GREEN BUILDING

Energy & Atmosphere

Material Conservation

Sustainable Building

Water Conservation

Indoor Air Quality

Third-Party Raters

Supporting Local Economy

By getting construction materials that are made and sold as close to the building site as possible, we can have a two-fold benefit. We save resources by nature of less fuel usage to get the products to their end location, and we support people in our local area that make and sell these products.

For example, bamboo flooring may use highly renewable resources, but it is made on the other side of the globe and transported across our country on trucks. Domestic species wood flooring is likely to be made a few towns over out of a different, but still renewable resource that is produced in our state. If the wood is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, you can be sure that it was harvested in a responsible, renewable fashion. Several people who have families in Michigan will have made a living from producing and distributing this high-quality product for a home, and much less fuel went into getting to the construction site.

In our area, we can even purchase ash flooring from re-claimed trees in Washtenaw County that were felled due to the emerald ash borer. This is the ultimate in low-impact materials - using locally produced flooring out of lumber that would have been chipped for mulch otherwise.