Kitchen & Bath Sustainable

Happy World Environment Day!  For the uninitiated, today is the U.N.’s equivalent of Earth Day.  To learn more, check out the WED Web site here.

When you’re there, be sure to check out the Twitter for Trees (@UNEPandyou, for you Twitter twits out there) campaign and updates of David de Rothschild’s amazing Plastiki project.

(More about Plastiki, de Rothschild’s project to bring awareness to the cess pit that is the North Pacific Gyre, a story worthy of coverage in this reporter’s opinion, available here at The New Yorker)

Photo: BuffaloReadings.com, via TreeHugger.

Bulbrite’s here to help.

The New Jersey-based company just announced it’s conducting monthly Webinars on what it’s calling “LED Basics”–what they are, how they work, and what their potential holds for energy efficiency.

See the complete release and info on how to sign yourself up, after the jump.

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1. TreeHugger’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair coverage reports that the office of the future will be ruled by sobriety (that’s good news), Google and fewer resources utilized.
2. Greener By Design also happened this week in San Francisco and entrepreneurs, inventors, investors and regular Joes from around the globe gathered to talk about why so much design is bad design and how to make it good and, well, green. Of course, William McDonough was there.
3. GreenSource has photos of Austin’s Urban Reserve up and wow is it cool (because of geothermal air conditioning–ba-dum-ching!)

Anything great and green happening in your ‘hood?  Leave it in the comments!

HGTV is practically required viewing for us scribes here at KBDN.  Nobody loves a good floorplan like we do.

But apart from its fix-it shows and the remodeling disaster diaries, HGTV has stepped up to the plate for green and really hit it out of the sustainably managed park, so to speak.  From groundbreaking programming to sponsoring an annual Green Home, the network is doing a lot of legwork for the sustainable design cause.

So that’s why I was particularly thrilled to see that the network’s Green Home earn some Brownie points and recognition from the powers-that-be at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA announced this week that the 2009 Green Home in Port St. Lucie, FL  has earned both the Indoor AirPlus and Energy Star labels.  Doesn’t hurt that it’s pretty, either–protects viewers from visual pollution!

For more about the 2009 Green Home including product, process and professionals involved, visit HGTV’s Green Home Web site here.

Read the release after the jump, and let me know what you think of the photos in the comments.

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 We interrupt this regularly scheduled K/BIS to update a story I hope you’ve been following as much as I have.

 Remember Greensburg, KS?  Remember how an F5 tornado 1.7 miles wide flattened 90% of the structures in town on Friday, May 5, 2007?  With virtually nothing left standing in Greensburg but the grain elevator, the New York Times reported on May 7, 2007 that the town of approximately 1,500 would have to be completely rebuilt. 

 Seven days later, there was already talk of rebuilding, and the town leaders were beginning to envision emerging from the tragedy.

 July brought the exciting news that Greensburg was literally going to become a Green burg, and the sustainable building folks rejoiced.  The goal: LEED Platinum, the first-ever city to aim for the rating. Zero-energy commercial buildings, houses and schools. Wind power, solar power, energy efficient everything. mong some donors to the reemerging town are names familiar to us in the k&b world like Caroma, Evolve and on the architectural/building side, companies such as Dryvit and PF Waterworks.

 And after one year had passed, the Discovery’s Planet Green channel announced that a new reality program called simply ‘Greensburg’, which had been in planning stages shortly after the LEED announcement, would follow the town’s journey from grisly scene to lean and green.

 Now, it’s the two-year anniversary of the tornado, the bustling town is well into its restructuring and is holding their annual celebration to mark the event.  Not only that, Planet Green renewed the town’s series for a second season; the season premiere is this Monday, May 4… it’s worth a look, for sure.  Check out details and local air times at Planet Green.

 Important themes here for green building and design in general, and a landmark achievement all around for everyone involved; it’s the making of lemonade from organic lemons, to be sure. I’ll be back with more K/BIS coverage later today.

 Stay green, America!

(To see the New York Times’ extensive coverage of the tornado and the rebuilding of Greensburg, click here).

This year’s Marchin’ right along!  We’re marching to the beat of a different drummer this year!… OK, enough with the March puns, and down to some green housekeeping.  Let’s get caught up with some good green news.

First, a convenient slideshow–TreeHugger shows you what the new Prez is going to help you buy, via tax credits in the new stimulus package.

Nick Grohe of Hansgrohe addresses low-flow, aeration and the various green benefits water products can provide in this handy-dandy Q&A.

The USGBC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (doesn’t that sound peaceful?) with BREEAM, Green Star, Green Building Council Australia and the UK Green Building Council to get the beginnings of a standard metric of CO2 emissions assessment in new home and building construction started.  Read it here.

Stimulating any part of the economy right now would be good, but it’s refreshing to see green-collar jobs are not getting lost in the financial meltdown two-step we’re witnessing.

To wit, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Don’t get the agency’s e-updates? Sign up here.  Are you on Twitter? They’re at @usepanews) sent out this rather reassuring press release yesterday:

Stimulus Plan Will Create Sustainable Jobs That Will Protect Public Health  

Contact: Enesta Jones, 202-564-7873 / jones.enesta@epa.gov
 

(Washington, D.C. – Feb. 19, 2009) The economic recovery plan signed by President Obama will create 3 to 4 million quality, sustainable jobs with many protecting our country’s public health and our environment.   

   “Through the President’s stimulus package, green initiatives will play a significant role in powering economic recovery,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “EPA’s portion of the plan will create good, sustainable jobs that help produce cleaner drinking water, purer air, environmentally friendly urban and rural re-development, and reduced greenhouse gases. This is a perfect example of economic growth and environmental protection working hand in hand to the benefit of all Americans.” 

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Google has given the world many neat Internet innovations: Froogle, for price comparisons; Google Image Search, for those times when you absolutely need to see what a cuban tree frog looks like, and GMail, with its free, unlimited storage capacity.

Now Google is giving users an easy way to check their hom energy consumption by adding an audit tool, Google Power Meter, to its stable of products in development, reports the New York Times.

More about Power Meter and some green news from paint giant Sherwin-Williams after the jump. (more…)

It’s very likely, if you live in the northeast that you’ve heard of Davis & Warshow.  The Maspeth, NY-based company has been a major supplier of kitchen and bath fixtures, tiles and plumbing products for 83 years. KBDN has featured D&W for its achievements in the past, and now K&B Sustainable is working with the company to bring you a snapshot of Implementing Green in action!

So what the heck am I talking about?  Davis & Warshow, which has eight sales showrooms and four distribution centers in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, NY, is turning its original 8.5-acre Maspeth headquarters into what they are calling “Practically Green.”

“Practically Green” is D&W’s sustainability manifesto, a kind of small business model for committing to green in what the company calls a “pragmatic, progressive” way.

“There’s no way to flip a switch and be carbon neutral overnight,” says v.p. David Finkel.  The company has begun implementing the changes which it hopes will eventually lead the Maspeth location to qualify for LEED status.

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What’s more green than a grassroots effort? How about a green grassroots effort?

Listening to the needs and wants of your clientele has always been a central part of the design business–put this to work as you move forward with your plans for implementing sustainability, as well.  One firm did and here’s the result:

This page, The GREEN Corner, was launched on the Sorensen Design Group in response to the expressed growing interest in sustainability among the firm’s client base, according to executive v.p. Steve Sorensen.

Efforts like this one allow Sorensen and his firm the opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and positions the firm as experts in the field–all just by publicizing things the firm is already doing.

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