Green Home: Turn Your Home a Shade of Green

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In Green We Trust

Not everything is as green as it claims. So how do you avoid being greenwashed?

The next time you are in the store, pay attention to the number of products hawking their “greenness” from the shelves. Green seals, leaf graphics, recycling symbols, and claims of “good for the environment” and “green by design” are just about everywhere. The green movement is red hot, and businesses and products are rushing to jump on board. It’s no different in home-related industries.

“Green construction is about building or remodeling to make (homes) more efficient, healthier, and to improve the life of the occupant and the impact on the community,” says Michael Anschel, principal of Otogawa-Anschel Design-Build in Minneapolis and vice president of the Minnesota GreenStar board of directors. “There is a trust the consumer is placing in that word.”

 

Shades of green

Unfortunately, not all that which is touted as “green” would pass scrutiny. While some of claims are legitimate, what others mean is anyone’s guess.

“They might have a shade of truth to them, but they might be exaggerated…it’s really false advertising,” explains Kevin Flynn, AIA, LEED AP, architect for St. Paul-based EcoDEEP and the vice president of the board of directors for the Mississippi Headwaters chapter of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

This practice of misleading consumers is known as greenwashing. It’s not new—the term was coined more than 20 years ago. But greenwashing has become increasingly prevalent as the green movement has swelled to the forefront of consumer and industry consciousness. The resulting flood of product and service marketing inevitably leads to consumer confusion: What’s green? What’s not? And how do I know the difference?

 

Spotting greenwashing

Rarely is there an obvious method to spotting greenwashing. But it often appears in the shelter industry in one of several forms.

“Some of the most common are when a manufacturer or builder tries to create the impression that their product is green without any evidence, with facts that are misrepresentative of the whole truth, or that are irrelevant,” Anschel says.
Look for:

• Products that make vague claims about recycled content, or that tout their own recyclability (most things can be recycled, Anschel says, but few are).
• Manufacturers who call their industry-standard manufacturing processes green.
• A long, complex ingredients list. “If it contains a lot of chemicals you can’t pronounce, it’s probably not good,” Flynn says.
• Builders or remodelers who use one or two green strategies or products and call themselves green companies. “Single strategies typically don’t work, especially in building design or construction,” Flynn says. “You need to have a holistic approach.” Says Anschel: “Pointing to one attribute…is not fair.”
• Any green claim that sounds vague and cannot be verified.

In the end, it might be easier to spot what is green by looking for trusted verification on a product or home.

“Look for objective third-party entities that rate or approve those products—those that have withstood some scrutiny and have gone through a rigor of documentation that proves their performance and their environmental benefit claims,” Flynn advises.

Some examples are Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for wood products; GREENGUARD for products that do not degrade indoor air quality; Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes; and MN GreenStar. MN GreenStar and LEED certify that a home has been built to a verifiable standard for efficiency, sustainability, and health. LEED is a national program; GreenStar is unique to Minnesota.

“The reason for the U.S. Green Building Council and Minnesota GreenStar is, in many ways, to eliminate greenwashing, to standardize and specifically say, ‘This defines green,’” Anschel says.

 

Authentically green

Through greenwashing is a real part of today’s shelter landscape, plenty of builders and remodelers are legitimately green. Again, a surefire way to spot them is to look for independent certification. Those touting their greenness ought to be able to show you some kind of verifiable proof.

“The easy way for a homeowner to know if it’s green or not is to make sure that it’s certified,” Anschel says. “If it’s a remodeling project, and you want to make sure it’s green, demand certification…what other product do we spend that amount of money on that hasn’t been inspected?” The cost for GreenStar certification is minimal, he adds, and the tests it requires are a good idea to verify that the home is performing as it was designed.

Seek companies that are involved with organizations like MN GreenStar or the USGBC. In fact, Flynn says, this is a great way for those in the industry to show their commitment to green.

Anschel agrees: “The more all of us who are looking to do that type of work unify our voice, the easier it will be for consumers to identify leather from pleather,” he says. “Eventually, I think there will be very little work done that will not be green. Everybody who builds green now, you are positioning yourself to be around in the future.”
 

Green Home: Turn Your Home a Shade of Green

Gathering Daylight » Good Taste, Green Flavor » Greenhome Resources » Growing Up Green » Mélange » Sensible Sustainability—A Farmhouse with a Twist » The Or-Green-Ized Closet »

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