CA39 - 🥉 Top 3 sustainable products of 2024
My favourite picks from the Building Green Top 10 products of 2024
NEWSWORTHY
THE POLL
Last week’s poll surprised me. Over 60% of you are planning to get a new green certification this year! Go get it!!
THE TOPIC
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again!
Sharing the amazing things that other groups are doing is pivotal to the success of this newsletter. I consider this a success if I can share great things that are happening with you.
So here is something I think is worth of sharing.
Every year BuildingGreen creates a list of their Top 10 Green products of the year. Last year a few of my favourites included:
Doors Unhinged which diverts doors from landfill
This year I decided to join in on the fun to promote this great initiative and share some of my favourite products from their list.
The cool thing about this list is that it is independent, really well-researched, and non-sponsored so you know you’re getting the real stuff.
So here goes nothing!
1// 👟 SRP Rigid Core TPU Flooring - HMTX Industries
The reason I love this product is because it’s a replacement for Luxury Vinyl Tile Flooring (LVT) which is EVERYWHERE. Linoleum is a great product but doesn’t work for very situation. Having more options to replace Vinyl is fantastic.
One of the innovative things about this product is that the core of the flooring is made of TPU which, unlike other polyurethane materials, can be easily melted down and processed into a new material.
They are also implementing a take-back program which will use innovative QR codes on the back of each tile to explain how they can be returned to the manufacturer.
No carbon info on this product yet though … coming in Q2 of 2024!
This commercial LED is one of the only lighting products I’ve seen that doesn’t use large amounts of steel or aluminum. That’s pretty awesome from a carbon perspective because those are two of the most harmful materials you can find. According to it’s EPD it has a 50% reduction in embodied carbon compared to other lights.
The other cool thing about this product is that it’s the first **commercial LED product to achieve a Declare Red List Free label.
3// ⚡️ BioLock Admixture - Solid Carbon
One of the most consistent ways to reduce the embodied carbon impacts of concrete is to have SCM’s replaced some of the Portland Cement. The problem is that the typical SCM’s are byproducts of steel and coal operations which are becoming rarer and more expensive as we green our electricity grids.
Instead of using the byproducts of steel and coal, the BioLock product uses organic waste from municipal waste water and turns it into a biochar product. This replaces some of the sand in the concrete mix, offsetting cement’s embodied carbon while also removing organic waste from landfills
Those are my highlights! Lots of great products coming to the market which is very encouraging for the future of the low-carbon economy.
💡 Check out the full Top 10 of 2024 here.
🔥 Check out the live celebration webinar on Wednesday, January 10th.
THE PERSON
Bruce King has been a leading voice in climate-friendly building for 30 years as the author of five books on green construction, as well as building codes, standards, research papers, and articles. Bruce is a frequent speaker at conferences and has been a practicing structural engineer for over 40 years. He is also Founder and Director of the Ecological Building Network (EBNet), a non-profit information resource
THE PROJECT
The Vancouver Convention Center by LMN Architects out of Seattle is a unique and simply awe-inspiring building. It has an incredible location overlooking the ocean and mountains but the most impressive thing is the incredible systems in the building. The building was the first LEED Platinum convention centre and is over 1,000,000 SF. It has an extensive green roof and an impressive water reuse system.
My problem with the flooring is the pitch they make about reusing PET Bottles " “What if with every step you take, two waste plastic bottles were upcycled into something useful, helpful, and circular – meaning the bottles would always be in use, never purposefully disposed? " the problem is that we have to get beyond this into closed-loop recycling where bottles get turned into bottles. Otherwise virgin material has to be made because someone took the bottles and made them into flooring. In the EU they are talking about this a lot more https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-economy/opinion/pet-downcycling-is-not-circularity-the-case-for-closed-loop-recycling/
and another thing: why do they call it mycelium? BuildingGreen says " To be clear, the flooring does not contain mycelium: its name is meant to connote a biophilic network of individual parts working together. " that's bullshit greewashing there is nothing biophilic about it.