Jan 18
Jan 18
Outrageous Claim: Green Vinyl Siding!
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I just noticed a discussion over at GreenbuildingAdvisor.com weather Vinyl Siding is green or not. Why is this even a discussion? Here is the link to the “pro vinyl siding” side of the discussion.
I’m just going to copy and paste my comment here. Let me know what you think about it:
Why is there even a debate?
by Hans Eich
Hi,
I don’t quite understand why there is a debate in the first place. It’s not that Vinyl is getting any healthier buy discussing it. I think we are talking about health for people and the environment here.
This is not like a decision weather you want to eat baguette or croissants? No, this is like giving you the choice weather you want to eat a plastic loaf or a real bread.
Mike (Guertin), your link to the Vinyl Siding Institute is dead, but even without seeing it I can certainly assume that it was an argument pro vinyl siding. It’s obvious. Follow the money. They are not called the “healthy siding institute”. And this is where a lot of companies get it wrong. Why does the “Vinyl Siding Institute” not call themselves “The Institute for Healthy Siding”? They would not act as a lobby to all the siding companies that they get paid by anymore.
A company that made this very clear to me is the carpet manufacturer (I think they are called Shaw Floors). They realized that they are not selling a product but rather providing the service of warm cushy flooring. Putting it this way, they realized that they need to care about the air quality of the home that they are providing with their “carpet service” (they do take the carpet back after useage, so that it almost is like a service).
I think it’s time to rethink what we do. Are we just selling siding, or are we providing the service of keeping a house from rotting away, safe and warm?
Think about it.
Oct 14
What is the new Carbon Capture Project that Stephen Harper just announced?
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Hi there,
Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, Canada) is just announcing the worlds first carbon capture project on the world. It is going to be installed near the Keepshill Power Plant in B.C. So far I have never heard of a successful project that captures enough carbon to be worth it. He was talking about 1.000.000 tons of carbon. Sounds too good to be true. I would really like to find out what this project looks like and how it works.
Please leave comments if you know more detail.
Image Credit: Aaron Pics
Oct 07
Aug 18
Folding Bike….
Uncategorized View CommentsThis is just something that I like. One of the first folding bikes that do not look dorky and yet, it fold smaller than any other bike that I’ve seen (on regular sized tires):
Jul 03
I demand: Down with the Greenwashers
Uncategorized View CommentsEvery day companies that green wash either themselves or their products are being exposed. Lets stop and really think about what “eco” actually means.
I still demand that we have to consider the entire life cycle of a product. What the product is made of (where it comes from, how the raw material was treated), how it is being processed by the company in question (power consumption, environmental policies) and what will happen to the product once it’s reached the end of it’s life (will it degrade/compost, or can it be reused or recycled).
Just because something is made from 100% does no mean it’s eco (here is a classic example of it exposed in the building material sector). The company could still be really wasteful with their power consumption or the way they conduct business. A lot of companies call their product eco now, because it sells. In the past using recycled material would have just been an inexpensive way to source raw material in order to achieve higher profits. Nowadays companies really use that as an excuse to label the product “green”. STOP IT!
There is one way to see weather a company really does care. Look for ISO 14001. What ISO 9001 is for quality control, 14001 is for the environment. A company that is ISO 14001 certified (or self declared) publicly shows it’s commitment to being as environmentally friendly as possible, and the proress of becoming even greener. IBM was the first company to globally us the system to show their efforts in doing “the good work”.
I recently put Ukoonto through the process, and I can now show the world that we do in fact care about the environment.
So look for ISO 14001. You’ll be surprised.
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