A Look at the Top Ten Green Building Products

By Alex Wilson, BuildingGreen, Inc.

Architects, builders, subcontractors and owners, in response to a growing interest in sustainable building, are seeking reliable information about the best in the “green” products marketplace. As more and more products come in to this arena every year, it becomes a challenge to make the best choices.

To fill this information gap, the editors of BuildingGreen and our flagship publication, Environmental Building News, has published our top picks from among thousands of “green” building products. These Top 10 products are drawn primarily from new additions to our company’s GREENSPEC product directory. Our database, which was first published in 2001, includes more than 2,100 products. More than 250 products were added during the past year alone.

Inclusion of the products listed in the GREENSPEC directory earns LEED credits under the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The LEED Green Building Rating System is the national benchmark for high performance “green” buildings.

Our current TotOp 10 picks are listed below:

1. Polished Concrete System from RetroPlate

Polishing concrete is a relatively new technique for turning both new and old concrete slabs into attractive, durable, finished floors. RetroPlate™ (from Advanced Floor Products, Inc.) pioneered this process of grinding, polishing, and chemically hardening (densifying) concrete in the 1990s, and its system has now been used on more than 100 million square feet of flooring. The RetroPlate process was developed by combining European stone grinding and polishing technology with concrete hardening and densifying agents that had been used in North America. In the process, large walk-behind diamond wheel grinders remove between 1/16th and 1/4 inch of the concrete floor surface.

What makes this product green?
• Reduces impact from construction or demolition
• Reduces heating and cooling loads
• Releases minimal pollutants
• Exceptional durability or low-maintenance

2. Salvaged Underwater Standing Timber by Triton Logging

Harvesting underwater standing trees from forests that were submerged decades ago by reservoirs created by hydroelectric dams could add billions of board feet of lumber worldwide. In British Columbia alone, Triton estimates that there are five billion board feet of salvageable underwater timber, and worldwide the total could exceed 100 billion board feet. The company uses its proprietary Sawfish™ logging submarine, which is tethered to a surface ship and controlled remotely. The Sawfish clamps onto a standing tree, attaches inflatable floats and cuts the trunk with an electric chainsaw.
The tree then floats to the surface where it is processed and loaded onto a barge.

What makes this product green?
• Salvaged products
• Extends the life of existing land-based forests

3. SageGlass Tintable Glazing from Sage Electrochromics

This electronically tintable exterior glazing by SageGlass® provides glare control on demand while preserving views. Unlike earlier switchable glazing products that degraded with exposure to UV light, SageGlass is a multi-layer, thin-film tungsten-oxide coating that is as durable as low-emissivity coatings. The glazing uses 0.28 W/ft2 to switch the glass from clear to tinted, a process that takes several minutes, and 0.1 W/ft2 to maintain that tinted state. Used with typical clear glass in an insulated glazing unit, SageGlass reduces the visible transmittance from 62% to 3.5% while reducing the solar heat gain coefficient from 0.48 to 0.09.

What makes this product green?
• Reduces heating and cooling loads
• Improves light quality

4. Certified Composite Surface Material from KlipTech Composites

PaperStone™, from KlipTech Composites, is a dense, hard, water-resistant, solid-surface composite material used for countertops, toilet partitions, and exterior rainscreen siding. It is made from cellulose fiber (paper) and a non-petroleum phenolic resin derived in part from natural phenolic oil in the shells of cashews. KlipTech offers two versions of the product: standard PaperStone contains at least 50% post-consumer recycled paper; while the newer PaperStone Certified has 100% post-consumer recycled paper. The latter product is third-party certified by SmartWood to carry the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) recycled-content label.


What makes this product green?
• Post-consumer recycled content
• Rapidly renewable
• FSC-certified wood
• Low-emitting product with no formaldehyde

5. Recycled-Content Panel Products from 3form, Inc.

Two interior panel products from 3form, Inc. offer interior designers a wide range of design opportunities coupled with recycled content and low emissions. Varia™ is 3form’s line of eye-catching transparent and translucent panels made from its 40% pre-consumer recycled-content Ecoresin™, which is a copolyester (PETG) that is chemically similar to the PET used in beverage containers. Available in a range of colors and patterns, 100 Percent is appropriate for such applications as toilet partitions, interior workstations, and interior trim.

What makes this product green?
• Post-industrial recycled content
• Post-consumer recycled content
• Does not release significant pollutants into the building

6. Recycled-Content Interior Molding from Timbron International

Timbron® International, Inc., produces interior molding in a variety of profiles that are made from at least 90% recycled polystyrene—75% post-consumer and 15% pre-consumer, certified by Scientific Certification Systems. Timbron is highly durable, waterproof, termite-proof, paintable (though also suitable unpainted as white), and fully workable with carpentry tools. While usable anywhere indoors, the product is especially appropriate for kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and basements, where moisture or humidity levels may be high.

What makes this product green?
• Post-consumer recycled content
• Pre-consumer recycled content
• Exceptional durability or low maintenance
• Low emitting

7. Water-Efficient Showerhead with H2Okinetic Technology from Delta

Delta Faucet Company, in April, 2006, introduced a revolutionary showerhead that delivers superb performance using just 1.6 gallons of water per minute. Delta worked with Bowles Fluidics Corporation to develop their H2Okinetic Technology™, which produces droplets that are fairly large, resulting in good heat retention and body wetting. By comparison, many low-flow showerheads either create very small droplets or aerate the water, either action can allow the water to cool quickly and make showering less satisfactory.

What makes this product green?
• Fixtures and equipment that conserve water
• Equipment that conserves energy

8. Smart Irrigation Controls from HydroPoint Data Systems, Inc.

HydroPoint® Data Systems, Inc. has revolutionized irrigation management in North America through its WeatherTRAK
® irrigation control systems that create watering schedules based on physical landscape features (soil type, slope, and plantings) as well as weather data that is beamed wirelessly to the controllers each day. While most irrigation controllers base water delivery on time-of-day metering, sometimes with override controls for soil moisture, the WeatherTRAK system uses actual local weather conditions to examine evapotranspiration (ET) rates and regulate water delivery accordingly—so that irrigation will occur in the correct amounts and not if rainfall is occurring or predicted.

What makes this product green?
• Fixtures and equipment that conserve water
• Reduces stormwater pollution

9. Indirect Evaporative Air Conditioner from Coolerado, LLC

The Coolerado Cooler is a revolutionary air conditioning system that relies on the evaporation of water (latent heat of vaporization) to cool a space, but its similarity to standard evaporative coolers, or swamp coolers, is so remote that the company does not even use the term “evaporative” to describe its product. Conventional (direct) evaporative coolers cool the air that is blown into the living space by evaporating water into that air, raising the humidity. Direct-indirect evaporative coolers introduce less moisture, but still raise humidity.

What makes this product green?
• Energy savings

10. Renewable Energy Credits from Community Energy, Inc.

Renewable energy credits (RECs), often referred to as “green tags,” provide a way for building owners who are unable to install their own renewable energy systems to buy conventional grid power, while also buying the environmental attributes of electricity produced from renewable energy. Buyers of RECs aren’t actually getting electrons derived from wind, solar, or other renewable energy sources, but by paying extra for their power—from a fraction of a cent to several cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh)—they are helping to displace conventional grid power and subsidize the further development of renewables. Quantitatively, each renewable energy credit (or certificate) aligns with one megawatt-hour (MWh) of clean, renewable electricity generation.

What makes this product green?
• Renewable Energy

More complete descriptions and contact information about these products is available in the online edition of GreenSpec or Environmental Building News, both of which are available through the BuildingGreen Suite of online information from
BuildingGreen Inc. (www.BuildingGreen.com). Manufacturers do not pay to be listed in GreenSpec, and neither GreenSpec nor any other BuildingGreen publication carries advertising; both are supported exclusively by users of the information. A new 7th edition of the printed GreenSpec Directory will be published in 2007. Alex Wilson is founder and president of BuildingGreen, Inc. in Brattleboro, Vermont and executive editor of Environmental Building News. He is the author of “Your Green Home, a Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home,” published in 2006 by New Society Publishers.

For more than 25 years Alex has written about energy-efficient and environmentally responsible design and construction. Prior to starting his own company in 1985, he was executive director of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. Alex served on the board of directors of the U.S. Green Building Council for five years and he is currently a trustee of The Nature Conservancy , Vermont Chapter.