If you’re wondering about how to judge whether a product is green, here’s five good tips from Residential Design & Build magazine’s John D. Wagner.
1. Improves indoor air quality.
2. Uses recycled/recyclable materials.
3. Reduces water consumption.
4. Is sustainably harvested.
5. Reduces fuel consumption (carbon footprint) during manufacture, delivery, installation and use.
As Wagner writes, it’s easy to separate what’s “green” from what’s “greenwashed” if you keep these 5 basic green principles in mind: “When you do this, you’ll find that green building really is a rather old-fashioned approach to building. It produces tight, well-vented, low-maintenance structures that don’t use lots of fuel to heat and cool themselves, and contain nontoxic products and materials that don’t permanently deplete their sources when harvested.”
