BuildingGreen Announces Top-10 Green Products

List stresses energy-saving, recycled content.
by Nigel Maynard

Green builders everywhere rejoice-the list of green building products has just grown longer thanks to the release of BuildingGreen's 2007 Top-10 Green Building Products. Brattleboro, Vt.-based BuildingGreen, publisher of the GreenSpec Directory and Environmental Building News, announced the list at GreenBuild 2007, the world's largest conference and exposition dedicated to sustainable and energy efficient construction.
"Our selections of the Top-10 Green Building Products represent a wide range of product types in many different application areas," so they appeal to a wide range of audiences in the building community, GreenSpec co-editor and BuildingGreen president Alex Wilson said at the show in Chicago.
According to BuildingGreen, a big driver in the development of green products is the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Rating System, which awards points for the use of certain product types or for the energy or water savings that green products can achieve.
Spurred by LEED, manufacturers have been working hard to develop products that address environmental concerns, higher energy costs, health concerns, and predicted water shortages in the future. As a result, the list includes four products that save energy; two products for water saving; three products are green in part because they are made from recycled or recovered material; and two avoid hazardous manufacturing or disposal of materials. "Most of the Top-10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes," said Wilson.
The list includes products that will be relevant to the residential building community, including FSC-certified Collins Pine Freeform particleboard that does not contain urea-formaldehyde; the Bosch Evolution 800 Series dishwasher that is 148 percent more energy efficient than the federal standard and 73 percent more than Energy Star; Alpen Energy Group's Alpen fiberglass window-a product that can achieve an astonishingly high R-20; EnOcean wireless controls that integrate radio-frequency communication to use just one-tenth the power of most controllers; and energy-saving LED down lighting from LED Lighting Fixtures.