BOSTON—Seattle-based O Ecotextiles, which debuted in the United States last year, announced that its fabric was selected as one of BuildingGreen’s 2008 Top 10 Green Building Products by the editors of Environmental Building News and GreenSpec. This seventh annual award recognizes the most innovative and exciting green building products added to the GreenSpec Directory during the past year or covered in Environmental Building News.
O Ecotextiles’ message is that being an “organic textile” means not just that a fabric uses organic fibers in the yarn, but that every step of the production process has been certified eco-friendly. The company produces organic fabrics for residential and contract/hospitality design use.
“We are thrilled and gratified that the oracle of green product evaluation has spoken with us at length and determined that we are both authentic in our eco-friendly claims and worthy of support,” states CEO Patty Grossman. “We at O Ecotextiles continue to find every opportunity to educate the public, not specifically about our collection necessarily, but about the impact of both the production and the end product (fabric) on both our own health and the health of the planet. The issues regarding fabric are so dramatic that we continue to believe that green fabric will be a real centerpiece of study and concern by green consumers.” Grossman now leads the textiles group developing green standards for the Sustainable Furnishings Council.
“Our selections of the Top 10 Green Building Products represent a wide range of product types in many different application areas,” noted GreenSpec co-editor and BuildingGreen president Alex Wilson. Well represented this year are interior products, including the first FSC-certified and formaldehyde-free bamboo flooring, doors made with wheat-straw particleboard, a line of zero-VOC paint, a transparent finish produced from a by-product of cheese making, and O Ecotextiles. “Most of the Top 10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes,” said Wilson.
Entries Drawn from GreenSpec Directory
BuildingGreen’s Top 10 product selections, as in previous years, are drawn primarily from new additions to the company’s GreenSpec Product Directory, a leading national directory of green building products. The GreenSpec database includes more than 2,000 product listings, representing several times as many actual products. Products are selected based on criteria developed over the past 15 years. Manufacturers do not pay to be listed in GreenSpec, and neither GreenSpec nor Environmental Building News carry advertising; both are supported by users of the information. O Ecotextiles was added to the GreenSpec database in September.
O Ecotextiles adheres to the more stringent global standards, offering some of the very first GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) fabrics, as well as Oeko Tex Standard 100 certified yarns and/or fabrics. The fabrics have also been tested by an indoor air quality testing lab to measure chemical emissions; results demonstrate that the fabrics can be used to accrue LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) points for Indoor Air Quality. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality in an average home is 10 times more polluted than outdoor air. LEED points can also be accrued through Design Innovation and Rapidly Renewable Resources areas. “Designers of LEED buildings are looking for green products, and manufacturers are responding,” said Wilson.
The O Ecotextiles Collection—made from such fibers as bamboo, hemp, abaca, ramie, linen and silk—offers 17 fabric choices and multiple colorways, plus custom. The company was founded by two sisters—Patty Grossman, CEO, and Leigh Ann Van Dusen, general manager/U.S.
Go to O Ecotextiles.
