September 20th, 2007

This is Green Heaven: Live Report from West Coast Green

Posted by Jessica Jensen

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If you are into green homes and eco-friendly living like we are, you will think you died and went to heaven here at West Coast Green.  This is the largest residential green building show this year. The huge expo took place at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco Thursday through Saturday September 20-22.

For starters, West Coast Green and many partners built a green prefab home designed by Michelle Kaufmann in the middle of City Hall Plaza, complete with landscaping and all. It’s a perfect way to enter the show - check out how everything looks in a true home setting before diving into the details with all of the vendors.

If you have any question about whether green building is entering the mainstream, you won’t when you walk in the door of this show - there are multiple vendors in almost every category of home construction, and the quality and variety of products are truly a sign that green is here to stay.

Looking for gorgeous sustainable wood flooring? Check out the beauties from Restoration Timber and EcoTimber. Think some cork flooring might float your boat? See the wide offering from Sustainable Flooring. And if you have a hankering for tropical hardwood but are worried about what rainforest was cut to provide it, worry no more. The reclaimed woods from Terramai are mindblowing in both their diversity and beauty.

Don’t even get me started about counters. Recycled glass wonders from Vetrazzo, recycled paper counters from PaperStone, and cement composite from Syndecrete. Based on what we’ve seen, it won’t be too long before green countertops become the materials of choice in fine homes around the country.

Want to learn more about green building trends and standards? Come get an education from Build it Green. They offer an interesting alternative to the USGBC’s LEED certification.

And then there’s oodles of solar companies, water-saving home water technologies, smokeless fire places, wine racks made of reclaimed wood…everything here is sustainable and lovely and you’ll want to take it all home with you. 

If there is one general critique we would make, it is that many of the products on display are clearly targeted to the high end of the market. We certainly hope that through time these manufacturers will work hard to bring their products to lower price points accessible to a broader audience. Only then will green products truly go mainstream and reach enough people to reduce our collective impact on the environment.

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