Where Can You Find Green Building Materials?

The green building industry is still fairly new. It can be difficult, especially for homeowners, to find green and sustainable building materials for our projects. It is also a challenge, to make sense of some of the labeling, which at times is up to interpretation or downright misleading. And without green building materials, we can’t build a green home.

Many hardware stores, including the large chains like Lowe’s or Home Depot, feature green building materials. Carefully check what they label as green. Be aware that products shipped half-way around the world, or from the other side of the continent, are not sustainable.

One source for green building materials I have found is The Green Depot. They have a commercial and a residential section. What they don’t have is green materials for building foundations, walls, roof. Nor do they have siding, roofing, windows. What they do have that caters to homeowners are finishing materials, glues, cabinetry, electrical supplies, etc. They are loacted on the East Coast with several stores. Shipping to the West Coast would not be sustainable. So you folks out west, look for a local store that carries green building materials and let us know about them.

Oikos.com is a website geared towards prefessionals involved in green and sustainable construction. The site has lots of information, besides the listing of products. I look at it as a source of information, rather than a site where I can purchase green materials. They do list manufacturers though, and you can possibly order materials from them.

A farily new, yet promising site for green building materials is Ecolet.net. Their mission is to be the largest, free accessible sustainable materials libary in the world. A review of their site indicates that they have a good start, and will need to fill in a few blanks. Give them some time to fill up the shelves. It’s a promising reosurce.

Here are a few articles about and resources for green building materials:

WinWholesale goes green in Massachusetts - Building materials and industrial supplies distributor debuts new location in Holliston, Mass., aimed at serving the renewable energy market.

Green Building Materials: Finger Jointed Lumber - Even for the average homeowner finger jointed lumber provides an opportunity to specify a green building product requires no special considerations for design or budget. What Is Finger Jointed Lumber? Finger jointed lumber is created …

DirectBuy provides one-stop shopping solution for green building … - read more.

Riverwired.com: Earth Friendly Building Materials - Environmental Building News (EBN) published a useful list that I read a while back with some great tips about how to choose green building materials. Technically it was what makes a material green, but same idea; it helps you choose. …

Resources Links for Green Building Materials and Health - ASTM International Develops technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services used around the world. Build It Green Fosters stakeholder collaboration to accelerate adoption of green building practices, policies, …

Checklist For Green Building Materials - Trying to figure out exactly why some products are considered green while others are not? Ideally, we’d all like to live in homes that are healthy for our families and the environment, but sometimes it can be challenging. …

Elements of Building: Materials - At the heart of all building projects are the materials, the stuff, the bricks and sticks, the elements that are assembled to build a building. Different materials have different impacts on the Earth. Some require extensive resources …

If you know of any good places to buy green and sustainable building materials, let us know!

Tags: Green Building Materials