Seeing the Trees
Identifying eco-friendly wood furniture
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Choosing eco-friendlier furniture just got a little easier.
The Sustainable Furniture Council has launched a new label to identify products that help maintain healthy forests. SFC members include furniture manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and environmental groups. The new label signifies that the entire supply chain, from forest to showroom floor is environmentally and socially responsible.
Sustainably made furniture reduces carbon emissions through responsible forestry operations and manufacturing, combats deforestation through selective logging and replanting, and deters illegal logging by providing a market for sustainable raw materials.
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Built Green
Santa Barbara Expo Debuts
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The first Built Green Expo and Conference in Santa Barbara last weekend was a huge success. The event took place at Santa Barbara City College, with exhibits on the lovely West Campus Lawn with its view of the ocean.
More than 70 exhibitors showed off products as diverse as solar, flooring, windows and accessories. Education sessions for both contractors and consumers covered topics from eco-remodeling of older homes to a discussion of how homeowners can reduce their carbon footprint and transform their home into energy efficient and healthy places to live.
Speakers included Ernst von Weizsäcker, Dean of the UCSB Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, William E. Hayward, president & CEO of Hayward Lumber Company and Chairman of the Board of the US Forest Stewardship Council, and John Picard, Environmental Consultant and Founding Member of the US Green Building Council.
The event included a tour of some of the most innovative and beautiful green homes in Santa Barbara.
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The Heat is On
German Homes Go Renewable
Friday, June 06, 2008
As part of the EU commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020, German homeowners have become part of the solution.
Beginning in 2009, all new homes built in Germany will be required to install renewable energy heating systems. Renewable sources must meet 14% of a household’s total energy consumption for heating and hot water.
Grants are available to remodel existing homes to meet the standard, which requires that 10% of the heating and hot water for old houses must come from renewable sources as of 2010. The government is allocating 350 million euros ($550 million) annually for homeowners to install renewable energy systems. There’s also a stick with the carrot—homeowners who fail to switch face fines of up to 500,000 euros ($786,000).
According to analysts, increasing energy efficiency in buildings could save 50 billion euros ($78 billion) in heating costs in Germany in the next 12 years. And the introduction of new energy ratings for all houses in 2008 will be a further incentive to German homeowners to invest in energy efficiency to protect the value of their homes.
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New World, New Problems
The "Old World" Shows the Way
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Our households generate a lot of trash. And we are taking baby steps towards recycling. In Europe, we are astonished at the level of environmental awareness and commitment of ordinary people to mitigate their footprint. German consumer goods are not quite as over-packaged as in the U.S.—manufacturers have to pay higher fees for more product packaging.
But Germans also can, and do, recycle far more of their waste. The nation is a recycling champ. For example, 67% of paper products are recycled, the highest percentage in the world.
And not just in the home. Recycling containers are everywhere. In supermarkets, recycling counters just inside the entrance have slots for everything from batteries to plastic deli containers. Villages, towns and cities have large recycling containers in multiple locations for green, brown and white glass, PET and other plastics, paper, cartons, aluminum and composites, and more. Street trash receptacles are small and rarely full, because recycling receptacles are placed frequently on sidewalks. In Munich, even the subways have receptacles divided into slots for paper, glass, plastic and trash.
California is one of the most progressive states in the country, yet we still lag behind German villages. Let’s change that!
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Greener, Faster
Germany Out in Front
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Modern sustainable construction owes much of its current status to developments in Germany over the past 50 years. The country is in the forefront on matters of ecology and technology, and continues to innovate in the materials, construction and maintenance of green buildings.
Germany today has gone beyond the energy efficient approach just now becoming more widespread in the U.S. The movement in Germany is towards “Bio Bau,” or organic building. This entails not just energy efficiency, but use of local, sustainable materials that contain no harmful chemicals, careful site selection to maximize light, heating and cooling, and use of technology to either enhance or mitigate natural occurrences. For example, floating houses actually rise with flood waters.
Almost every farm in Bavaria has solar panels on the roof of the barn. When American consumers catch up with that awareness, perhaps the U.S. can begin to compete in the development and production of green technology.
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Dry Grass
Bamboo Fiber Soaks It Up
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The latest arrival in trendy bathrooms is bamboo. Not on the floors or in cabinets, but in the towels.
Pure Fiber’s 100% bamboo towels are plush and soft. But besides the softness and silkiness of cashmere, bamboo yarn gives you the absorbency of fine cotton. Even better, bamboo yarns are more environmentally friendly than cotton, which accounts for a quarter of all crop pesticide use worldwide. Bamboo fabric requires less dye than cotton, modal or viscose, and the color is much more vivid.
And when you’re ready for new towels, the old ones are biodegradable. As a natural cellulose fiber, bamboo can be 100% biodegraded in soil by microorganism and sunshine.
Pure Fiber’s towels come in a range of colors like midnight blue, coastal blue, zesty orange, sunny yellow and, of course, white and natural. A set of bathtowels retails for $42.
Locally, Bambu Batu stocks bamboo towels and other bamboo items.
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