The Green Build Expo 2007 had many hardwood exhibitors, but 2 companies in particular caught my attention for their beautiful and unique products.
One company, Sustainable Flooring in Boulder, Colorado offers wood flooring products that are not only sustainable, but have an appearance unlike most hardwood flooring you have seen. Their product line is made up of reclaimed products, those that are “certified” by either the Forestry Stewardship Council or follow similar harvesting and production methodologies, and others that are either made from rapidly renewable raw materials or are created from post-industrial content. “Sustainable Woods” encompasses lesser know species. Their harvesting and subsequent use will help insure that forests are allowed to thrive.
The FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified woods are woods that have been harvested and milled in accordance with FSC standards, requiring a third party audit for all aspects of production, harvesting, milling and final sale. This is the most stringent and costly of certification systems.
One of the most beautiful and colorful wood products they offer is in their Strandwoven collection which is made up of densified and compressed wood fiber flooring. This gives it an elegant linear graining and warm richcolors ranging from yellow to red to brown that you don’t ordinarily see in hardwood floors. Other species in the collection include Rosa, MSB natural, Aspen Light, Bacana and Canary Wood.
If you are interested in exotic woods that are sustainably harvested they have species including Australian Cypress, Bacana, Canary Wood, Cumaru, Ipe and others.
Their products can be found in places such as Stanford University, The Ritz Carlton, Starbucks, REI and other green conscious venues.
You can request samples from their website. I recommend doing this because the pictures do not represent the color range that makes these products so fascinating.
The second company that caught my eye was TerraMai Reclaimed Woods. TerraMai provides distinctive, one-of-a-kind wood products for premiere commercial and residential projects throughout the world. Their products not only include flooring, but siding, paneling, decking, beams and custom items to fit your imagination. They travel the globe in search of the most beautiful and unique reclaimed woods. All of their woods are reclaimed and all are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.
You can find TerraMai products in projects by: Patagonia, Whole Foods Market, The Ritz Carlton Company, Rockwell Group, IBM,Gensler, Harrah’s, Urban Outfitters, Stanford University and more…
Like Sustainable Flooring above, Terra Mai offers some very colorful products such as their World Mix Flooring. The source of this floor is packing lumber used in global industrial shipping. If not diverted, most of this material would simply wind up in landfills.
Amazingly, most of the woods used for shipping steel and heavy industrial equipment can be some of the most beautiful, durable wood in the world. A superior grade of dense, old-growth hardwood is required by many customs laws to ensure the safety of the products and the shippers.
With some effort, and cooperation from many private and public entities, TerraMai is salvaging these fantastic woods and giving them a new lifetime of use.
These phenomenal slabs of mixed tropical hardwoods are one-of-a-kind, custom fabricated pieces. Made from antique, untreated railway ties from Southeast Asia, these pieces show their history by their filled spike holes and other distinctive character markings. Although originally fabricated as custom stair treads, they are also ideal for counter or bar top applications (see specs below). This material survived decades as untreated railway ties in the most extreme tropical conditions, so they certainly can handle a little spilled milk.
These custom showpieces are a special value at $1,000 each or $100 per lineal foot.
Sources: Untreated tropical hardwood railway ties from Southeast Asia.
Species: Merbau, Alan Batu, Dtang and others.
Color tones: Deep golds and ambers to spicy reds and browns.
Dimensions: 1-3/8″ thick x net 12″ wide x 13′ long.
Millwork: Edge-joined, finger-jointed and surfaced with a half bull nose edge.
Character: Pre-filled spike holes, oxide stains, pre-filled surface seasoning checks and occasional sound tight knots.
Below is a TerraMai product called “Jungle Mix” found in a restaurant inside Treasure Island Resort in Las Vegas.
If you are interested in other hardwood companies that exhibited at the Green Build Expo, please leave a comment. After all, I am here to write what you want to read about!
Responses to “Green Build Expo 2007 – Hardwood Flooring”
November 28th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Opinion: Monopolies Are Not Good for the Environment
Availability of Sustainable Wood Products Hampered by Certification from Forest Stewardship Council
Exclusivity Drives Up Prices and Steers Builders to turn to Petroleum Products and Other Non-renewable Resources.
FSC Exclusivity Could ‘LEED’ to Other Environmental Problems
Long before people in the “new world” began to understand the risks of dwindling timber supplies, European countries saw first-hand the potential danger of over harvesting.
From Germany’s proactive, 18th-century commitment to renewable forestry, to England’s reforestation efforts in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, many countries learned these lessons well.
In this tradition, The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) was founded in 1999. Stemming from the rich, long-time traditions of sustainable forestry in Europe, PEFC has grown to impressive, global proportions. Today, the Sustainable Forest Management criteria it uses are supported by 149 governments worldwide, covering 85% of the world’s forest area.
PEFC respects and integrates each country’s forestry practices, using a structure that works in tandem with local governments, stakeholders, cultures and traditions. Yet, in some circles, the PEFC and its European roots are inexplicably frowned upon.
For instance, in today’s “green” building movement, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system is the most successful such program in the world. Administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the LEED system is now in use in more that 14,000 construction projects in 30 countries, including all 50 United States.
However, lumber used for LEED construction projects must be certified by just one entity—the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
As the demand for green, renewable resources continues to grow, why does LEED insist on this exclusive arrangement with a single certification scheme?
Both the FSC and the PEFC use independent third-party certification, providing abundant reassurance that the wood originates from sustainably managed forests. They include oversight by all vital stakeholders—member countries, non-governmental organizations, landowners, social groups and others.
Within each group’s framework, the national governing bodies from individual countries and regions develop standards with substantial opportunity for public review. And both provide clear chain-of-custody tracking and labeling that assure end users of legal and environmentally sound harvesting.
One independent industry consultant showed how the PEFC even goes beyond FSC standards when it comes to conformity with a number of ISO certification and accreditation guides.
This FSC-LEED exclusivity is especially baffling when you remember that PEFC certification represents about two thirds of all certified forests globally, which in all account for about a quarter of the global industrial roundwood production.
Additionally, many FSC certified acres are owned by governments or families focused on preservation—they have no intention to harvest for building-material production. And available FSC-certified veneers are often just a fraction of the number of veneers available through the other certification schemes.
It’s clear that accepting PEFC certified wood products would open a tremendous new resource-pool for the green building movement.
Here in North America, leading national forest certification programs, such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)—both part of the PEFC—create a central source for certified timber for North America. Combined, CSA and SFI certify more than 328 million acres of sustainable forestland in North America, versus about 69 million total acres certified by the FSC.
Limiting the availability of sustainable wood products drives up prices, prompting more builders to turn to materials derived from petroleum products and other non-renewable resources. Or they turn to concrete and other materials that require significantly more energy to produce, ultimately increasing greenhouse gas emissions and leaving a bigger carbon footprint.
Left unaddressed, all of these issues could lead to further environmental damage, something that I’m sure all of us—LEED and the FSC included—would like to prevent. LEED’s acceptance of PEFC certified lumber would be a significant step in the right direction for greater, worldwide adoption of green building practices.
# # #
Company Contact:
Doug Martin
Pollmeier Inc.
Portland, OR 97223
Phone: 503-452-5800
Email: usa@pollmeier.com
January 13th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Are you not using bamboo for flooring? It grows quickly and looks beautiful?
January 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Absolutely! (but technically, it’s a grass not a hardwood) Check out the post on Green Products for more bamboo info. Thanks for your comment!
February 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
when everyone starts jumping on the “bamboo and cork” band wagon, they probably don’t realize that thousands of acres of natural forests are being cut down just to raise these “great new products”!!
not to sure how green they really are…
February 5th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
The great thing is that it grows quickly and can be replenished, but the fact that it comes from China and has to be transported using TONS of fuel is not so green. I am looking forward to a standard that we can hold all of these companies accountable to before they can call their products green. Thanks for your comment!
February 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Actually true cork flooring comes from cork oak trees (Quercus suber) in the Mediterranean region and those trees are not cut down to make the flooring. Instead they are stripped of their outer layer (essentially stripped of their bark in a sense) and allowed to grow back their cork layer over the nest 9 -11 years to be replenished again and re stripped. This process is repeated over and over again over the life of the tree and believe it or not, this process even extends the average life of the cork oak tree. This is also all government regulated and is a renewable resource where trees are not cut down until their death which typically takes 150-250 years. Where their is some confusion is with Chinese cork (Quercus variabilis) where they do in fact cut down the trees since they cannot be stripped of their cork layer without killing the tree usually. So I guess my best bit of advice is to buy cork flooring from the Mediterranean region rather than China if you in fact are worried about being as “green” as possible. If anyone would like to learn more, I recommend visiting http://www.corkfacts.com/ which is run by my good friends at Amorim and who are the worlds largest cork suppliers.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Dear Sir or Madam:
This is Huzhou JiaDeLi Wood Industry Co. Our main products are solid Oak flooring and muti-layer engineered Oak flooring, of course, other species are also available from us, including Birch, Maple, Acacia , Kempas, Merbau, Iroko, Jatoba, Ipe and so on..
We do hope that we can set up longtime relationship and try our best to support your business.
Best regards
Yours sincerely
Jet Zhao
Our website:
http://www.jiadeliwooden.com
http://www.hzjdl.com
E-mail: jet_zhao2008@yahoo.cn
MSN: zhaoyihua2008@hotmail.com
October 19th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I just love their shower cork flooring; it’s beautiful, comfortable and great for the environment.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Thanks for posting such useful items. I’ve been reading his blog with much interest. He’s certainly raised my awareness. This post is Well Organized and Informative.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Sustainable forestry is a positive thing in the flooring industry, good to hear about these sustainble woods.