IN THE NEWS: Undoing the Clean Power Plan

It’s a tough day to read the news if you believe in science, data and global warming.

Working in direct opposition to his predecessor’s climate protection efforts, President Trump today signed a series of executive actions that seek to walk back President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (which limits carbon pollution from power plants), as well as a series of his smaller executive orders and memorandums that sought to fight climate change. The Trump administration's changes include lifting a moratorium on new coal mining on public lands; eliminating a requirement that federal agencies consider climate change when evaluating future environmental permits; and recalculating the “social cost of carbon,” a metric that the Obama administration used to essentially put a price tag on carbon emissions ($36 per metric ton, in case you’re wondering!).

While today’s executive action doesn’t explicitly address the country’s participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, environmental experts agree that the United States will likely fail to meet the clean air commitments the agreement calls for thanks to the Trump administration’s new environmental policies.

It’s no surprise, perhaps, that a president who is on record as saying he’s “not a big believer in man-made climate change,” would seek to gut the regulations that protect American families -- and indeed those around the world -- from the pollution, environmental degradation, and negative health consequences of our collective behavior.

Nevertheless, we both feel sickened. So as always in moments like this, we pick up our phones and our pens and reach out to our senators and representatives. Speaking up is an obligation as much as it is a right, so we encourage you to do the same!

IN THE NEWS: Fire Retardants are Likely Culprits in Fire Fighter Cancer Diagnoses

Having lived, studied and worked in Boston for almost two decades collectively, this one hits close to home for us. Local press reports have recently drawn attention to unexpectedly high rates of cancer among Boston firefighters--over 2.5 times the diagnosis rate of the city's general population.  And while it comes as no surprise that chronic exposure to smoke leads to higher cancer rates, recent findings suggest that when the chemicals added to our furniture to prevent the rapid spread of fire go up in flames, they emit noxious gases that put emergency responders at increased risk for many types of occupational cancer.  Former BFD firefighter Michael Hamrock MD says, “Chronic exposure to heat, smoke and toxins is what’s causing cancer in our firefighters.  Flame retardants are designed to prevent fire spread.  But unfortunately what we’ve found is that when they combust, they give off these dangerous carcinogens.”  Blair Miller’s article on the topic in this month’s issue of Boston Magazine explains:

...the smoke firefighters are exposed to is often loaded with a litany of septic chemicals—formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, chlorophenols, dioxins, trichloroethylene, ethylene oxide, polychlorinated biphenyls, methylene chloride, orthotoluidine, and arsenic, to name a few. Alone, any one of these may be harmful; mixed together they could make a potent cocktail of carcinogens with the capacity to do untold damage to the body’s organs, cells, and DNA.

The Boston Fire Department released an educational video in 2015 aimed at getting more firefighters to use their gear properly. Firefighter culture has historically touted those individuals who fight fires without adequate ventilation as heroes, and the 8-minute segment offers a sobering look at the profound loss that results from that mindset.  Since 1960, over 190 Boston firefighters have died from occupational cancer, and a new firefighter is diagnosed every 3 weeks.

And while appropriate use of protective gear on the job is crucial for first responders, isn’t this also a call to reevaluate the broader and continued use of flame retardants in furnishings and building materials nationwide?  California led the charge on reducing the use of flame retardant chemicals in residential furniture and other household products when it implemented Technical Bulletin 117-2013, which was made compulsory for furniture manufacturers in 2015.  It doesn’t ban the use of flame retardants, but it allows manufacturers to address flammability without the use of potentially harmful chemicals.  Responding to consumer pressure, many manufacturers have phased out the use of flame retardants in their products nationwide, effective in 2015.  In summer of 2016, President Obama signed into law another significant milestone in the struggle to understand the impacts of harmful chemicals on our health and our environment: The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act.  It will undoubtedly take time and collective effort to press forward on reducing the impacts of harmful chemicals on our health and that of the natural world around us.  And given the widely established health risks associated with chronic exposure to flame, it’s hard to be patient.  

What can we do in the meantime to reduce exposures for our families and the first responders who bravely help us in times of need?  

• When shopping for new furniture, vote with your dollars to support manufacturers who have banned fire retardants in their mattresses, upholstered furniture, drapes and carpets.    

• Repair or replace pre-2005 upholstered furniture at the first sign of damage.  If you plan to recover your existing furniture, be sure to replace the underlying foam and cushioning as well.   

• Do your research when replacing household furniture and electronics.  Be especially discriminating if you’re on the market for baby products.

• Tell your congressional representatives that you support the EPA’s efforts to move forward on Lautenberg Act (LCSA) implementation efforts.  Under our current administration, EPA’s agency is at risk, and while new EPA head Scott Pruitt has professed to support LCSA efforts during his tenure, it’s important that our representatives know that chemical safety is a priority for all of us.

CHANGING HAABITTS: Recycling Plastic Films

Do you wishfully toss your clear plastic films (ziptop bags, bread bags, plastic wrap, mailers and other packaging) in the recycling bin, hoping that even though they don't bear the appropriate number, they'll somehow be spared from the landfill?  I used to do that constantly to assuage my own concerns about the amount of plastic piling up in our rubbish and recycling bins.  But after our recent move, I was motivated by the reams of plastic moving wrap balled up in our garage to research appropriate ways to recycle plastic films.  And guess what?  It's actually quite easy to do.  I found that many retailers--including Target, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, and a number of grocery chains in our area--readily accept for recycling plastic shopping bags and all clean, dry plastic films.  See plasticfilmrecycling.org to find recycling locations in your area.

Most household plastic films can be recycled!  

We've gotten in the habit of maintaining a secondary recycling bin just for plastic films, and I've been amazed--and alarmed!--to see how quickly the plastic piles up.  Even though we make a concerted effort to avoid plastics whenever we can, it's virtually impossible to find toilet paper, paper towels, salad greens, bread, chips and crackers, cheese, meat, fish and frozen foods that aren't packaged in plastic.  Recycling isn't the ideal solution to household plastics disposal because it requires added resources and releases toxins.  But for now, it's a better solution than allowing these materials to persist in landfills or find their way into our water supplies.  And concurrently, you can reduce your consumption of plastic films by:  

• Invest in glass and/or stainless steel leftover and lunch containers.  We love the stainless steel divided lunch boxes and to-go canisters from U-Konserve (formerly Kids Konserve), and good old Pyrex tempered glassware with lids.  I'm still using several pyrex baking dishes that belonged to my grandmother, and many can be found at secondhand shops for a steal.
• Position yourself to refuse single-use plastic bags by carrying your own stash of reusable bags wherever you go.  I tuck a set like this into my handbag and use the silky, washable bags for toting everything from groceries and material samples to library books and beach toys.
• Buy used goods, clothing, and furniture whenever you can.  I love to justify my midcentury furniture splurges by thinking about how much packaging I'm saving.  We're currently on a Lego kick at our house, and after a recent birthday I was shocked to see how much plastic packaging a single Lego kit produced.  In one case, it was no less than TEN clear plastic bags!  That's nuts.
• Stock your pantry from the grocery store's bulk section whenever possible, bringing your own reusable containers for grains, flours, beans, nuts, cereals and snacks.  I'll admit that being equipped with reusable containers in advance of every grocery run is beyond me, but I aspire to it.  
• Buy liquid soaps and powdered detergents from the bulk section, refilling your own containers each time you need to restock.
• Buy selectively from online retailers!  As tempting as it may be to order everything you can from online vendors who promise to deliver your goods in two days or less, such deliveries employ gratuitous amounts of single-use plastics in the form of mailers, packing pillows, tape, and goods packaging. 

BEST PRACTICES: Havelock Wool

Image courtesy of Havelock Wool

I recently had the pleasure of talking shop with Andrew Legge, founder of Havelock Wool, a startup focused on healthier building insulation options.  Three years ago, Andrew introduced his product to the thermal insulation market employing an age-old approach to insulation: virgin sheep’s wool.  As our ancestors must have known generations ago, wool inherently resists fire, pests and mildew, which means that it doesn’t require added--and often very toxic--chemicals to address these issues.  And it’s a renewable resource that requires hardly any embodied energy to produce, harvest, and assemble into a usable product.  Havelock Wool imports its raw material from New Zealand, where Andrew and his wife resided for a time and maintain deep territorial and personal connections.  Raw wool is assembled into both batt and loose fill products in its Reno production facility, so the bulk of its modest ecological footprint (Havelock Wool pays just $2200 per month for electricity consumption because avoids high heat bonding processes) can be attributed to transporting the raw material across the Pacific.

Havelock Wool’s batt products offer an insulative value equal to, or slightly higher than, conventional fiberglass and cellulose insulation products (its R-value is 3.6 per inch, and that increases to 4.3 per inch for blown-in applications).  But with superior moisture mitigation, no toxic exposure concerns, and reduced ecological impact, wool insulation offers a number of advantages.  In order to achieve higher insulation efficiencies and better building envelope performance, Havelock is also partnering with Pro Clima and Gutex to offer the Smart Wall, an exterior wall assembly that combines Havelock’s wool batts with Intello’s polypropylene interior air and vapor barrier and Gutex’s continuous exterior insulation board.  The assembly challenges the performance of spray foam insulating products, offering higher insulative values than wool batts alone, and easily meeting energy codes across the range of climate zones in the US.  Installers and occupants need not worry about initial or ongoing toxic exposure or material failure, which are two growing concerns in the spray foam insulation industry.

Image courtesy of sbcmag.com

With so much to love, I wondered why Andrew Legge is the first to forward such an age old product for insulation purposes.  And why aren’t more manufacturers using wool in their insulation products?  It’s true that wool costs more--roughly 2 to 2.5 times more than fiberglas or spray foam insulation products.  But Andrew contextualizes that amount by clarifying that it may mean a $2 per square increase in a typical construction budget.  Andrew argues that says that the initial investment in healthier indoor air quality and more sustainable choices is worth it: Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, in conjunction with SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University, released the findings of a study in October 2015 that showed higher levels of cognitive functioning among workers occupying healthier office environments (better ventilation and lower exposure to VOCs and other toxins).  Andrew hopes to capitalize on the fact that, for business owners, it follows that associated productivity boost can mean higher revenues.  And for families, Andrew argues, how can we put a price on the healthy interiors our children live, learn and play in?  

Though wool is a renewable resource, Legge estimates that his New Zealand suppliers could only produce enough wool annually supply about 4-5% of the insulation market.  So unless it gets mixed with other products, wool will always cater to a minority of consumers.  Andrew is currently targeting just ½% of the insulation market, and even after 3 years in production, achieving that goal has proven more of a struggle than he anticipated.  When I asked him why he thought the demand for wool isn’t greater, Legge noted that his modest marketing budget means that gaining visibility in the marketplace is an ongoing challenge.  “I have a great product,” he says, “but convincing people of its benefits has been incredibly hard.”  And with the market’s largest competitors keeping a close eye on him, he feels definitive and ever-present pressure not to publicize his reservations about the health risks associated with other insulation materials.  I’m sure you can read between the lines here.  

We’re grateful to responsible entrepreneurs like Andrew who are fighting the uphill battle to gain more space in the marketplace for healthier, more sustainable building material choices.  In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to spotlight companies like Havelock Wool in an effort to spread the word on better products and business practices, and so that we can better understand the barriers to marketplace presence for responsibly-produced materials that we everyone should have access to.  

MOTIVATING FACTORS: Plastic is The Smog of the Sea

Growing anxieties about plastic pollution in our water supplies has us thinking carefully about building material lifecycle considerations.  In the recent short documentary The Smog of the Sea, The 5 Gyres Institute's Marcus Ericksen and his team updates our thinking on plastic pollution and its effects on our oceans.  

Previous research cultivated the collective image of an expansive seaborne flotilla of plastic refuse referred to as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, once thought to occupy an area the size of Texas or larger.  But recent findings by 5 Gyres and others including NOAA suggest that the problem is both harder to see and far more profound.  See these 8 Maps describing plastic's impact on our oceans.  Ericksen describes the pervasive microplastic presence in our oceans as a smog of trillions of tiny particles so minute that they often go undetected by the human eye.  In the documentary, Ericksen leads a team of researchers and environmental advocates on a 2015 research expedition to the Bermuda Triangle to better understand the threat of plastic smog to marine life.  Using a tedious data collection process, researchers trawled with fine waterborne sieves alongside their wind-powered research vessel.  They collected and then separated out by hand microplastic pieces (less than 5mm in size) from the ubiquitous Sargassum seaweed with which it becomes entangled in this region.  

Overwhelmingly, their findings showed that the Sargasso Sea is mired in tiny plastic particulate invisible to satellite imagery and also often undetectable to the human eye.  So tiny that marine life often mistake them for fish eggs and zooplankton. these plastic pieces absorb persistent organic pollutants (called POPs) at a rate up to one million times greater than the surrounding seawater.  Marine mammals at the top of the food chain bear the incredible burden of these degradation-resistant toxins.  Ericksen’s Sargasso Sea expedition documented microplastics in the digestive systems of 35% of the small fish it collected for dissection.  Scary stuff.

Also terrifying is the realization that, by Ericksen’s estimations, over 40% of the planet’s surface is now covered in microplastic particles (comprising roughly 269,000 metric tons of plastics or 5.25 trillion pieces).  Given that most of these particles are destined to sink below the oceans’ surfaces to deeper currents that travel worldwide, this predicament is a global concern that tangibly affects the health of our collective water and food supplies.  And because of the fine nature of the smog, we lack effective imagery to cultivate a sense of urgency about dealing with this predicament.  

How do we bring attention to the magnitude of the problem and begin to take action to ameliorate the effects of plastic smog in our waters?  Ericksen and his team members urge us to act both globally and locally:

1. WATCH The Smog of the Sea, currently available here for free streaming.  Spread the word.

2. REFUSE single-use plastics, opting instead for reusable and versatile bags, utensils and vessels for food, water and other goods.

3. SUPPORT and PARTICIPATE in the creation of a circular plastics economy that holds manufacturers who utilize and produce plastics responsible for sound recycling and disposal practices at the end of their lifespans.

4. REDESIGN plastics so that they are less toxic, so that they can biodegrade easily, so that they can be reused or repurposed more effectively, and so that fewer toxins are created in the recycling process.

At HAABITT, we’re already acutely aware that plastics are everywhere in the built world.  We encounter them daily in our research on insulation, roofing, waterproofing and vapor protection, piping and wire covering, flexible ductwork, wall and floor coverings, windows and doors, siding and decking, appliances, and in all of the packaging that protects these products while in transit to their end users.  It's true that plastics in our building materials have distinct advantages: They often contribute to reduced heating and cooling loads through more efficient insulation strategies, and can also reduce the need for beefy structure (steel and wood) because plastics tend to be more lightweight than other alternatives.  When we talk about “healthier” and more responsible building materials, we’re thinking about a tricky calculus involving these efficiencies and the cumulative toxic risks to the consumer, the individuals working on the assembly line, and everyone (and everything between).  It can be overwhelming work, but these factors will play an increasingly significant role in our review and evaluation of products moving forward, especially now that The Smog of the Sea has made the risks so alarmingly evident.

IN THE NEWS: Google's Healthy Materials Project

Here’s some recent wind in our sails: In October, Google announced the launch of Portico, “The Healthy Materials Tool” for manufacturers, architects, contractors and project managers.  The database pools and evaluates data from several trusted standards and certifications, including Health Product Declaration (HPD), GreenScreen, and Cradle2Cradle, and LEED v4.  The Healthy Materials Program considers ingredient/chemical inventory and disclosure, ingredient/chemical hazard assessment, material optimization, and transparency.  Google’s evaluation process rewards those manufacturers who invest in full disclosure, providing Google and the general public with access to product ingredients and test results.   

According to Google, The Healthy Materials Program “benefits all, empowering users to Respond to the increasing market demand for healthy materials, transparency, LEED certification, and industry standards; Access product and materials information in a simple, easy-to-understand format; Understand material properties and potential impacts human health; and Make informed selections of products and materials based on reliable and transparent data.”  At HAABITT, we’re thrilled to know that a likely byproduct of this effort will be an increase in the demand for, and access to, healthier materials for both work and home environments.  That means more pressure on manufacturers to produce healthier, more cost-effective building materials.

Why is Google motivated to lead this effort?  They say they’re invested in developing innovative, healthy building environments to support the creative efforts of their talented employees.  For now, access to the database is restricted to participating manufacturers and to design and construction professionals actively engaged in Google workplace building projects.  Our hope is that access is rapidly expanded to the rest of us, and that this effort ultimately addresses the need to clean up building materials both in the workplace and on the homefront.  We’ll stay tuned!

BEST PRACTICES: Client TMI... How much is too much?

When working with clients, we’re often faced with trying to decide just how much building material content intel to share. The harmful effects of exposure to PBDEs, formaldehyde and other VOCs, and PVC have been well documented by the media recently.  And to be candid, these concerns are merely a small sampling of the chemical exposures we are justified in worrying about.  But when more research into toxins like these often leads to fear, how much is too much information for the client?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by potentially terrifying information and to feel paralyzed by all of the potential health risks involved in making an uninformed decision (I’m speaking from experience here).  As designers and consultants, our aim is to enable clients to make sound, well-informed decisions by which they can live happily and with peace of mind moving forward.

On one hand, we’re in favor of full disclosure wherever and whenever possible. As a registered architect, I am, after all, my clients’ fiduciary. That means that I’m responsible for acting in my client’s best interests, and for me that charge comes with with gravity and dedication.  But what each client expects as I pursue their best interests tends to vary broadly depending on a number of factors that are specific to each client and vary for every project.  For some, achieving the lowest ecological impact is the ultimate goal. Others want a negotiation between sustainability, indoor environmental quality, and high quality design.  Still others aim to shoehorn budget and efficiency into that calculus (present company included), settling for nothing less than an optimization between a host of important considerations.  We’ve learned that for some personalities, more information is empowering and helps to shape decisions in productive ways.  And yet for others, a barrage of studies and statistics can be burdensome and downright paralytic.

How do we provide clients with a “just right” amount of information that enables them to decide how to prioritize budget, toxicity, longevity and design appeal?  It starts with a host of questions to get the conversation started, and we begin by talking candidly about how much product-specific information sharing makes sense for a particular client and product.  From there, we talk about a number of issues: When is spending more money on healthier materials worth it, even if they are uglier? When does saving a few pennies and accepting a slightly less recycled/recyclable/ecologically-minded material become a decision one can live with?  These inquiries are personal, and we work together to find answers that (a) help clarify our collective goals for each project and, most importantly, (b) that we can all live with.

At HAABITT, we see our role as that of facilitators and translators, initiating the design process to build a series of client- and project-specific questions that helps the entire team—clients, designers and often various other consultants—develop a common language of priorities to work from. This is often when the difficult (but also essential and exciting!) work of goal prioritization comes into play. A team that is dedicated to this conversation (or more likely a series of conversations) at the outset of a project is likely to see the fruits of their early labor result in a more efficient and enjoyable design and construction process, and a final product that allows its inhabitants agency and peace of mind.

BEST PRACTICES: Recycling Carpet

Recycling practices for various building materials and finishes are constantly evolving based on market demand for raw materials.  Unfortunately, progress isn’t always in the right direction.  The carpet industry, which has over the past decade rebranded itself as an “eco-friendly” according to Lauren Arcuri at consumersdigest.com, has recently lost considerable momentum in its efforts to recycle discarded carpet and padding.  Carpet America Recovery Act (CARE) has worked since 2002 to develop “market-based solutions that increase landfill diversion and recycling of post-consumer carpet, encourage design for recyclability and meet meaningful goals.”  The organization has diverted over 3.6 billion pounds of carpet from U.S. landfills.  And until mid-2015, there existed an emerging market for recycling old carpet to produce new carpet, padding and other innovative products like acoustic insulation.

We’ve been keeping tabs on the carpet recycling industry for some time now, and were motivated to update our research on the subject last fall for the purposes of two projects.  At that time, our understanding was that the market for recycling carpet was robust, but our inquiries to find a New England resource for that purpose quickly indicated that our knowledge was dated.  I initially contacted three carpet recycling resources listed on CARE’s website.  The number for the first had been disconnected, the second was no longer recycling carpet but rather dumping it into its landfill, and the third, New Jersey-based Carpet Cycle, gave me more bad news: residential carpet recycling efforts in the U.S. had all but halted completely after August 2015.  Those carpet companies who could make use of old carpets in the production of new ones couldn’t make the numbers work given the high cost of collecting and transporting an unpredictable stream of raw material.  The problem is compounded by the relatively low current cost of oil, allowing manufacturers to produce new material as cheaply (or cheaper than) the cost of recycling old carpet.  I was horrified.  

My next question: What was happening to all of the carpet that consumers were discarding, assuming like me that it would be recycled?  It is either being dumped into landfills or being  burned at a Waste to Energy (WTE) facility where incineration generates electricity.  Given what we know about the many known chemical exposure risks of the carpet industry, I had moment of panic as I visualized of all of those PBDEs, PFOAs and other harmful compounds being released back into the air.

Carpet Cycle is leading the charge on carpet recycling in the Northeast. but the current lull in demand for recycled carpet content means that they have refocused their efforts on commercial and corporate work.  They partnering with property management companies to recycle large quantities of carpet.  According to Carl Trezza of Carpet Cycle, the company sold a large stream raw material back to carpet manufacturers based in southern states until last year, when demand dwindled as oil prices fell.  Needing to find new uses for their recycled carpet, Carpet Cycle now produces Quiet-Tech, an acoustic and thermal insulation product for commercial installations made from recycled carpet fibers and a mixed of post-consumer textiles called shoddy.

When I asked Carl about other viable options for small-scale residential carpet recycling efforts, he paused.  Though the industry changes each year, the best bet for keeping discarded carpets from our projects out of the landfill is to find other users.  I inquired about donating carpet to local secondhand building supply warehouses like ReStore, Habitat for Humanity’s donation-based building supply outlet.  But even for carpets in excellent condition, health regulations prevent ReStore from accepting any carpet donations.  They did suggest that our clients try posting the carpet and padding on Craigslist, and despite my skepticism, we decided to give that a try since we had no other immediate options.  To my surprise, there was overwhelming interest in both carpet and padding, and we were able to transfer all of our material to new owners in a matter of days.  Though there is no telling whether that carpet will stay out of the landfill indefinitely, we did request that new owners work to find tertiary owners when they no longer had a use for the material, and/or research new carpet recycling efforts when the time comes.

Let’s hope that the upside to inevitably higher oil prices will be more robust support of recycling efforts across the building material and finishes industries.

MOTIVATING FACTORS: The Story of Stuff

This isn't new, but it's still groundbreaking, and represents an essential piece of what motivates us to do better in the building material industry. 

MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Swapping Wall to Wall Carpet for Hardwoods

COURTESY OF KAHRS

PART I: Setting the Scene

For this post, I’m starting close to home.  Literally. This past summer, we bought a 1998 “colonial” house (more on that in a future post) that had original wall to wall carpet in many of its rooms. Because I have two young children and strong family histories of both cancer and respiratory illness, replacing the carpet was a high priority. That a strong preference for the look and functionality of wood flooring accelerated the swap out to the top of our To Do list.

Carpets dating to the 1990s like ours are notorious for their long list of toxic “ingredients”: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and hundreds of other undisclosed chemicals and compounds in the carpet itself, PVC, 1,3 Butadiene, MDA, Styrene and acetate in the carpet backing or substrate, and more VOCs and other chemicals in the adhesives that bind the carpets to their substrates. Carpet padding is another source of potential harmful exposure. Many varieties of carpet padding (installed under the carpet to increase the longevity and acoustic insulative value of the carpet) are manufactured from recycled foam that has been soaked in flame retardants such as PBDE.  Many carpets also boast stain resistant technology, which until recently contained PFOA, a known carcinogen with links to the same type of cancer found in a pediatric cancer cluster in my community that I am tracking with concern.

Knowing that we wanted to replace the existing carpet with wood flooring, I identified four principal priorities for our project: aesthetics and quality, price, toxicity and environmental impact.

Aesthetics and Quality: I’m a designer, which means that it’s my job to be picky about everything. I knew I wanted a light-colored, monochromatic finish -- in other words, something between rustic, rough-hewn Scandinavian Oak floors with a pale oiled finish and a basketball court. In an ideal world, that would mean super pale maple hardwoods with a matte finish.

Price: We had so many square feet to cover that I knew installation costs alone would take up a significant piece of the budget.  I also knew that extra costs for required accessories like underlayment (a thin pad installed underneath the wood to accommodate minor irregularities in the subfloor, to mitigate any moisture that might accumulate underneath the flooring, and to deaden sound) would add up quickly.  I knew that solid hardwood would cost well over $10/SF installed, and I wondered if I could find something I liked for closer to $6-7/SF installed.

Toxicity: Given that our goal was to eliminate as many chemical exposures as possible, and knowing that we were going to great effort and expense to do so, I gave a lot of thought to the additional chemical exposures that could result from different installation processes. Installation of unfinished hardwood floors that are finished on site (the kind that typically produce a the uniformly smooth surface I was lusting after) is usually disruptive and incredibly dusty.  It requires sanding the floors after they are installed and between each of several layers of protective polyurethane coating.  As the polyurethane cures, it creates strong vapors.  All told, the process is typically so disruptive, dirty and smelly that few families can live through it.  As much as I wanted the look of these floors, I knew I couldn’t subject my family to the upheaval it would entail, especially on the heels of a recent cross country move.

Environmental Impact: Having recently lived in the Pacific Northwest where logging practices and the lasting impacts of clearcutting are far more visible than here in New England, it was important to us to source our material from a supplier invested in responsible forest management.  We just didn’t feel right about knowing that our floors may have destroyed key habitat, destabilized hillsides, and contributed to harmful runoff.  We agreed that we were willing to pay some kind of premium to buy an FSC-certified product or to source from a mill or company that could similarly prove responsible forest management practices. I was particularly interested in bamboo flooring products, because the grass is a renewable resource that replenishes itself in 5 to 7 years. That’s far quicker than any hard- or softwood species we considered.  I was interested to learn that all bamboo used for flooring is grown in Asia (China), and is either processed there before getting shipped to the US as a raw material for manufacturing here, or it is sent directly to China-based manufacturing facilities.  In my numerous conversations with product representatives from Plyboo, CaliBamboo, EcoFusion and EcoTimber, I learned that oversight at Chinese factories (following the Lumber Liquidators Formaldehyde expose of 2015) has become a major factor in overseas flooring production.  Specifically, manufacture of the binders, adhesives and finishes used in Chinese flooring factories is monitored closely.  Several US-based companies with a presence in the Chinese bamboo flooring market manufacture their binders and finishes here, and ship them to China for use with raw material on site there.  This raised even more concerns: What about the embodied energy associated with shipping products back and forth across the ocean, and then trucking them another 3000 miles across the country to get to us here on the east?  Did the cost of remote harvest and manufacturing negate the benefits of choosing a rapidly renewable material in the first place?  The calculus was overwhelming, and it seemed impossible to quantify and compare the relative benefits and risks--both locally and globally--of the various products under consideration.

PART II: Evaluating Options

With price and toxicity in mind, I focused my research on prefinished flooring products, specifically engineered woods (typically a thin layer of hardwood over several layers of plywood-like substrates).  Engineered hardwoods tend to be efficient in their use of the whole tree because the highest quality hardwood is reserved for the visible ‘wear’ layer that creates the flooring surface that we experience, and the less choice (but more plentiful) cuts of lumber are used to make the substrate.  Engineered hardwoods are typically prefinished, meaning that the protective coating that goes over the wood itself is applied in the factory.  The tipping points in our selection process included the fact that curing (and the noxious fumes associated with the process) occurs before the product arrives on site, and the freedom to occupy the floors immediately after installation without the sometimes significant lag associated with curing time, and ability to avoid sanding residue.

Given that engineered wood flooring products necessarily require more adhesives to bind together their different layers, I put a lot of energy into researching the binding and finishing agents of different “eco-friendly” products currently on the market.  What I found was that even many of the best flooring products (and by that I mean those claiming to contain the fewest number of harmful chemicals) couldn’t give me the clear answers I was looking for in the form of Material Data Safety Sheets or analogous chemical disclosures.  Most were happy, however, to speak to me at length about certification standards like FloorScore, GREENGUARD and CARB 2 (California Air Resources Board).  Adhering to these standards represents progress in the right direction, but my research told me that some of these standards allow chemical exposures above what many consider to be reasonable exposure levels. I was initially intrigued by a number of bamboo products but because the material is technically a grass, it requires a high adhesive content to bind together its small strands.  I wasn’t able to find a bamboo flooring company that disclosed its binders and finish ingredients to my satisfaction, which is, in part, why we turned back to engineered flooring products.

I agonized over this decision for what felt like months, trying ever more valiantly to find studies, MSDS sheets, product disclosures, and environmental impact information that would help clarify my decision.  And the frustrating and alarming truth is that in many cases, it just doesn’t exist.  And when it does, it isn’t typically in a form that is accessible and actionable for highly detail-oriented designer types like me, much less for the average consumer.

PART III: The Final Decision

In the end, the one company that satisfied almost all of our requirements was Kahrs, a Swedish flooring company dating back to 1857.  I first identified the company as a possible option thanks to their commitment to sustainable forestry practices, a concerted and ongoing effort to minimize their ecological footprint, and the use of nontoxic glues and finishes. They are self-stated wood flooring innovators, having first developed the multi-layered engineered wood door in 1937.  Unlike so many others in the industry, Kahrs doesn’t brand itself as a “green” flooring company first; they seem to have normalized the need for sustainable manufacturing practices as part of a healthy corporate strategy, and that can make them harder to find in a marketplace where so many manufacturers are clamoring for the eco-friendly ear. 

KaHrs avanti tres in ash ceriale, COURTESY OF KAHRS

Aesthetics and Quality: While I was initially drawn to Kahrs for its commitment to sound and sustainable manufacturing processes, I was quickly impressed by the quality of their products when I saw them firsthand. Sample installations appeared well-made, individual pieces fit together easily and tightly, and the wear layers celebrated a variety of wood textures, grains and tones.  I was thrilled to discover that Kahrs offered a product--the Avanti Tres line--that maintained an almost seamless, finished-on-site look in a range of finishes.  Since we already had 3” wide solid oak floors in parts of the house that we planned to keep, I chose the Tres in Ash, which has a similar width and graining to our existing oak.  

The Avanti Tres is a 3-Strip engineered product, meaning that it comes in planks that comprise three 3” strips of flooring.  They snap or click together (and are sometimes referred to as “floating click flooring” for this reason).  They can be installed by handy homeowners themselves in a floating floor application without the need for adhesives (though it can be both glued and stapled to the subfloor if desired).  We opted for a floating installation because we live on the coast, where humid summers and dry winters mean that our floors move with the seasons.  Engineered flooring products tend to be more dimensionally stable than solid hardwoods, and a proper floating floor installation allows the minor seasonal movements to be easily accommodated across a room without extensive buckling in the summer or gapping in the winter.  

KAHRS ASH CERIALE INSTALLATION SHOWING INTERLOCKING PIECES AND UNDERLAYMENT (BLUE)

Another advantage of floating installation is that the floors can be easily removed and reinstalled in another location with minimal waste.  We have no plans to take our new floors up.  Ever.  But I like knowing that if and when we move on from this house, the next owners could easily replace and repurpose these floors.

Price: This may be the only time in my life as a designer that this has ever happened, so I’m savoring it: the Kahrs flooring product I wanted most was also one of the most inexpensive options I could find!  Even among alternatives that are not sustainably-minded.  The Avanti Tres in Ash Ceriale retails for under $6/SF, and I have seen sales and promotions that bring it down to $5/SF.  Additional costs come in the form of a proprietary Kahrs underlayment (to mitigate moisture, to accommodate micro irregularities in the subfloor, and also to help with acoustic isolation) which is required for the company’s warranty.  I briefly considered cork as a more cost-effective alternative, but then found myself down yet another rabbit hole as I researched the binders used to glue the recycled cork pieces together. When I couldn’t find many clear answers on that front, I reverted back to the least expensive Kahrs underlayment option (which came with an MSDS sheet). This added about $1/SF to the cost of the flooring.  Installation also adds cost, of course, but our installation costs are not typical because we had a terrible experience with our initial flooring contractors and ended up having to hire others to undo and then correct their work so that our flooring installation would be warranteed by Kahrs. I got typical quotes of around $3-4/SF for installation in my area.

Toxicity: I spoke at length with several different Kahrs Technical Representatives based at their US headquarters in Florida and was thoroughly impressed by their expertise, resourcefulness, and availability.  They talked me through their manufacturing processes, explained their approaches to sustainable forestry and healthy products, and happily supplied me with material disclosure statements upon request.  They even emailed individuals at their headquarters in Sweden to clarify issues for me.  After a number of in-depth conversations with Kahrs representatives and reviewing their material disclosure literature, I was satisfied know that:

• No natural material is formaldehyde-free, but the Avanti Tres flooring has been independently tested in its market-ready form to have very low formaldehyde emission levels.  One representative told me than an apple has more formaldehyde!  It’s important to note that third-party testing a finished product means that ALL components of a product factor into the final chemical reading.  Many companies choose to test their components individually, which may yield different readings than those produced by the final product.

• All Kahrs products meet European chemical safety standards (including E1 and/or E0), which generally regulate more chemicals and compounds more stringently than US standards

• Kahrs does not use aluminum oxide or solvents in any of its finishes.  Aluminum oxide is a hardener used to finish many prefinished flooring products and it is highly effective in preventing dents and scratches and generally keeping floors pristine as long as possible.  But if your floors ever need to be refinished, you risk contaminating your interior environment with microscopic aluminum dust.  Aluminum is a neurotoxin, a suspected carcinogen, a respiratory irritant, and a culprit in reproductive issues. The representatives I spoke with were clear with me that because these hardeners are left out of their finishes,  I would need to accept that Kahrs floors will dent and scratch under the weight of family life. Between the company’s concern for human health, and celebration of wood for its inherent qualities--warmth, rusticity, connection to the natural world--I was onboard.

Environmental Impact: Kahrs’ commitment to corporate responsibility with respect to the environment and the communities in which it operates is impressive: “Environmental, social, governance (ESG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters impact the communities where Kährs operates. We have made a public commitment to incorporate these ethical principles into the way we behave locally and globally,” and it shows.  

Kahrs maintains its primary manufacturing plant in Sweden, and claims to source all of the wood used at this facility from a 100-mile radius around the building, according to a technical representative based at their US headquarters.  The company manages its Chinese factory in similar fashion, and has plans to relocate this facility to Poland in coming years to cut down on the environmental costs associated with managing such distant facilities.  

The company uses all of the wood it harvests, turning the scraps that can’t be used in its finished products into biofuel to heat its manufacturing plants.  Excess biofuel is sold to a local power company to power a neighboring community.  Kahrs is similarly resourceful in its approach to product packaging, keeping protective coverings to a minimum and ensuring that all components are recyclable.

A number of Kahrs flooring products (but not all) are FSC-certified, and those that are not certified source raw materials from responsibly-harvested suppliers, as certified by third party testers.  

INSTALLATION COMPLETE

PART IV: Lessons Learned  

At the outset, I imagined this undertaking to be a relatively low-impact project.  I took my time to exhaustively research and select a product that offered far lower chemical exposure than the carpet it would replace, sourced from a company invested in minimizing environmental impact.  But living through the process was something else.  The sheer quantity of carpet and padding that lived in our garage until its various next owners could claim it reminded me that even this sort of project has a tangible impact on the “stuff” out there in the world.  I felt relatively good about investing in a product whose harvesting, production and installation created less detrimental effects on forests, factory workers, neighboring communities, installers and my own family.  But I still constantly think about the fact that there are no perfectly innocuous choices out there, and that less bad does not always equate to good, and I try to prioritize the decisions I make in my personal and professional lives accordingly.  

At HAABITT, we’re working toward metrics that help designers, builders and consumers understand the relative rewards and detriments of various materials in ways that simplify the process of making good decisions and developing better habits.

VIEWPOINTS: What Does "Green" Really Mean?

These days, the word “green” may refer to the color of an apple or a blade of grass, but just as likely it refers to a product, or an organization that is understood to be good for the environment. Green energy, green cleaning products, green fashion, are all readily available, and presented to consumers as more responsible and less impactful than their conventional counterparts. Care about the planet? About your grandkids? Buy green!

Here at HAABITT, we’re all for making consumer choices with an eye to their environmental impact, but in our experience, the most sustainable choice isn’t always the one described by marketing materials as “green” (or sustainable, eco-friendly, and any other number of phrases companies use to attract well-intentioned consumers). Rather, it is the choice that considers and does its best to reconcile a number of complex and interrelated factors: minimized environmental impact, minimized human health impact, positive social impact, and the replacement of a linear model of consumption with one that is circular and closed-loop.

We’re working hard to create a future where products and organizations won’t need an additional descriptor to communicate the quality and care of their production because those things will be a given. In the meantime, we’ll use the word “sustainable” behaviors and things that take a conscious approach to materials, modes of production, and modes of distribution. Merriam-Webster defines sustainable as “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” while organizing guru Marie Kondo opines that “sustainability is keeping only those things that spark joy to you.” We like both of these definitions, and propose another, specific to our work with HAABITT: “sustainability is making choices consciously with an eye to their impact on our planet, our health, and our fellow citizen.”

MOTIVATING FACTORS: A Call to Action

As designers and as citizens, the last several months have left us worried about the future of our world, our country, our communities and our families. Like so many others, we've been shaken by the abrupt realization that our most important institutions could be made incomprehensibly fragile overnight.  

While the connection between current American politics and our roles as designers / architects / sustainability researchers may sound tenuous, we believe our professional experience gives us an ideal platform to speak up for the things we value most: strong local communities, global stability, human health and happiness, and the long-term health of our shared planet. The new administration has already sent a clear message that issues of environmental regulation and protection are under acute threat, and we cannot stand still and stay silent. 

We see this turbulent moment in time as our call to action. Please join us as we work to create a space that highlights and celebrates building materials, products and practices that result in better health for all of us.  Our goal with HAABITT is to make identifying and selecting less toxic, more sustainable and more intelligent building materials easier and thus habitual practice for designers, builders and consumers. Consumer awareness leads to consumer demand, which is a potent tool for effecting corporate and governmental change. In turn, corporate and governmental change will support healthier environments and habitats. 

Along the way, we’ll celebrate best practices in the industry, advise on new and old technologies worth knowing about, and review new materials for environmental impact, longevity, toxicity, recyclability, and sound manufacturing processes. We welcome your questions as well as your contributions!

Hello again, West Coast.

It’s good to be back in Portland, where my architecture career really began!  There is so much to love about this city: its design culture, its urban planning and design precedents, its focus on sustainable development all provide ample fodder for inspiration.  My recent relocation affords me opportunities for new west coast collaborations with old friends and colleagues.  I’m thrilled to be partnering with Alison Legge of Elise Design Studio on the interiors of The Valhalla, an historically-rich site perched on the Sausalito CA waterfront.

Dating back to the late 1800s, the property’s killer views of San Francisco have been enjoyed by a diverse group over the years, ranging from saloon frequenters to movie stars and city mayors to restaurant connoisseurs.  We’re excited to be adapting the property to house eight residential units that both embrace the property’s rich legacy and provide ample and appropriate transition from the public pedestrian Bridgeway along the water to private living spaces that nevertheless celebrate and remains open to water and city views.  We’re approaching the interior architecture from distinct ends of the spectrum and finding that meeting in the middle is proving to be an exciting endeavor: Ali’s background in furniture design and production and later in interior design, and my own experience in both urban and residential architecture means that we have all scales covered.  Stay tuned!