KBIS Report: It’s Getting Green in Here
As I walked around last year’s Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas, I asked where I could find the green products. I was encouraged to put on my walking shoes and make the trek to a minor hall where I found about twenty square feet devoted to five or six products that left little impression on me. Much has changed, it seems, in only one year. Green is the buzzword at this year’s show, helped in no small part by the host city, Chicago, showing off its green-ness through LEED building projects going up within sight of the convention center. Just about every booth displayed information on how green their products were. “Green building has become the spark that has added some life to this industry,” a representative from MasterBrand Cabinets told me.
Water saving innovators Kohler and TOTO made green the focus of their booths, proudly displaying the Watersense stickers on their high efficiency toilets. TOTO, who recycles 100% of their china, has developed a universal toilet bowl whose tank can be interchanged from a 1.6 gallon per flush to a 1.28 gpf e-tank.
Countertop manufacturers like Silestone and Cambria showed off their Greenguard certification while new, funky recycled material countertops like Alkemi, with its aluminum shavings in a clear resin, or Vetrazzo, with its large chunks of recycled glass in concrete, caught my attention.
The appliance section featured the best in ENERGY STAR appliance manufacturers like ASKO, LG, and Bosch, to name a few.
The area that I was most interested in was cabinets. There were a couple of small bamboo cabinet makers (though one I discovered was simply a laminate product) as well as several major cabinet makers showing off their KCMA-ESP certification of green manufacturing practices. I spoke to many cabinet companies who continue to struggle to adapt to low formaldehyde level requirements like California’s upcoming CARB requirements, which are pushing manufacturers to lower emissions. The company that caught my eye was Executive Kitchens, who use a water-based, non-VOC stain and/or paint on all of their cabinets, and offer anything from their catalog in a formaldehyde-free plywood.
What this influx of green into KBIS means for those products that are clearly not green remains to be seen, but I couldn’t help but notice the juxtaposition of the low flow toilets only a couple of booths away from bathtubs that would require three water heaters to fill with warm water – or the showers with six showerheads sharing a booth with efficient bathroom fixtures. This only highlights that it is consumer demand that determines product offerings, so if you want green products, demand them!
Joel,
Executive Kitchens is definitely an innovative player in the Green Cabinet arena. I applaud them for being way ahead of the competition in going to a full complement of waterborne finishes.
Another innovative supplier is Koch & Co out of Seneca, Kansas. Koch offers a GREEN Series cabinet constructed with a Wheat Board Panel. The Wheat Board is a particleboard manufactured from Wheat stalk fiber rather than tree fiber. The binders are also urethane based so there is no formaldehyde in the adhesives! Awesome product line available in both Low-VOC and No-VOC finishes.
Koch has recently obtained the KCMA’s ESP certification on their Classic (traditional particleboard) and Imperial (traditional plywood) series; but their greater source of pride, the GREEN series, is what they were actively promoting at KBIS. If you missed them at the show, you can get information from their web site at http://www.kochcabinets.com or my blog at http://www.kitchenvillage.blogspot.com .
Best regards,
David Summer
Manager, Contractor Sales Division
Kitchen Village
Arlington Heights, IL
Thanks for the information, David. I have some experience with Koch’s Humabuilt line and have been very impressed with their wheat board cabinets. I’m glad you mentioned them here because they definitely belonged in the original post.
Please take a look at Caroma for true water-saving innovation. This is the company that developed the first two button dual flush system….in 1984. Dual flush technology is recognized around the world for significantly reducing toilet water consumption. Caroma now has 37 models available in North America, 36 of which are WaterSense approved. No other manufacutrer comes close to having that many HETs approved for both their water savings and their performance.
Hi Joel, did you happen to swing by our booth in the Lakeshore building? The President of my company and I were discussing how we could make Cardinal Shower [http://www.CardinalShower.com] a more ‘green’ company. Do you have any suggestions?
[...] this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.As I mentioned in my KBIS Report, I was struck by the sizes of bathtubs on display at this year’s kitchen and bath trade show. [...]
[...] KBIS Report: It’s Getting Green in Here Add a comment or question Tags: appliances, home, hot water heater, insulation, tax rebate, water Share/Email Stumble It « Previous post aj_server=”http://rotator.adjuggler.com/servlet/ajrotator/”;aj_tagver=”1.0″;aj_zone=”green”;aj_adspot=”316930″;aj_page=”0″;aj_dim=”300787″;aj_ch=”";aj_ct=”";aj_kw=”";aj_pv=true;aj_click=”"; [...]
[...] products, along with more styles and configurations. Green kitchen design was a big theme at the 2008 KBIS show, and I wanted to mention a couple specific products from the show that you may want to check out if [...]
[...] KBIS Report: It’s Getting Green in Here Tags: drywall, ecorock, investment, serious materials Add a comment or question Recommend this post Share/Email Stumble It « Previous post [...]
[...] KBIS Report: It’s Getting Green in Here [...]