Kitchen & Bath Sustainable

As the year comes to a close, and K&B Sustainable celebrates six months of life, it seems appropriate to take a look back as we prioritize for ‘09.  What did we learn in 2008 that will shape 2009?  What goals did we set that we did not accomplish and why did we fail to achieve them? What kind of green presence will we see at IBS and K/BIS in the new year? What am I going to do with this Richlite ball I got at the Greenbuild?

These questions and more have defined my work for 2008, and the search for answers (especially about this great ball of Richlite) will be the driving force for 2009.

 K&B Sustainable’s Green Wish List, 2009

1. We’d like to see fewer disputes over things like solar panels and wind turbines among neighbors.  Did you know a wind turbine approved for residential use emits about the same mHz as a humming refrigerator? Don’t know what we’re talking about? See here, here, and here.
2. We’re greedy for green surfaces in the new year, and the choices just keep getting more and more entertaining–colors! Textures! Recycled!  Repurposed!  IceStone!  EcoTop!  Richlite!  Paperstone! Lumicor!  Concrete, too–Fu-Tung Cheng is working on a kind of concrete, called GeoCrete, for residential and commercial use that will not only be green in its composition and assembly, but will also aim to be locally constructed.  His goal, as told to KBDN at a November event for Elkay at Blackman in NYC, is to create a network of artisans around the country who will use his methods to create and fabricate GeoCrete for their local area, with the intent of cutting the product’s overall carbon footprint. Neat stuff!
3. K/BIS!  K/BIS!  K/BIS!  We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz that the show’s going to be a bit scaled-down this year–companies that aren’t abstaining are downsizing their appearance.  We’re eager to see how the economic climate is going to shape the show, and see how companies big and small will use the show and the influx of designers to their advantage.  Neat! We’ll be able to see market adaptation in action (and maybe see some greener booths in the process).  On the wishlist: K/BIS… hurry up and get here already! The show is less than 130 days away, who isn’t excited?
4. We’d like to see President-elect Obama and his new crime fighting eco-team take a look at the California Air Resource Board formaldehyde regulations that will go into effect in January and try to help the rest of the country catch up to California.
5. We’d like to be as funny as TreeHugger and make some lists of our own next year: Top Ten Un-TreeHugger Events of 2008; The Seven Most Un-TreeHugger Products of 2008.  We really hope you didn’t invest in the Poop Freeze.
6. We’d like to hear more from you.  Your comments help to shape our coverage of all things sustainable.

Stay green, stay tuned, and have a wonderful new year!

Andrea

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Andrea Girolamo, Greenbuild, green economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.