustainable substitutes. RMM Design covers Community Planning, Civic & Public Safety, Education, Recreation and Urban Planning markets. Jen works directly with the public safety sector. 
 
WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU SEARCH FOR? 
Because they work with many governments, Jen noted that they have to say "equal to" in their product specifications and that the product(s) help to gain LEED credits. It's up to her to document all the LEED credits which means loading the information into the LEED online system or incorporating LEED credit contributing products into projects. 
 
"I mainly look for local information and recycled content while I'm conducting general searches to see what's available. It's hard to get contractors to get that information. We want them to, but they can’t always find it and so it's up to me to dig that information up."

"Manufacturers can't give me the information a lot of the time, because they just don't know. They don't know where the raw materials come from in a complex part... Like lockers for the firehouse. The lockers are metal mesh coated in a plastic, they usually know how much recycled content is in the steel, but not in the plastic coating. They also have a difficult time separating out the products to show where the raw material comes from. 
 
WHERE DO YOU GO FOR THAT INFORMATION FIRST?
"I start with Green Building Pages, it provides the most in-depth information that I've found. I go to the detailed pages all the time, no one else has the information and it's geared towards LEED which really helps. It's so focused. It's almost like we could print out those pages and put them into our specs. "
 
"I also go to Green2Green, Environmental Building News and manufacturers' websites. The manufacturers are getting better, they're offering a lot of recycled content information, but they don't have information on local availability. If I need to call a company I get bounced around from marketing to engineers to the environmental officers. It's very time consuming."
 
WHAT WOULD MAKE YOUR JOB EASIER?
"I wish manufacturers would just completely fill out the form on Green Building Pages. I haven't found anything I need that isn't asked on survey, but the answers aren't always there. I'd like to see more commercial building products listed, of course."

WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING FROM YOUR DESK?
"Definitely energy is the biggest bang for the buck. It's associated with over 10 LEED credits. It also has the greatest impact during the use of the building with lower energy cost over its lifetime... another is saving water , which is important in California. I like that LEED will be coming out with regional credits soon and from that we'll have a better idea of future trends based on regional needs."
 
Jen Brennan and her husband (a contractor) live in Morro Bay, CA and donate their time peer reviewing projects for the non-profit SLO Green Build.Jen also is the coordinator for the SLO LEED AP Resource Group.  Contact Jen Brennan at Jabrennan@rrmdesign.com

YOU are liable for what bloggers say about your products

What!?! Hold the phone, the horses and your job! How can you be held liable for what others say?  In an article posted on Internet Marketing News we learn that the Federal Trade Commission is "revising the guidelines on endorsements and testimonials for the first time since 1980." (thanks Marianne for the heads up.)

The guidelines being reviewed by the FTC would change the rules to hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and social networking users who have received samples of their products. Additionally, the proposed guidelines would hold bloggers liable for the statements they make about products. more...

That means that going transparent and listing ALL your sustainable attributes just upped the anti of responsibility for marketers. It looks like the line is being drawn when you GIVE a blogger a product to write about vs. the free market users making free market statements.  The difference is in the "giving."

And even if you give a person a product, they will still need to have real, raw data somewhere in the public and other than your site to link to and back up their statements. If you provide them that link, along with the product when/IF they choose to write about you (and it is a choice) you have a higher chance of them talking about the sustainable selling points - providing permanent, positive promotion.  

The American Association of Advertising Agencies are arguing that the guidelines are too tough. Those that live in the green world know that the guidelines are loose compared to what they'll be facing in sustainability standards. This new marketing expectation will be a piece of cake for them.

THE GOOD NEWS

Of course if you have put your product through a Life Cycle Assessment and conducted a Life Cycle Impact Assessment, and had that information certified by a third party you practically blog proof already.

Every minute bloggers make mistakes and misquote facts, having a huge bank of transparent and public knowledge keeps those misquotes at a mininum. No one wants to look like an idiot online anymore than they want to look like an idiot offline.

Marketing Departments need to have "Marketing"Safety Data Sheets at their disposal just for such an occasion. Just like Material Safety Data Sheets cover your assets for what's in a product, Marketing Safety Data Sheets will cover your communication assets.

Social media isn't going away, however, fixed communication devices such as newspapers and magazines are. It's time to start gearing up for a world where you can't control every word, but you can control the public data those words came from.