Green design is nothing new at the San Francisco Design Center, but at last week’s Winter Market the emphasis was not only on how interior designers can specify earth-friendly products for their clients, but on how green design can actually be profitable.

Indeed, the themes of the various showroom presentations during the three-day annual market seemed to be: selling luxury to high-end clients, selling sustainability to those same clients, and - not to be overlooked - selling luxurious green design to high-end clients.

After Wednesday’s keynote panel, at which marketing experts profiled the luxury customers for designers, Thursday’s opening panel featured Penny Bonda, eco-editor of Interior Design magazine and the Green Zone on InteriorDesign.net, interviewing Stefan Mühle and Sherry Caplan, general manager and designer, respectively, of the new Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco’s, and indeed California’s, first LEED-certified hotel. The topic: “How Sustainability Became Profitable.” At an afternoon presentation at Wroolie & Co., “Eco/Nomics: The Greening of Design,” Linda Delair, a LEED-certified consultant with Green Fusion Design Center in San Rafael, coached designers on how to sell clients on sustainable design and green furnishings.

Profitability is different for designers than it is for clients, of course, but more than one speaker pointed out that if designers can prove to their clients that they will profit from opting for sustainable design - in energy savings, in health, in the marketplace - the designer stands to make money as well.

In the case of the Orchard Garden Hotel, Mühle said, such things as European-style key cards that control lights in the rooms are saving 12 to 25 percent in electricity costs, and in a city with 35,000 hotel rooms, being green gives this hotel a competitive advantage. Guests are staying there “not necessarily only because we’re green but also because we’re green,” he said, adding that it usually takes a new hotel “18 to 24 months to reach a point of stabilization,” but that will happen within 11 months at the Orchard Garden Hotel. Caplan noted that in a city notorious for dragging out the building permit process, San Francisco has given priority status to applications for buildings seeking LEED certification - another motivator to clients seeking to build locally.

Mühle, Caplan and Delair all stressed the need to debunk myths that sustainable design will be more costly and that green design and luxury are mutually exclusive. Mühle - whose own “greening” started accidentally several years ago when the original Orchard Hotel, up Bush Street from the Orchard Garden, put in a heat exchanger and energy-efficient lightbulbs to save money - said that upgrading to LEED standards added no more than $100,000 to the $21 million price tag on the new hotel.

Although higher-end green design is a relatively new and still-growing market segment, natural products are no longer relegated to the rustic. More fabrics and finishes with the sheen and luxury usually associated with high-end furnishings are being made from natural, washable, sustainably grown and fair-traded materials - and toxins, such as those used in carpet backing and to make fabrics flame retardant, are being replaced with healthier materials. Furniture and case goods are being made from sustainably grown or recycled woods and finished with water-based varnishes, and, as Delair pointed out, all those wonderful antiques designers are so fond of are green by default.

The designer “stands between the end user and the manufacturer,” Delair told a listener concerned about professional liability in specifying products that may turn out to be unsafe, “and that’s a position of power” to promote ever more green materials and finishes. But individual designers needn’t know it all: The number of experts, Web sites and suppliers who can steer designers and their clients through the new green maze is growing exponentially.

In the end, it may not be designers who persuade clients to opt for environmentally friendly materials. When it comes to issues such as off-gassing of toxins from building materials, Caplan said, “I’m amazed at how knowledgeable our clients are. It’s definitely become a lifestyle decision.”

Lynette Evans

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/HOVJULK58.DTL

Tech is gradually becoming greener, and some of its biggest companies are leading the environmental push.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Wednesday plans to announce that it is putting recycled plastic into the ink cartridges for its printers. Although ink cartridges are small, there are so many of them they can be a sizable environmental problem.

HP plans to use 10 million pounds of recycled plastic in its cartridges this year. And the plastic isn’t just easily reused factory waste — it’s made from recycled bottles and other goods previously owned by consumers.

Intel (INTC) and IBM (IBM) are also announcing new environmental programs. Such moves may help improve the tech industry’s reputation for often causing harm to the Earth.

Intel is now the largest corporate user of renewable energy in the USA, the Environmental Protection Agency said this week. The chip giant plans to purchase more than 1.3 million kilowatt hours in wind, solar and other types of green power each year. That’s enough energy to power about 133,000 households.

Intel won’t say how much extra the green power costs. But the company considers the purchase an “investment in the renewable-energy market,” spokesman Bill Calder says.

IBM this month launched the Eco-Patent Commons, a program to help inventors share environmental knowledge. Anyone who has patented a green process or product can contribute it to the commons. There, the patent is made available for anyone to use, for free.

IBM contributed a patent for a green cleaning process used in electronics manufacturing and one for environmentally friendly packaging materials. Nokia, Sony (SNE) and Pitney Bowes (PBI) have also donated patents. Since companies usually guard patents, “It’s a little counterintuitive,” says IBM spokesman Mike Maloney. But it’s a way to “team with other like-minded companies to see what we can do,” he says.

Dell (DELL) last year pledged to become “the greenest technology company” through recycling and other initiatives. Apple, (AAPL) Panasonic, Sun Microsystems (JAVAD) and Motorola (MOT) also recently launched initiatives.

Environmentalists applaud the moves but say much more needs to be done. “There needs to be a major paradigm shift, and right now we’re just trimming around the edges,” says Sheila Davis, head of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an advocacy group.

Tech is still not very Earth-friendly, Davis says. Most computers and electronics contain dangerous heavy metals and un-recyclable plastic. Semiconductor manufacturing requires lots of water and dangerous chemicals. Computer data centers, which power most big websites, use massive amounts of electricity.

And while tech firms are happy to put out green-themed press releases, they’re often reluctant to release statistics about their environmental impact. HP won’t say what percentage of its print cartridges will be made using the recycled plastic, for example. Companies “really need to look at their entire footprint,” Davis says.

By Michelle Kessler

 http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2008-01-29-green-tech_N.htm

Sustainable and Naturally Healthy Designs Available to Residents of the Community

Green Builders, Inc., the leading large-scale community developer of green, sustainable homes in the Austin, Texas area, has opened its first green merchandised model home in Georgetown Village to illustrate how consumers do not have to give up their stylized decor by going green. Working with Count & Castle Designs, an Austin-based residential and commercial interior design firm, Green Builders appointed the interior decor of its new model home with eco-friendly furniture and home accessories from well known marquee retailers including IKEA, Natural LEE Furniture, Loft and Austin Furniture Consignment to showcase how consumers across the country can take advantage of reducing, reusing, reclaiming and recycling when it comes to every one of their furniture needs. This announcement, made on the heels of Green Builders’ ENERGY STAR(R) accreditation on its homes, once again solidifies Green Builders’ place as the top developer in bringing affordable, green and healthier lifestyles to the masses.

The model home also showcases the ways in which Green Builders is sharing the message of green being easy for consumers to understand and incorporate into their own lives. From the home’s cabinets to countertops, paint and furniture, and bath towels and accent accessories, Green Builders makes sure that every piece it offers in its homes comes from sources that support local and world-wide economic and social growth and maintain a level of environmental consciousness.

“We constantly strive to create an all-inclusive healthy and natural lifestyle with our green homes and communities, and offering environmentally sound furnishings is the next progressive step for our residents,” touts Clark Wilson, CEO and President of Green Builders, Inc. “By using both local and national manufacturers we’ve quickly become a resource to find a variety of styled furnishings and accessories to decorate their homes.”

The participating furniture sources are committed to reducing impact on the environment and helping consumers cultivate organically rich lifestyles through the purchase of sustainable and socially responsible products. In addition, Natural LEE donates one tree to American Forests for every piece of furniture sold, Loft offers furniture and case goods made from renewable FSC certified forests, and IKEA uses fewer raw materials generating less waste and discharge in manufacturing as well as wood which is recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable.

“There are so many options to decorate a home, but only a limited number of affordably-priced resources are currently available highlighting sustainable and eco-friendly furnishings and designs,” explains Jennifer Burggraaf, licensed interior designer and principal of Count & Castle Designs. “It’s a real pleasure to partner with Green Builders to help elevate the company and their model home as a resource for consumers to find the look and feel they want in their home while incorporating a safe and sustainable way of life.”

Green Builders’ energy efficient and green, sustainable homes are priced from the $200,000s to $700,000s and available throughout the Austin area.

About Green Builders, Inc.

Green Builders, Inc., a subsidiary of Wilson Holdings, Inc (WIH) combines the equal necessities of progress and preservation by building homes that tread lightly on the earth. Our success is measured by continued robust sales in a growing number of sustainable communities, which we believe to be vital to a sustainable planet. With respect for the world’s resources and for the needs of our clients, we create healthy, beautiful, long-lasting homes that people, and the earth, can afford. To learn more visit, http://www.greenbuildersinc.com

About Wilson Holdings, Inc. and Wilson Family Communities, Inc.

Wilson Holdings, Inc. is the parent company and sole stockholder of Wilson Family Communities, Inc. dba Green Builders, Inc., an Austin, Texas-based homebuilding and development company that acquires, develops, manages and markets residential communities in the Central Texas region. To learn more about Wilson Holdings, Inc., please visit the company’s web site at http://www.wilsonholdings.net

Safe Harbor Statement

Some of the statements in this press release are “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. Rather, forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause our actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These factors include those described under the caption “Risk Factors” included in the 10K-SB filed December 31, 2007 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are made as of the date hereof, and the risk that actual results will differ materially from expectations expressed in this press release will increase with the passage of time. The Company makes no commitment, and disclaims any duty, to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect future events or changes in our expectations.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/LAM03528012008-1.htm

Nike’s (NKE) new Air Jordan XX3 sneaker, which arrives in stores on Jan. 25, won’t have a trace of the color green on it. Rather, the limited-edition shoe will be available in the color combination of white, blue, and gray. And although the shoe was made with earth-friendly materials, and even inspired the invention of a sewing machine to help manufacture footwear with fewer chemical glues, the company is not focusing on the “green” aspect of the sneaker.

Instead, the athletic-goods behemoth hopes that athletes, sports fans, and so-called “sneaker heads” (fanatic collectors willing to pay top dollar for limited-edition shoes) will be drawn to the Air Jordan XX3 as they have been to previous shoes in the Air Jordan line—because of its performance and brand connotations, rather than the green factor. After all, this sub-brand of Nike has been so popular that a new version has been released every year since its launch back in 1985, the rookie year of the basketball superstar whose name graces the shoe. Michael Jordan not only participates in the line’s design, he also tests its performance. And although Nike won’t disclose sales figures, Tinker Hatfield, Nike’s vice-president of innovation design and special projects, says the line’s shoes “are some of our fastest sellers. And they’re top sellers.”

Focus on Performance

The new sneaker is, then, meant to be perceived more as a high-performance, collectible shoe than as a green product. Twenty-three pairs of the first, limited-edition version of the 23rd shoe in the line will be available in only 23 stores. Its high price, $230, will reflect the rareness of the shoes. Then, on Feb. 16, another edition (in white, black, and red) arrives in selected stores, priced at $185. Finally, the full nationwide launch of shoes with a black-and-red color scheme, also $185, is set for Feb. 23. The scattered released dates are intended to increase anticipation for the product.

Officially, the XX3 is the latest in the three-year-old line of Nike Considered shoes, the company’s line of green footwear. But, be it from concerns of tampering with a proven branded success or fears of a backlash from consumers tired of “greenwashing,” executives chose to focus on the performance of the shoe. Its green factor is an added bonus. Nike does not release specific sales figures for any of its lines, but it suggests that despite the hype, green is not in and of itself enough to provide the sales figures the company requires from its product lines. “Being green isn’t enough,” says Hatfield, who oversaw the design of the Air Jordan XX3. “We want to be a change agent, but also profitable and [to] make good business moves.”

Nonetheless, the eco-friendly innovations of the Air Jordan XX3 are certainly worth attention—even if they might not interest legions of sports fans and sneaker heads.

Earth-Friendly Shoes

Hatfield and his design team in Beaverton, Ore., prioritized designing a shoe that would cut down on toxic chemical adhesives and wasted material. They used material derived from the waste of manufacturing footwear outsoles, as well as materials from recycled used sneakers—known as “Nike Grind,” a tactic the company has used since 1993. To push the design even further into green territory, they designed the Air Jordan XX3 with an outsole, midsole, and other elements that fit and hold together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, without relying solely on glues.

“We didn’t completely eliminate adhesives, but came close,” Hatfield says. The design team also developed a proprietary, water-based bonding process to reduce the use of chemical cements and glues. The company says it’s the first time this system was used on any Nike performance footwear.

And, because the Air Jordan XX3 relied primarily on stitching, rather than on adhesives, Hatfield and his team also had to come up with a way to efficiently sew the sneaker together.

So they invented a sewing machine that could stitch the sneaker upright, making “3D” stitches around the whole shoe rather than just on flat sections. The machine has a patent pending. And although there’s only one machine in existence now, Hatfield says the company plans to use it for other shoes in the future.

A Step Beyond “Air Hobbits”

The shoe is certainly a world apart from the first Nike Considered boot, released in 2005 and which in hindsight looks like a painfully obvious “eco-chic” product. With its brown hue and hemp lacing, it made a splash at the time, winning a gold IDEA award for consumer products. Judge and respected industrial designer Tucker Viemeister, currently lab chief at the Rockwell Group, praised the boot because it “looks ecological, looks functional…Nike transformed granola and broccoli into voguish shoes!”

But the boot, essentially a “concept shoe,” according to Nike’s PR department, hardly became a must-have shoe like the Air Jordan sneaker. Some design fans made fun of it. “My friends called the Nike Considered boot ‘Air Hobbits,’” says Marc Alt, a sustainability consultant in New York, though he goes on to praise the initiative and Nike’s attempts to accept responsibility for its much-criticized actions in the past. “Nike was attacked for its labor practices, and now it’s turning 180 degrees,” Alt says.

Now, the emphasis is less on “crunchy,” more on performance. And the Air Jordan XX3 isn’t the only non-obvious green shoe from Nike. Earlier in January, for instance, the company released the Nike Zoom running shoe for women, which looks like a regular Nike sneaker—although the laces are made from 100% recycled polyester and, in fact, 32% of the shoe is recycled.

As other big-brand companies are discovering, wearing green aspirations on your sleeve isn’t enough these days. Netflix (NFLX), for example, is often cited as a relatively green service company because it helps consumers not have to drive to rent a video, but it doesn’t market itself as such. Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes music-downloading service cuts down on CD packaging, but isn’t touted as an eco-chic initiative. On the product side, Nike’s approach to designing the Air Jordan XX3 as a sustainable shoe that’s primarily a must-have sneaker might just help signal a new era of corporate green strategies that cater not only to a healthier planet, but healthier balance sheets, too.

by Reena Jana

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id20080125_828346.htm

Half buried in the dry, red earth of New Mexico, are a series of buildings, unconventional in appearance and radical in design. They’re Earthships — sustainable, self-sufficient homes — and the 50 or so that are scattered outside the New Mexico town of Taos constitute the Earthship world community.

Earthships are the brainchild of Michael Reynolds, a motorcycle-riding son of the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 1970’s. Having trained as an architect in Cincinnati he moved to New Mexico to experiment with his designs, ride motorcycles and avoid the Vietnam War.

From building houses using aluminum cans in the 1970’s to the state-of-the-art Earthships currently being built around the world, Reynolds has devoted his life to building self-sufficient homes. It’s been an evolutionary process.

Steel and aluminum cans, tires and other reclaimed materials are all used in Earthships, but they are far from primitive frontier cabins. Rather they are self-sufficient, off-grid homes that provide their own water, power and heating.

Long time residents of Taos, Tony Marvin and his partner Katy Grabel are recent converts to Earthships, which seem to be a way or life as much as a place to live.

“Having been here for more than 18 months now, it really has exceeded all our expectations. It really is quite an art form, and we’re not roughing it by any means. Reports are that it is the best functioning Earthship to date utilizing all the latest technology,” says Marvin.

Self-sufficiency at heart

All Earthships are built around a few core concepts.

Water is collected from rain or snowfall and stored in large underground cisterns. It is then used a number of times, first for bathing or washing. It is then recycled into “gray” water, which is used to flush toilets before being taken out of the internal water system as “black” water. It is then treated and used to water the Earthship’s plants.

As Michael Reynolds says: “If water is falling from the sky, and it is on the majority of the plant, it’s crazy not to catch it.”

Power is supplied by solar panels and wind turbines and even in areas where sunlight is more likely to be caught through overcast skies, modern photovoltaic technology means that they can still be effective enough to make any Earthship anywhere in the world self-sufficient.

“It sounds sophisticated and it is, but really it is the profound simplicity of Earthships that means it really doesn’t take much for an average person to figure out how to work it and even build it themselves,” says Marvin.

“I’d known Michael Reynolds for a long time. I’d seen his early examples and was unsure of them at first, but a few years ago when we were in process of retooling our lives and looking for a new place to live, we saw this Earthship and were completely blown away by it.

“There really was nothing as beautiful in Taos at this price. We also really chose to live here to participate in the concept of Earthships — to live off-grid and be self-sufficient.

“It’s like in the olden days of the 1960’s — the drop out, hippie thing of not wanting to be dependent on huge energy companies. That ethos is still there, but now it’s also about conservation. And it’s not just a worthy project. People with lots of money are looking at buying them,” says Marvin.

Experiments and obstacles

If Earthships are now finding favor among people who wouldn’t normally adhere to a conservation or alternative lifestyle ethos, they haven’t had a smooth ride.

Reynolds’ architecture license was revoked in the early days of his experiments building Earthship — radical ideas of running sewage through the front room fell foul of the authorities — and he recently battled for three years to pass a law in New Mexico that allows more research into sustainable building projects.

At it’s most basic, Earthships can be simple shelters with their own water supply. Basic but essential, especially in the aftermath of natural disasters, where Reynolds has built Earthships on the Andaman Islands after the Tsunami in 2004 and New Orleans after the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.

Kirsten Jacobsen has spent 14 years working with Reynolds and says that a completed system is possible within six weeks. With new Earthships planned across the world, a 16-unit project is scheduled to be built in Brighton, England, the hope is that whole towns are built from Earthships.

“As much as idealism there really is a pragmatism to Earthships. Even people working within the energy industry acknowledge that we have to adapt and need to look at decentralized systems in the future,” said Jacobsen.

“It’s been an evolutionary process. The systems used in Earthships are now more exacting and more reliable than ever before, so more energy can be put into creating beautiful interiors. I’d say were at the apex of what Michael’s been working towards,” says Marvin.

By Dean Irvine

http://edition1.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/08/29/skewed.earthships/index.html#cnnSTCText

A handful of vendors and retailers who’d championed earth-friendly processes and products in the furniture industry for some years found themselves in 2007 surrounded by people singing the same tune. Those pioneers, who all along had been developing “green” product incorporating recycled wood or timber from well-managed forests in case goods, and upholstery using organic fabrics and environment-friendly foams, found themselves on the front end of a wave of companies paying more attention to the environment—at least in word.

How that buzz—spurred by a wave of media attention to the environment over the past year—plays in the long term among consumers (many of whom don’t know yet, or maybe even care, that they have earth-friendly options in home furnishings) will depend heavily on how well or how poorly retailers and vendors handle the issue of “greenwash.”

“Greenwash” refers to slapping a marketing-over-substance label on goods targeted at well-meaning consumers interested in making more environmentally friendly purchases. If bogus “eco-friendly” furniture gets exposed, shoppers (many of whom are jaded by pricing and quality issues, as well an often-negative assessment of their buying experience) could view furniture with a more cynical eye.

A LOT TO CONSIDER. John Billington, CEO of Five Rivers in Boise, Idaho, said retailers seeking out eco-friendly product have to go through their own educational process. A good place to start is talking with suppliers, asking specific questions about where, how and from what their products are made.

About 50 percent of the furniture Five Rivers sells comes from vendors who participate in the Sustainable Furniture Council (SFC), of which he’s a founding member. (The store also features jewelry, organic cotton clothing, and lighting and accessories.) He sees the SFC as having a huge role in setting effective, measurable standards for the industry, as well as providing a rallying point for retailers and vendors committed to making sure their operations are as environmentally sensitive as possible. Groups like SFC can provide leadership, but retailers still have to do their own legwork to verify environmental claims about a particular line, and their own operations, Billington said.

“The Sustainable Furniture Council has become a powerhouse in creating a reliable ‘green’ rating system for retailers and consumers by evaluating products and manufacturers’ impact to our global environment,” he said. “It’s sort of like a ‘Green Housekeeping Seal’ of approval.”

The SFC might be an enormous help in raising industry awareness of its environmental impact, but Billington said retailers must gauge their own carbon footprint and make responsible choices for their communities, and do their own homework when it comes to suppliers.

“Ask questions and then tell your customers what you have learned,” he said. With programs such as the Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative in place for years now, wood products are a bit simpler to gauge than upholstery in that retailers can look for wood certification from such organizations.

“For sustainable forestry, organizations like the Rainforest Alliance, the Forestry Stewardship Council and Smartwood guide forestry practices toward sustainability,” Billington said. “The impact of these organizations has reached 20 countries and certified over 100 million acres of forests.”

Upholstery, with hidden components such as cushioning, is a more complicated category for retailers to vet.

“You’re seeing a lot more foam cushioning for leather and upholstery that’s eliminating harmful vapors during production and emitted from the product itself,” Billington noted. “There’s little oversight in that regard to my knowledge, and it’s necessary to do your own research.”

Determining whether or not wood in a vendor’s furniture is from responsibly managed forests is the first question retailers looking to get greener should ask, said Tim Loveday, a founder of the Design Green Alliance (formerly Channel Logic), a cooperative effort for sustainable manufacturers to increase their marketplace presence.

The second question to ask is what kind of paints or finishes are used in the manufacturing process? Those questions “are a good start for people to begin with, as most manufacturers haven’t ventured into much more detail for sustainability yet, and the responses won’t be overwhelming for the average retailer,” Loveday said.

Third, retailers might ask about certification programs suppliers participate in; and fourth, ask what makes suppliers eco-friendly. “The third and fourth questions allow manufacturers to give more detail on their sustainable practices within their own organization,” Loveday said. “However, the most important precaution retailers can take (to avoid greenwash) is to train their sales staff on the level of sustainability for each manufacturer. Having the answers to the questions above will keep them out of hot water for now.”

CHALLENGES LOOM. The word about going green is definitely out there for all to hear in furnitureland, but the industry still has a way to go, and Loveday said the development of an online resource guide would assist interested companies in increasing sustainable practices and offer advice from experts, as well as contributions from members of groups such as Design Green Alliance.

Watch for more and larger “Living Green Pavilions” such as the one at Las Vegas Market’s temporary spaces at the MGM Grand—a joint effort of DGA, SFC and Las Vegas Market. That area centers on sustainable furnishings or furniture using wood, cushioning, fabrics and finishing materials that are made from renewable resources.

“Our primary objective is to create larger, more dominant pavilions at the different furniture markets worldwide,” Loveday said. “Part of our services through our Web site will be to have a posting board for (reps) to post ‘products wanted’ and/or manufacturers to post ‘reps wanted.’”

Building a “green” network for reps poses challenges. “No question, the biggest challenge for representatives ‘going green’ is to substantiate their products as truly green,” Loveday said. “Second, mainstream retailers’ number one objection is; ‘If I transition 20 percent of my showroom to eco-friendly products, then how do I sell against the other 80 percent that isn’t?’

“In 2008 our goal is to get the message out that we now cover every category with green products, so retailers can begin transitioning their store to 100-percent eco-friendly products without giving up quality, creativity or design capabilities.”

Diversification of DGA’s participating lines is helping to create a range of environmentally friendly product in all categories for interested retailers.

“I currently have database of over 300 sustainable manufacturers, some with SKUs ranging into the thousands,” Loveday said. “My goal is to take sustainability out of the niche market it currently resides (in), and begin establishing a very strong presence to make our eco-pavilions a destination point for buyers worldwide.”

The industry also has internal issues to work through regarding its environmental approach. Already, the American Home Furnishings Alliance (AHFA), whose EFEC program for limiting manufacturers’ environmental impact has made strides, ran afoul of the SFC (AHFA’s a founding member) when it proposed retail tagging for its Sustainable By Design (SBD) program. SFC declined to grant SBD achievers its Silver Exemplary status due in part to what SFC deemed an unacceptable percentage of FSC- or equivalent certified woods in the product in question. At press time that question remains unresolved, but AHFA’s attention to environmental issues is not in question. (See this month’s “Hot Seat” for discussion of the AHFA/SFC situation.)

AHFA and SFC also were in the process of setting up a panel discussion tentatively scheduled to take place at Las Vegas Market.

THE TIPPING POINT. Kevin Tuerff, president and a principal at the Dallas-based environmental marketing consultancy EnviroMedia, said events such as the November United Nations conference on global warming are raising the environment’s profile among consumers, whatever their politics, and that a major resource for furniture was high on the agenda.

“Deforestation was the first- or second-hottest topic there,” said Tuerff, who attended the conference. Tuerff said he’s surprised at the amount of attention environmental issues get these days, and that those serving consumer markets had best be ready to at least answer questions.

“We’ve been in environmental marketing for 11 years, and we never would have predicted what’s happening now,” he said. “‘Tell me what to do’—that’s what consumers are asking now.”

EnviroMedia worked with the University of Oregon to launch a new Web site, greenwashingindex.com, to give consumers the info needed to weigh the green component of their purchase decisions.

Loveday doesn’t believe the furniture retail community has seen its tipping point due to market confusion on “what is considered sustainable.”

“However, we did a test study on a handful of retailers that carried no sustainable furniture products and asked them if they would ‘go green.’ Most were hesitant,” he said. “However, when we rephrased the question and discussed indoor environmental health and the risks associated with standard manufacturing, we saw a completely different level of interest, especially when it came to children’s furniture and bedding.”

Other industries are having success in the environmental movement. For example, The U.S. Green Building Council, (founded by SFC director Mike Italiano), developed a green building rating system through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, to encourage sustainable construction among architects, interior designers and landscape architects.

When it comes to going green, though, it’s important to do your own homework.

“Many eco-friendly organizations have developed over the past two decades to provide guidelines for global ecology,” said Billington. “There are so many products that are eco-friendly today, and so many that claim to be, that it is hard to know who to trust.”

By Powell Slaughter

http://www.hfbusiness.com/story/story.bsp?sid=89696&var=story&publication=Home%20Furnishings%20Business&publicationDate=2/1/08&slug=HFB_0208_cover_greenwash&category=None&section=Unknown&page=1

Hemp has had a mixed press over recent years, but changes to the harvesting and processing of the crop could see it increase in popularity.

The area of contracted hemp is predicted to jump from 2000 to 5000 acres in 2008 and hit 20,000 acres by 2011. At least that is what Hemcore director, and Essex farmer, Dan Squier reckons.

“We believe the markets are there, the production capacity is there, and we’re soon to have the new factory at Halesworth in Suffolk, which will have a 7t/hr capacity, compared with 1-1.5t/hr at the old Maldon site.”

What’s more, the new £3.6m plant – due to open in spring 2008 – will be able to process unretted hemp, which means that the crop can be baled and cleared about 10-14 days after harvest, almost halving the amount of time fields are “tied up”. It also reduces the risk of bad weather damaging the swath and making baling difficult. “We expect to have fields cleared in early September,” Mr Squier says.

The harvesting process itself will also change this season, with all crops cut using a specialised tractor-mounted mower, instead of a forage harvester. “We reckon we were losing up to 2t/ha on the ground, as the forage harvester was smashing the hemp up too much. The new ‘multi-cut’ mower outfit allows us to rake up the crop much cleaner than before.”

Bales should be stored under cover straight away and factory intake is on a “just in  time” basis. For 2008/09 prices start at £120/t for September delivery, increasing to £130/t in October and an extra £1.50/t a month onwards to compensate for storage costs. For those with insufficient barn space, Hemcore plans to provide storage for 3000-4000 bales adjacent to the new factory.

But while the harvesting and processing procedures may have improved, haulage is likely to remain a limiting factor for growers outside the immediate vicinity of the factory. Charges range from £4/t (£30/ha) within a 10-mile radius, to £15/t (£112/ha) within 100-miles. Growers wanted for 2008. Call 01279 504 466

Blackgrass control is extra benefit

Just 30 miles by road from Hemcore’s soon-to-close Maldon factory, Robert Bache has been growing a small area (20ha) of hemp in rotation with 1200ha wheat, 263ha oilseed rape, 160ha spring peas, linseed and lucerne for the past 15 years. On balance he is happy with how it has performed, but it has not all been plain sailing.

Drilling does not start until the beginning of May, so there is plenty of time to plough the heavy clay soil and allow it to weather over winter, he says. It also means stale seed-beds can be used to control herbicide-resistant blackgrass. “We plough and heavy press the seed-bed in September and spray it off with glyphosate in December and possibly again in April, just before drilling.

“Hopefully, the hemp will go into a clean seed-bed. Even if weeds do come through, once the crop gets to one true leaf, growth increases very rapidly and smothers everything else.”

Hemp generally stacks up well financially, he says. Straw yields last year averaged 6.4t/ha, giving a gross margin (including contract mowing, but excluding baling and transport) of £404/ha, compared with £250-340/ha for the human consumption peas.

But it was not without its problems, not least the impact of the wet summer on retting and a late harvest. “Hemcore sends a technologist to assess when the hemp’s ready to mow. The final field last year wasn’t harvested until well into September, which was far too late. We virtually followed right behind them picking the bales out of the field before drilling the wheat on 25 October.”

Despite this, and higher transport costs to the new Suffolk plant, Mr Bache thinks he will continue growing hemp next season. “It’s worked well for us. The system now works with square bales, which have helped storage and handling, but I need to be convinced the crop will be removed on time.

“Ultimately, hemp has got industrial end-uses and to my way of thinking, that’s exactly the way farmers ought to be going.”

Author: Paul Spackman

 http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/01/24/109076/better-processes-dispel-uncertainties-of-hemp.html

When Black Friday came the day after Thanksgiving, Pat Cassidy and Barb Cretilli were immersed in the opening day of their new “green” business.

Being Green, a new store in Nevada City offering environmentally friendly and fair trade goods, is one of the growing number of local businesses offering sustainably produced clothing, coffee and food products.

“For those of us that have children, we’re trying to preserve the planet,” said Cassidy, 49.

Annita Stenken , 53, of Smartville, viewed her shopping experience similarly to the store’s mission.

“We’re destroying so much on the earth that buying a natural product is so important,” Stenken said as she looked through the store Monday. “They have wonderful merchandise here.”

The green marketplace — ranging from green building to organic food to body care products — is one of the fastest-growing business segments: It is estimated as a $228 billion market, according to the Sustainable Business Council, a nonprofit group of business executives.

In Nevada City, Being Green features clothes, paper goods, housewares and body care products from manufacturers who do not mass produce their products, Cassidy said.

“We contact the manufacturers to learn who they are and where they get their stuff,” he said.

Fair trade standards boil down to simple human values, Cassidy said. They want to
avoid companies that pay their workers low wages, he said.

“It’s all about how we take care of each other,” he said.

And Being Green customers have taken care of Cassidy and Cretilli, 35, very well so far.

“It just flies off the shelves,” Cassidy said of their products.

Shoppers can find clothes made from hemp and cotton blends, hemp and jute
blends, soy fabrics, alpaca fiber, organic cotton and recycled silks at the store. Green shoppers also can find socks made from bamboo, candles made from soy, body care products that are edible and paper made from mango.

To Cassidy, most area residents “get it here” when it comes to being conscious of the need for environmentally friendly products.

Being Green’s business was strong for the holidays and during the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival, he said.

Cassidy and Cretilli are the only attendants at the 600-square-foot shop, but they could add employees in the future, they said.

The store needs to build a loyal following before Cassidy thinks of expanding business, he added. The store is located at 408 Broad St., Suite 7.

http://www.theunion.com/article/20080121/NEWS/181891492

By Greg Moberly

WASHINGTON - Though you have to bend down to read it, the fist-size green logo on the front window of Le Pain Quotidien might be the most visible sign that the bakery-restaurant is environmentally sensitive. But that little sticker’s declaration that the Georgetown business is a “certified green restaurant” describes a host of ecologically minded practices taking place on the other side of the door.

Going green, it turns out, is all in the details. And some are less obvious than others.

At Le Pain Quotidien, which opened last spring, the 39-seat communal dining table was fashioned out of reclaimed wood from vintage Belgian train cars. Cleaning products used on the floor and kitchen counters are nontoxic and non-polluting. The to-go cups are made of corn and the spoons of potato starch; they will disintegrate within 30 to 90 days in a commercial compost site rather than sit in a landfill. The exceptional croissants, like the other baked goods, are made with organic flour and butter.

Although it is so far the only restaurant here to earn certification from the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association, Le Pain Quotidien is in good company nationwide. Restaurateurs increasingly are realizing that environmentally minded customers care about more than local produce, sustainable seafood and free-range meats. In a survey by the National Restaurant Association, 62 percent of consumers said they would be likely to choose a restaurant based on its environmental friendliness.

Bergen Kenny, 29, was one of them as she stood in Le Pain Quotidien’s takeout line on a recent morning, waiting for her daily organic pumpkin muffin and fair-trade coffee. “You try to be green in your life, and when you come here they’ve taken care of all that,” says Kenny.

The restaurant association also reported that, in another survey, a quarter of restaurants said they plan to spend more on going green this year. Besides the environmental benefits, restaurant owners hope that such efforts can in the long run help them deal with increased energy and waste-management costs.

“Companies and restaurants are investing in the hard costs of ecologically friendly operations, and people are responding,” says food industry consultant Clark Wolf, president of the New York-based Clark Wolf Co. “These green restaurants are popping up all over the country, in New York like crazy.”

Although the GRA has certified all U.S. operations of Le Pain Quotidien (French for “the daily bread”), a Belgium-based chain with 28 locations in the United States, none is totally sustainable. The D.C. restaurant still needs to find a company in the area that will haul away compostable kitchen waste. It can’t find a source with adequate supplies of organic chicken. But it has satisfied the major requirements of the GRA, a nonprofit organization that has bestowed “certified green” status on more than 300 restaurants and cafes in 30 states and Canada.

“We look at everything,” says executive director Michael Oshman, who founded the GRA in 1990. His 11 environmental guidelines cover energy and water efficiency and conservation, recycling and composting, the use of sustainable food, green building design and construction, and more. The association helps clients find suppliers of locally grown foods, which helps reduce the amount of pollution from fossil fuels used in transportation. “We take a restaurant, no matter where they are in being green, and help them with the steps,” Oshman says.

The stakes are high. Among other environmental effects, the GRA says, the U.S. restaurant industry accounts for one-third of all energy used by retail businesses and is five times as energy-intensive as other retail businesses, including lodging. The group cites studies gathered for Dining Green, a book published by the GRA in 2004, showing that on average, every restaurant meal served produces 1 1/2 pounds of trash. Half of that, the GRA says, is food waste that could be composted.

This past year, the GRA has generated the most interest in its history. Oshman credits the popularity of Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Since the movie’s release in May 2006, Oshman says, “the phone has been ringing off the hook.” Not only restaurant owners are calling. Oshman says the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., has asked for an environmental assessment of its food service operations.

The GRA did not invent the concept of the environmentally friendly restaurant. The group has, however, raised the consciousness about Earth-friendly issues beyond a niche group of food businesses that were sometimes perceived as esoteric.

But in Washington, one chef was green long before green was cool.

“For them it’s all big news. It is a wonderful thing for awareness. But we’ve been doing these things for years,” says chef Nora Pouillon, who opened Restaurant Nora 29 years ago. Eight years ago the restaurant was the first in the United States to be certified organic.

In addition to cooking with all organic and mostly local ingredients, Pouillon has long used recycled paper and soy-based ink for the menus, which change daily. Four employees compost 75 gallons of vegetable waste in home gardens each day. She eliminated fresh flowers in the restaurant when it became too difficult to find blooms that had not been heavily sprayed with pesticides. Pouillon’s search for Earth-friendly solutions goes on.

“What I haven’t been able to find is certified organic cotton chef jackets and pants,” she says. “No one is making organic shirts for the wait staff anymore.”

Overall, she says, organic ingredients add 20 percent to her costs, and labor costs are 20 percent higher than for a restaurant of comparable size.

“Someone has to haul the compost. Everything adds up,” Pouillon says. “But my business is better than ever, because more and more people are aware and concerned about healthy eating and the environment.”

Nicolas Jammet, co-owner of Sweetgreen, a salad and yogurt bar in Georgetown, also hopes to be certified in the next month. Energy-efficient wiring was installed before the business opened in August. Walls are made of recycled hickory. The owners use salad bowls made of corn-based materials, and the forks and spoons are biodegradable.

For Jammet, there is more to accomplish on the green checklist. Every step, he says, “adds to our mission.”

“It’s not a trend or a gimmick,” says Jammet, a Georgetown University graduate who has lots of customers from his alma mater. “It’s the future to be eco-conscious.”

For Le Pain Quotidien, the environmental commitments extend to some of the smallest decisions that employees make.

“You must watch your trash audit,” says Patrick Jenkins, vice president of operations for the chain. “When you make a latte, you can’t throw a milk container into the trash instead of recycling.”

One model, Oshman says, is the Grille Zone in Boston, which he calls “the best example of a zero-waste business.”

Through recycling and composting, this GRA-certified burger joint has pared its total waste per day, after serving an average 150 customers in 900 square feet, to half of a standard 55-gallon trash bag. (By Oshman’s calculations, a similar-size restaurant without recycling and composting procedures produces 10 to 12 bags of garbage per day.)

Le Pain Quotidien is working toward such success. Managers in Georgetown regularly check bins for misplaced refuse and call it to the attention of employees. And they continue to look for a company to haul away scrap dough and other food waste for composting.

It’s a difficult challenge, Jenkins says. “We’re looking for a total zero” when it comes to waste, he says, “but we’re not there yet.”

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0118restaurants-ON.html

GRANVILLE, OH — The shoppers come, many on foot, for unique reasons.

For some, it’s the incomparable taste of food made the old-fashioned way, with personal care and real ingredients. For others, it’s the chance to support and get to know local entrepreneurs. Or maybe they are a values customer, seeking goods produced in an Earth-friendly way.

Whatever their motivation, patrons continue to turn out every other Saturday for the Grassroots Farmers Market, which became a year-round market in February 2007.

Between 1994 and 2006, the number of farmers markets in America more than doubled — from 1,755 to 4,385 — according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An 18 percent increase occurred between 2004 and 2006.Granville’s Pilgrim Lutheran Church, at the corner of Broadway and Cherry streets, offers the only winter market in the county. In Franklin County, Worthington started one in 2007.

Sue Renner, one of the market founders, said vendor and shopper attendance fluctuate, but generally the winter market has six to 14 vendors, peddling everything from hormone-free beef and artisan cheeses to handknit-scarves, salsa and homemade candy. The market takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of each month.

Lelia Hoiriis, of Granville, said she has been coming every weekend and specifically seeks out Renner’s baked goods.

On Jan. 12, Hoiriis picked up an apple walnut streusel coffee cake.

“It’s just so delicious,” she said. “She’s my favorite one of all the bakers. It’s all real (ingredients).”

Mary McKee, of Newark, said she also is attracted to the market because of the quality. Her favorite vendor is Long Meadows beef.

“The difference is remarkable,” she said. “It’s full of flavor, and it’s not greasy at all.”

Nancy Rose, co-owner of the Utica farm, said the key to the lean flavor is the fact her cows are grass-fed. They graze on organically grown grasses and hay, which means it takes them longer to reach maturity than grain-fed animals. However, their meat is leaner, and they don’t require antibiotics.

A repeat customer, McKee said the farmers market experience also is a nostalgic one, reminding her of going to the butcher as a child.

“It’s the personal relationship,” she said.

Vendors can rent a booth for $10 on a Saturday. They can bring their own table or borrow one for an extra $5. They must have a vendor’s license, and their wares must be homemade or homegrown in Ohio.

For some, the market business is supplemental income or a hobby — Renner is a full-time nurse. For others, it’s a chance to test-run a future business.

Tim Blake, of Newark, started selling his homemade salsa at the market a few months ago after receiving encouragement from his friends. He has developed nine varieties and is working on a raspberry flavor.

“I just tinkered and tinkered and tinkered for years until I found something I liked,” he said. “It was a joke up until now, but it’s selling pretty well.”

Blake said he grows most of the ingredients in his garden in the summer: tomatoes, onions, peppers. In the winter, he buys his ingredients at the grocery.

Produce is less abundant at the winter market, but Renner said some vendors extend their growing season with greenhouses.

“I normally stock up,” said Shari Ketron, of Granville. “Anymore, how often do you hear another recall? You just don’t know what’s going on in the plants and stuff. It’s nice to support the local people.”

By TIFFANY EDWARDS

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080120/NEWS01/801200307/1002