Getting green Philadelphia PA

Green trends are hitting every aspect of our lives it seems. Lately, it's hard to get through a week without hearing about it.

Although it has recently generated a lot of buzz, green is by no means a new concept. For example, the Rainforest Alliance's forestry program started in 1987, which later resulted in the formation of the Forest Stewardship Council in 1994, says Liza Murphy, senior manager of marketing and market development in the forestry division of the Rainforest Alliance.

"We're at a point where there's a fulcrum that happens when people don't know which way to go, and I think we've hit that tilting point," Murphy says. "The emerging research studies that are being done right now are linking green building to a better process, a better environment, and to reducing the impact on our planet.

"It's not something we talk about after dinner in a 'gee wouldn't it be nice' kind of way any more. There are things out there, like the LEED standards, which say very clearly this is the considered opinion of the experts about how you build a green building. So, we've got those guidelines, which are always helpful. It's good to have a checklist. Somebody tell me what to do, and I'll go do it!

"And then I think the second half of that equation is not only do we have the guidelines because we've known this stuff for awhile, but now the products are available."

CHAIN OF CUSTODY CERTIFICATION

Certification for people in the forestry management side of the business can be very involved. However, for the manufacturer of secondary wood products, certification is much simpler.

"If a builder is using FSC (certified product), they don't necessarily need to be certified, but if they want to say this is an FSC certified house, then in fact they do because what's crucial in the FSC system is that credibility, that claim," Murphy says.

Chain of custody certification is based on inventory management.

"The further you are out in the supply chain, the easier this is because you are already doing it for the most part," Murphy says. "You know where you got this wood. You know where you got these components."

A manufacturer who is seeking certification should contact one of the certification bodies for an application. They will also have to supply some basic information about their company — what industry, what size, how many locations, etc. With that information, Murphy explains, a proposal will be generated including a budget, a timeline and some information on what the company needs to do to participate. In general, the cost for chain of custody certification ranges between $2,500 and $3,000. However, in some cases it could be more or less, Murphy says.

"So depending on your size, even for a small operation it's not a huge figure," Murphy says. "There are some people out there that are assuming it's tens of thousands of dollars, and it's far from that. For very big operations with many sites, it can be more expensive."

Murphy cautions that things can get slightly complex when manufacturing a product that has multiple inputs, cabinetmaking for example.

"You may have veneers; you may have particleboard; you may have plywood; and you may have some solid wood. You need to be able to track that and do some calculations about which is FSC and which isn't," she says.

After the application has been submitted, an auditor will schedule time to sit down with you to review the process and the planning you've done to put it in place.

"They answer any questions, and if they think at the end of that process that you have got the ability to respond to this adequately and put these in place, you're certified," Murphy says.

Being certified does not mean you can only use FSC certified materials. What it does mean is if you are going to promote your products as being FSC, then there is a very specific set of rules about what can and can't be in the product. "It's fairly straightforward," Murphy says.

Murphy also stresses that the audit for chain of custody certification does not look at environmental or social conditions. It looks only at the credibility of a manufacturer's inventory system.

"It does not look at their environmental practices," she says. "That has some good and some bad to it because it is not a one-stop answer. Just because you are FSC doesn't mean you're not using high VOCs."

COST DIFFERENCES

In the past it was often the case that every processor who handled a certified product added its own premium mark-up to it. "I've seen plywood that has had a premium as high as 70 percent on it," Murphy says. "What that tells me is that every single person in the supply chain added their 15. Everybody got a little greedy."

However, that should no longer be the case, she says. The closer in the process you are to the forest, the more appropriate it may be to add a premium to the cost. Murphy says the mark-up should rarely be any more than 5 to 7 percent.

"Once the cabinetmaker sees that he can sell his product — a green product — better, the product costs will be reduced because more and more people are going to get involved in developing the products that go into the cabinet," Bob Blakeman, LEED A.P., principal at Paulus, Sokolowski & Sartor Architecture, PC, says.

Murphy expects the price premiums to go away once enough manufacturers get involved in green projects. The new LEED for Homes initiative should help with that, she says.

"As LEED for homes roles out to full production this summer, we're already seeing the same dynamic happen. I'm seeing companies that offer 2x4's a year and a half ago at a 10 percent or a 15 percent premium are now down to 5 percent, and they'll negotiate on the 5 percent," she explains.

BENCHMARKING

The LEED for Homes pilot test is still underway and will conclude in the fall. After the pilot test has concluded, the U.S. Green Building Council will launch the LEED for Homes rating system.

Blakeman credits the USGBC and the LEED program for providing a benchmark for green. "Five years ago everyone said they were green," he says. "Everybody in the design profession was saying we're green and the same thing with everybody in the product development group would say they're green. I think the problem that we're getting into right now is that products are so complex. You can start with materials that may have low VOCs in them or are recycled material, and then they go to a second production line, where maybe a finish is put on them, and the finish is a high VOC."

Blakeman points to bamboo as an example. The majority of bamboo is from China; however, it is being manufactured into secondary wood products somewhere else.

"To follow the chain of the product's development, to make sure that all the things that were done to it align themselves with a green product is the hard part," Blakeman says. "I think if you were able to say you were a cabinetmaker and you were a green product and you could explain your chain of creation of development of your production, I think you would get a lot easier sell on the product you're making."

He points out, most builders and most owners don't want to spend weeks and months trying figure out if something is green, and what was done to a product every step along the way.

"The neat thing about certifications is they are black and white," Blakeman says.