Green Options

Green building is about healthy settings with visual appeal. The goal is to create rooms for physical, emotional, mental and spiritual benefits. That means avoiding things like airborne allergens, chemicals, and clutter.

Yet the study of indoor air pollution can get complex. Hence, no surprise of this month’s announcement that the LEED accreditation system introduced by the U.S. Green Building Council was revamped.

The U.S. Green Building Council is unveiling a new system for evaluating health care facilities that is less stringent than normal LEED ratings. Will it work?

Reading forums about the evolution and revolution of organic and natural cosmetics is absolutely mind boggling. Think of revamping the FDA for insight! By necessity, the proposed standards are written for those who know chemistry.

The good news is that this daunting task for harmony is getting done. International collaboration between six European certification bodies: ICEA (Italy), BDIH (Germany), Bioforum (Belgium), Cosmebio/Ecocert (France) and Soil Association (UK) is in process now. Combined they aim to clarify requirements and definitions for organic and/or natural cosmetics to appease formulators and consumers alike.

[Image credit: Derek Baird at Flickr under a Creative Commons license]

Atlanta is big, y’all. The Greater Metropolitan Area consists of 10 counties, and is home to over 4 million residents. Faced with a growing population, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is working to encourage more sustainable growth in the metro-Atlanta area through its new Green Communities Program.

As I’m still getting back into the groove of regular writing, I’m a bit late to the game on Danielle Sack’s profile of/hit piece on architect and “cradle to cradle” guru William McDonough in Fast Company. As you might imagine, this one’s already made the rounds of the green blogosphere, and most of these posts involve a healthy degree of introspection regarding McDonough’s place as a “green messiah,” and the worth of the ideas he’s spent much of his career promoting.

So, let’s get some issues out of the way. No, McDonough and partner Michael Braungart did not originally conceive of the concept with which they’re most famously associated: as Hunter Lovins notes in the article, “Walter Stahel in Switzerland actually coined the phrase [cradle to cradle] 25 years ago, long before Bill started using it.” McDonough doesn’t live in a “green” house. He’s likely blown some deals with companies like Interface and Nike by demanding too much money, and making unreasonable intellectual property claims. Some of his projects haven’t lived up to the hoopla (if they’ve been finished at all). And, for all I know, he may well be an arrogant, self-serving jerk (I don’t know the man).

With all of that said, though, my primary reaction is “OK… but does any of this really matter?”

No doubt McDonough, like the rest of us, is a flawed human being, and perhaps many of us have been willing to grant him hero status prematurely (we’ve certainly sung his praises numerous times here at sustainablog). I think if we get caught up in the “battle of Bill,” though, we miss the more important issues here: the relevance and importance of cradle to cradle design, the legitimacy of certification processes for “green” products, and the relationship of these concepts to consumption in general.

Governments are beginning to mandate green building for some new construction, and that ought to be a cause for celebration. But because of the way these requirements are made, the possibility of problems arising when a building does not meet a required level of green building could lead to legal difficulties and lawsuits.

(Image source: www.treehugger.com)

Ecolabelling.org — looking behind the labels
What’s green? And who says so?

Ecolabels are everywhere from Wal-Mart’s “seafood aisle” to my local grocery store. But, at the end of day, what do these labels really mean? Who’s behind them?

And, most importantly, can I rely on them to make my certified no-rainforests-were-destroyed-in-the-making-of-this-latte latte?

Ecolabelling.org – your source on the background of over 285 ecolabels around the world – makes it easier to [...]

Do you know where your coffee comes from? Next time you reach for your cup of joe, consider these three things before you drink.

• Fair trade. The fair trade certification label ensures that the workers or farmers who produce a product receive a fair price for their goods and have improved labor conditions. The fair trade label also often includes a measure of environmental sustainability and responsibly managed farms.

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In 1988, in an effort to expand the distribution of fair trade products to mainstream retailers, a Dutch Alternative Trade Organization, Solidaridad, established a creative solution to increase sales while maintaining consumer trust. The organization created a label, called Max Havelaar, which guaranteed that the goods met certain labor and environmental standards. The label, first only applied to coffee, was named after a best-selling 19th century book about the exploitation [...]

When you purchase carbon credits to offset your personal greenhouse gas emissions, do you really know where that money is going or how those credits are counted in the market? The Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) will make sure you do with their upcoming Green-e Certified Greenhouse Gas Reduction Product Certification Program.

CRS has been in the renewable energy certification and verification business for ten years. Their Green-e certification programs

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You've seen the Fair Trade and Certified Organic logos on product packaging indicating responsibly produced goods. Now Whole Foods is adding another one to the mix, the Whole Trade Guarantee.

The Whole Trade label criteria ensures environmentally responsible practices, more money for producers and farmers, and better working conditions and higher wages for workers. Whole Foods is working with TransFair USA, a certifier of fair trade products in the US, and the

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