PHOENIX — When the Greenbuild Expo 2009 landed in Phoenix Nov. 9 with 30,000 participants, the circus came to town for Mick Dalrymple. He runs the a.k.a. Green Eco-Friendly Building Center, the Phoenix area’s first store of its kind.

Phoenix Convention Center

Dalrymple also sits on the national board of the U.S. Green Building Council, the organizer of Greenbuild Expo and International Conference, which this year (its eighth) has packed 1,800 exhibitors into the recently expanded Phoenix Convention Center.

An electrical engineer, former Hollywood filmmaker and graduate of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Dalrymple first came to green building as a way out of an oil-based U.S. national security policy. He would give talks on how green building could lead to energy independence, and when people complained they couldn’t find where to buy these mysterious carbon-neutral products, he opened a store.

Dalrymple has enthusiasm and some concern for the abundant new green technologies and materials on hand.

Just as former Vice President Al Gore cautioned the green builders at an opening celebration Wednesday night, Dalrymple warned against “greenwashing” – selling something as green that isn’t.

“The business has become more mainstream and a lot of the traditional channels are starting to be populated with ‘light’ green materials. They may be better, but nowhere near what is possible, or they may use toxins or child labor to produce it,” Dalrymple said, noting that the maze of certifications in the industry sometimes can lead to more, rather than less confusion. He also mentions the small percentage of recycled materials in some so-called recycled products: “Why not recycle more? I want to see more things recycled—pecan shells or pistachio shells—stuff people normally think of as waste. Why is it waste?”

Dalrymple also has some idea of where the wild things are at the jam-packed Greenbuild Expo 2009.

• LED residential lighting
  

“I’ve been waiting five years for the next step in LED. I think this will be the year of the LED. I have a background in film and I just love lights,” Dalrymple said.

Cree's Indoor Recessed Light

He may be right. LEDs (light-emitting diodes), traditionally the light on your clock radio—use less energy, live eons longer, dosn’t emit heat, work with a dimmer switch and don’t contain the mercury of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Until now, LED fixtures have been too expensive and didn’t look “warm” enough for household use. New technology has improved the products and brought the price down. The life of an LED can be 50,000 hours (or more than 5 years if you left it on around the clock).

Cree LED Lighting, a growing green company based in North Carolina, is working to improve the quality and price of LEDs. Cree offers “Cree True White Technology,” to deliver warm color and very high efficiency. Its LR6 LED uses 12 watts to deliver the equivalent of a 65watt incandescent. LR6 and other fixtures can be retrofitted into existing recessed lighting hook-ups, last about 12 years in homes and cost under $100.

RAB Lighting’s outdoor LPack, made for over garage doors and pathway lighting, uses about 13 Watts to light the equivalent of a 55 watt  incandescent for 50,000 hours; at $140, it comes in a cool aluminum housing that looks sort of like an over-sized Blackberry.

• Composite Flooring.

“Shredded bamboo is now made into flooring that has patterns and looks fabulous. And the popularity of cork flooring is growing, almost replacing bamboo,” Dalrymple said.

A fast-growing grass, bamboo is a renewable resource, but for optimal environmental imprint, it shouldn’t be harvested before 5.5 years and should come from the hardy moso species. Ask questions when shopping.  Some manufacturers use formaldehyde for bonding—but they don’t have to.

Teragren Flooring doesn’t use formaldehyde and offers an array of Floorscore-certified  (a third-party certification by Scientific Certification Systems) bamboo flooring; this year Teregren sells water and bacteria-resistant countertops, in addition to flooring.

Sustainable Flooring's shower cork

Cork flooring isn’t exactly new – Frank Lloyd Wright used it in his 1936 masterpiece Fallingwater with good reason.  It’s a natural insulator, is silent and reduces jostling of the joints and spine when you walk on it. The best cork comes from the Mediterranean. A softer version grows in China, but the durable stuff is firm and a by-product of the wine-cork industry in Portugal and Italy.

Both Expanko and Sustainable Flooring show gorgeous samples of Mediterranean cork tile and mosaic cork tile. Expanko provided the new floors when Fallingwater was restored.

With flooring, comes the danger that what adheres it may be manufactured with formaldehyde and other toxins. A new product from Smith & Fong Plyboo, SoyBond, is formaldehyde-free, made from soybeans for use with bamboo. Plyboo also makes a line of nontoxic plywood.

• Certification and label help.

With the mainstreaming of green building, new green labels abound at Greenbuild Expo — and at every home improvement store. But which ones mean anything? Dalrymple says keep in mind that a third-party rating, like Green Seal for paints, cleaners and other products, is likely to be more dependable than the “green this or green that” labels created in the marketing departments of home improvement companies. A growing legion of online help is available to sift out the scientific from the marketing messages.

Ecolabelling is a tool for anyone. It’s a nonprofit that tries to compile data on every green label in the world and tells you what the label is worth.

The so-called “Amazon.com of green building products,” Buildingease helps designers, contractors and others search for certified green products. Click on “3″ to find legitimate third-party green product ratings. It’s a one-stop portal for researching, rating and buying green building products at the lowest price.

Mick Dalyrmple, owner a.k.a. Green

The newest entry in online aid is GreenKonnect, a search engine built for the green building industry. The Beta version bowed at Greenbuild Expo.  Watch for the actual launch. Utilizing a database of LEED-certified building projects and green products used in LEED buildings, site organizers hope to become a first stop for architects, engineers and contractors planning projects for LEED certification or other types. It will be free to everyone at first. Later, manufacturers will pay, based on product sales.

Thousand of products and so little time. A solid two day’s of looking is on display at Greenbuild Expo. For detailed listings, visit the Greenbuild website.

Then, if you plan to transition into a green home, start small, says Dalrymple. “Buy a few low energy bulbs. See how you like it. Pretty soon you’ll be opening a green products store and wondering: why did I do that?”

(Kate Nolan writes about the environment and health in Phoenix. She worked formerly as areporter for The Arizona Republic; managing editor at Phoenix New Times and editor at Playboy.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Where there’s a need, there’s a way. Turns out that the biggest number of ENERGY STAR homes are being built in steamy Sunbelt locations where keeping the AC under control is an urgent need.

The top market, with the most ENERGY STAR-qualified homes built since the program begin in 1995, is Houston, with 144,000 homes.

The next top cities with the most homes built to these guidelines include Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, according to a list released by the EPA, which announced today that there are now 1 million ENERGY STAR-qualified homes in the US.

The ENERGY STAR program requires that buildings take extra steps to conserve energy by using sufficient insulation, a tight building envelop, high-rated windows and efficient heating and cooling systems, making them 15 to 30 percent more energy efficient than homes built to standard code.

Along with passing the 1 million mark, the ENERGY STAR “label” for homes is growing in popularity, said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

“This is an amazing achievement for the Energy Star program – but the real winners are the 1 million American families who have the chance to save money and keep harmful pollution out of the air. That’s great news for anyone who wants to cut costs and protect our planet,” Jackson said. “We’re going to keep the number of Energy Star homes growing, because every new Energy Star home is a step towards lower costs, cleaner air, and communities that are environmentally and economically sustainable. We’re giving everyday American homebuyers the power to lower their bills and join the fight against climate change.”

The EPA, which oversees ENERGY STAR, estimates that the existing ES-rated homes will save their owners, collectively, $270 million on their electric bills this year, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to operating 370,000 cars for the year.

The cities with the most Energy Star-qualified homes:

• Houston, TX (144,000)

• Dallas-Fort Worth, TX (103,000)

• Las Vegas, NV (80,000)

• Phoenix, AZ (73,000)

• Greater Los Angeles, CA (57,000)

• Greater New York, NY (25,000)

• Tucson, AZ (19,000)

• San Antonio, TX (19,000)

• Sacramento, CA (18,000)

• San Diego, CA (18,000)

• Columbus, OH (17,000)

• Des Moines, IA (16,000)

• Indianapolis, IN (14,000)

• Austin, TX (13,000)

• Greater Philadelphia, PA/Wilmington, DE (12,000)

• San Francisco-Oakland, CA (11,000)

• Boston, MA (10,000)

• Denver, CO (7,800)

• Orlando, FL (7,600)

• Oklahoma City, OK (7,500)

Want to know more? You can take a virtual tour of an ENERGY STAR home at the program’s website. You also can find an ENERGY STAR builder in your home state or city, using the website’s builder finder.

Spa guests, already conscious about the health of their bodies, are starting to choose pampering experiences that keep the well-being of the environment in mind as well.

They still want to be indulged, say spa operators, but some are opting for experiences and products that soothe and improve, without nature-damaging ingredients.

Rona Berg, editor in chief of Organic Beauty magazine, says spa guests now look at what is in the products, where it comes from, who produces it and whether it is sustainable. Some even want to know if the company they’re supporting is giving back to the community.

“Consumer demand for healthier, eco-friendly and organic products isn’t showing any signs of stopping,” Berg says. “We’re undergoing a cultural paradigm shift and organic beauty is definitely one aspect of it.”

Americans have spent $7 billion on natural and organic personal care products over the past year, according to the Organic Consumers’ Association, and mainstream beauty brands are, in some cases, removing chemicals like parabens and sulfates, making quality products that skip the toxins.

What does going green really mean? We talked with a few spa operators to find out.

Harvesting daylight is an ancient trick – as old as the first man-made structure, as old as life on our planet, actually. Using the sunlight provided by nature is the most basic and simple way to illuminate one’s world. But when it comes to modern, sustainable architecture, the idea is relatively young.

Only in recent times has “daylighting,” as it’s sometimes called, made a blip on the broader green movement’s radar, with industry experts speculating that fewer than 1 percent of all U.S. buildings use natural light in a substantive manner (going beyond windows). The 21st century approach is waaaay more technologically involved than, say, a prehistoric clan setting up its fire pit next to the cave entrance.

More from GRN

Slideshow: Lighting with natural daylight

“In a layman’s terms, daylighting – which was our original term for it – is the process of bringing natural sunlight into a building and distributing it so you can turn the electric lights off,” says Bruce Bilbrey, co-owner of the Natural Lighting Co in Phoenix, founded in 1990 by his brother, Paul Bilbrey. (See the photo above of Frito Lay offices in Arizona — lit totally by daylight.)

“It’s not using the sun to create power to run the lights. It’s not a solar electric system. It’s using the sunlight directly. You use it with lighting controls, so that the lights can be off when there’s an adequate amount of daylight in the space.”

Bilbrey says the technology involves installation of skylights and reflective “lightwells” that architecturally bend lighting into a space, then, via large lenses and diffusers, deflect the light around. The company’s various systems can be used in residential and commerical spaces, and, depending on a building’s size, ceiling heights, lighting requirements and other needs, different types of diffusers and are employed.

“In very basic terms, it’s solar lighting. We call it simple solar,” Bilbrey explains. “But it’s not the same as having a skylight, which is just a feature on the roof where the light kind of comes in and goes where it wants – though the whole process does (use) ‘skylights.’”

Over the past several years, he and others in the business, such as Lighting Control & Design in Glendale, Calif., have noted a steady rise in the harvesting and harnessing of natural solar goodness. By doing so, “daylighting” converts don’t just save on energy bills and carbon output; they increase productivity among workers and create a healthier indoor environment that can lift spirits as well as enhance mental prowess. (This picture shows a daylight system at a charter school in San Diego.)

Daylighting even helps boost retail sales, studies show.

Large retailers including Whole Foods Market, Kohl’s, Target, Wal-Mart and JC Penney now use solar lighting (known generically as light, or daylight, harvesting) in many of their stores, while corporations such as Frito Lay/Pepsi and branches of the U.S. military employ solar harvesting to shed light on multiple situations – provided the situation occurs during daylight hours.

“Solar lighting really only works during the day,” says Bilbrey, who along with his brother and co-founder James Hennessey works with retailers Whole Foods, Target and Safeway, as well as various schools, municipalities and military bases around the U.S.

“We manufacture and install Component Daylighting Systems, which don’t store light, like a solar electric system,” the Arizonan says. “But in many buildings, the (daytime) lighting load is 50 to 70 percent of total energy use. The lighting load in one gym we worked with was 70 percent of the energy used in that building.”