Remodeling Green

From Jetson Green (via Reuters) are ten practical steps you can take "green remodel" your home. As a renter I feel so disconnected from the idea of making my place greener...but that's no excuse not to at least change the lightbulbs (in progress), monitor the natural gas usage and waterflow (slightly guilty) and recycle.

Also, I'm finally starting to notice more AdWords (Google text ads) popping up for green build/remodel companies like Tellus Group in Santa Ana, CA, which tends to come up near the top of a "green remodel" search. We'll see more companies bidding on these keywords is my guess.

Finally, here's LivingGreen, a California retailer of green home design products, with three Southern Cal locations. This business is a relative veteran in the green retailing space, as it was launched by Ellen Strickland in 1999.

February 2 Links: Green Buildings and Remodeling

Green Eggs & Planet reviews the 10 Greenest Buildings in the World, including the Robert Redford Building, home of the National Resources Defense Council, an awesome urban remodeling achievement. The link reminds me that I was recently proud about a huge Northwest Ohio company's achievement- Owens-Illinois' new headquarters in Perrysburg achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification, although not as sad I am that the company moved out of downtown Toledo and massive glass tower and into the 'burbs.

Now we're getting somewhere! Aptera, a Carlsbad, CA, company who's developmental electronic vehicle looks as futuristic as we all secretly hope the next generation of automobiles will be.


Interesting Discovery Channel article on GreenMobile, a Mississsippi State University effort to develop a sustainable alternative in rural housing. Pre-fabricated, eco-conscious and therefore not a far off cousin from higher-profile green housing start-ups, GreenMobile is blatantly aimed at a different market, and not afraid of the word "Mobile." Also interesting how simple some of the innovations are, like which direction the house faces as a way of controlling the temperature.

Green Eggs has some other nice posts recently, including a Top 10 list of (relatively obscure) home-cleaning products.

Quick video excerpt from "Nubian Cheetah" on Eden Campus, "Africa's First Green Business School."

Earth Friendly Moving, a Costa Mesa start-up that is reinventing moving with Recopack, a system of reusable plastic containers (instead of one-and-done cardboard boxes!)

A fascinating "Web Trend Map" produced by FormForce (Japan). I love the random, disconnected offshoot at the top of the subway-style map that contains a bunch of random webtrends, like Netflix, Sendspace and bunch of other media-sharing services.

Link to SCSI, a Massachusetts company that does green residential remodeling projects. Why is there not an all-out scrum among contractors in higher-end markets to become THE green remodeler in each market.

(There must be progress in some markets: Vivavi's directory of Green Remodelers...3 and counting! One's in New York, of course, but the other two are in Humboldt, CA and DeForest, WI.)

Press release about MaestroReading.com winning the Business Development Bank's Enterprize 2007 biz plan competition in Montreal, and $15,000. The start-up is working on elementary literacy tools and curriculum. I believe there is huge room for improvement in the student literacy arena...more to come on that!

Fascinated by Lumber

The fascination of the month here has been with wood and lumber. At least two varieties that draw our attention: sustainably harvested, and reclaimed. (Photo: Carlisle)

Companies like EcoTimber, Citilog, and Carlisle sell similarly inspired wood products.

I'm not personally in the market for flooring, framing or any other wooden building products, but if I was, I know right what I'd do: get something reclaimed, or at least harvested in a responsible way.

Thanks to BuildingGreen.com for some cool links.

Ohio Turns Its Money Toward The Future

Congratulations to Ohio for taking its $18B share of tobacco settlement money, reports Kenny Luna on Treehugger, in a $5B lump sum and reinvesting it in green building principles at public schools. Tough to say definitively that this is a worthier cause than youth tobacco education, as was the original plan, but nonetheless noteworthy.

Green Vision in Toledo

We at The Optimist Company are so proud of the visionaries driving downtown Toledo's development of a green arena. According to Jessica Luther at Toledo City Paper, it's Tina Skeldon Wozniak and the Lucas County Commissioners, in cahoots with building supplies giant Owens Corning (owners of a green building themselves, and headquartered a few blocks away on the downtown banks of the Maumee River), pushing for the new multi-purpose venue to attain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building certified status. Read the link for a meatier explanation of what this designation means.

But to suffice it to say, to whatever extent it happens (and we'll track the early-stage story, as the ground-breaking ceremony was just today and not all green plans are yet in place) it will be a great merit badge for the city and a statement of T-town's commitment to urban regeneration and the environment!

The Green Building Void, and Green Sacramento

From the New York Times archives I recalled this Christine Larson article about the difficulty for homeowners in finding building and remodeling contractors when you want to "build green."

My take is that the difficulty-to-date has inspired a number of homeowners to be entrepreneurial in their remodeling efforts: scouring obscure sources for recycled materials, learning about resource-saving heating and cooling and electricity options, sometimes even taking the DIY approach to installing green elements. It's an inspired, hands-on attitude and the polar opposite of the "How big can we make our new addition?" approach portrayed by Catherine Keener in Friends with Money, where it takes her the whole movie to realize that her new bird's nest bedroom is going to destroy her neighbors' view.

But obviously it shouldn't be so difficult to build green, and it definitely suggests a lot of business opportunities, from local contractors of every trade stepping out as the go-to greenerers
in the community to the potential for building a national name-brand purveyor of residential solar equipment, as Jennifer Alsever suggests in the current Fast Company. Alsever sites cost as the limiting factor, to-date at least, but it seems like we're collectively crossing that bridge- especially since earlier adopters would intuitively come from a more affluent crowd anyway. Alsever offers up Citizenrē, Newpoint Energy Solutions, SolarCity and SunTechnics as early contenders.

Maybe it will be a scrappy start-up that takes the lead in delivering the green goods to homes efficiently and profitably. Or maybe it will be:

-A manufacturer, like First Solar (whose manufacturing plant is near my hometown in Perrysburg, Ohio) that successful develops a direct-to-consumer distribution model
-A reigning home improvement giant like Home Depot or Lowe's or even Target or Wal-Mart that takes green beyond its current limelight
-Even a public utility that finds a clever way to market gear and services to users

But my bet and hope is that it will be a more entrepreneurial endeavor that takes the lead, and possibly one that uses the "webfront" model that Nau is applying in the apparel market especially since it's intuitive for a green retailer to NOT inhabit a 100,000 sq ft big box joint.

Maybe Larson has already identified a future green-retailing powerhouse in her Times article in her cover subject Green Sacramento, a start-up created by frustrated home remodelers Josh and Joy Daniels. Check it out.

I Bought Bamboo (TruBamboo and Enrico Products)

I bought some bamboo. I didn’t know much about bamboo until recently, associating it mostly with pandas and China since the late-80’s panda exhibit at the Toledo Zoo. I definitely have seen more of it since being in California more over the last few years but still never considered bamboo beyond it’s decorative aesthetic- even as I started to learn about sustainability and green building.

It was only last year when a friend sent me a bunch of links to unique etailers that I started to look at this spectacular grass differently. Check out Seattle-based Enrico Products.

The holiday season came and went and I couldn’t think of anyone to buy a bamboo cutting board for, but I finally did (me) and I picked it up at Ralph’s in Huntington Beach. The maker is TruBamboo of West Palm Beach, Florida, and their fantastic packaging says it all. I seriously expect their fine cutting board to be in our kitchen for dozens of happy years before becoming a handsome and decorative culinary heirloom.

Bamboo seems too good to be true- especially the durability and fast growth. If you know of any downsides, let it be heard in the comments. Otherwise, I’m on the lookout for more cool bamboo stuff- especially flooring.

LivingHomes and Steve Glenn: Inspiring The Optimist

When LivingHomes launched last year, it was the first I’d really heard about modular construction or sustainable living, and the first time I thought about the business attitude that later inspired The Optimist. LivingHomes is fittingly our first Optimist Company.

The pioneering developer of eco-friendly modular residential construction, LivingHomes launched last year, installing their first home in one day last April in at their home base in Santa Monica, CA (check out the amazing video diary). Their houses are high-end, cool, and make only a tiny “ecological footprint.” LivngHomes is on the leading edge of Green building, and last April their model home was the first residence to attain the U.S. Green Building Council’s Platinum certification in the LEED ratings program. The home is a big zero, as in zero waste, zero emissions, zero carbon...

Founder Steve Glenn is a successful serial entrepreneur, the founder and former CEO of PeopleLink, and an alum of the dotcom incubator eCompanies, . He’s also a friend of Pepperdine University graduate marketing professor Molly Lavik, who invited him to speak at the Graziadio School of Business and Management last year. He sat casually on an entrepreneurial panel and talked about his goals: Profit and Purpose. He wasn’t the first to use those words- just the first time I’d ever thought about business on those blunt terms.

What I love about LivingHomes is that they are a "Green" company unabashedly targeting a luxury market. They went with an A-List architect (Ray Kappe) and definitely do not scrimp on the interior fixings (check out the great photography in the November Dwell.) And they definitely could have found a cheaper test market than Santa Monica.

(I actually think it’s a perfect test market: there are thousands of Considerate Consumers within a few miles, a vibrant entrepreneurial and media community in L.A., and an appreciation for high-end residential design, eco-friendly or not. There are also enough squalid, broke-down, environmentally disastrous eyesores nearby to contrast a constant reminder of how far we have to go in building responsibly.)

Critics have been quick to grunt, “So what? LivingHomes is for the wealthy; out of reach for the masses.” That’s exactly the point. Optimism- and in this case, sustainable building- isn’t about trying to change the world at the expense of running a solid business. If you believe that businesses are in a great position to lead social change, then it still has to be business-as-usual; The business model has to be sustainable. As former Patagonia CEO Michael Crooke said at the 2006 LOHAS conference, “It’s not enough to be eco-grovy.”

LivingHomes’ business model is to serve a high-end market with a high-end home that also happens to be the first to be LEED Platinum-Certified. And that’s what I love about it- they saw the luxury home buyer as one worth targeting with a "Green" product. It's no low-margin business serving as a vehicle for a purely altruistic cause (although there is clearly a huge role for business-like leadership in the non-profit arena). Instead it's a seasoned entrepreneur addressing an underserved market, and it's a great sign that the demand is there, as are the leaders interested in pursuing it.

Press: Business 2.o