Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Contact: Andrew Pace, Safe Building Solutions, 262-968-5070

New Degree of Green™ Rating System Reviews Sustainability, Healthfulness of Home Improvement Products

Homeowners and contractors will now be able to determine whether home improvement and building products are environmentally friendly and healthy, through a new rating system called Degree of Green™.

“The Degree of Green™ system allows retailers to help homeowners and contractors to make educated and immediate decisions regarding the green and health qualities of products they purchase for home building or improvement projects,” said Andrew Pace, owner of Safe Building Solutions in suburban Milwaukee and creator of the Degree of Green™ rating system.

Pace, who has provided green and healthy home building products and consultation for more than 10 years, created the Degree of Green™ rating system in response to the tremendous increase in demand for such products and a corresponding desire by consumers and contractors to know just how “green,” sustainable and healthy those products really are.

“The demand for green, sustainable and healthy products is exploding,” Pace noted. “But at the same time, there is little information out there to help people understand whether a certain product is truly green and truly healthy. Some products are more ‘green’ than others, while some have more adverse health effects than others. Until now, it’s been hard for consumers and contractors to figure things out.”

The Degree of Green™ system was developed to clear up the confusion by providing insightful and fair reviews of home improvement and building products.

The rating system is supported by a comprehensive education and marketing program for retailers. A website, www.degreeofgreen.com, also supports the program.

Panel of National Experts Reviews Products

A panel of experts reviews products and, based on their opinions, rates them on a 1 to 4 scale. A score of 1 represents a “limited” score — denoting very few green or healthy attributes, while a 4 represents the “premium” level of greenness and healthfulness. Products are rated in three categories: healthfulness, sustainability, and environmental impact.

Each two-page Degree of Green™ rating sheet offers a summary of a product, the product’s advantages and disadvantages, information about the manufacturer or vendor, and pricing information.

“The Degree of Green™ system will help clear up the misconceptions in the marketplace and enable customers to start their search for green and healthy products from much higher ground,” Pace said. “It also will help the home improvement and products industry by creating recognized standards. When manufacturers are developing new products, they can look to this system for guidance in formulating materials, since this system reviews items that consumers are most concerned about.”

The initial Degree of Green™ rating panel includes Pace, Lyn Falk, a nationally recognized green home products expert, award winning interior designer, and producer of Healthy Style, distributed nationally by American Public Television, and Michael Fallarino, a builder, journalist and broadcaster, holistic counselor, and interdisciplinary writer and consultant in New York State.

"Degree of Green™ is a much needed rating system,” Falk said. “It will help both the eco-novice and the green veteran make quick, informed and efficient decisions. I'm pleased to be serving as a panel expert, and look forward to seeing the rating system help the green design/build industry grow."

"It’s an honor and a pleasure to be a part of the Degree of Green™ panel,” Fallarino said. “Testing, rating and reviewing are innate proclivities for me. My heart has always been green, and after 28 years of building experience I have a voracious appetite for beautiful design and a zero tolerance for poor product performance."

Pace has been studying green and healthy building products since the 1990s, and has become a nationally recognized expert in the field. He has authored numerous columns on the topic and has been interviewed for many articles on healthy building products and products made with resource sustainability in mind. Additionally, he has been a speaker at various conferences on green building and is a regular contributor to forums and blogs.

Pace, whose family has been supplying commercial construction products since 1938, started looking into the health effects of building products when a crew became sick due to out-gassing from traditional materials. That situation prompted him to look into alternative building materials and to launch Safe Building Solutions. His company now provides healthy and eco-friendly building and home improvement products both in southeastern Wisconsin through his retail outlet, and through much of the U.S. as a national distributor of paints and finishes made by AFM Safecoat, el: Environmental Language cabinetry and other manufacturers.

Additional Degree of Green™ panelists will be added, and Pace may engage guest panelists when a certain expertise is required for a specific product.

“We really want to make this an industry standard, so consumers can easily identify products that meet their health needs and that satisfy their desires to use products that have minimal impact on the Earth,” Pace said. “We don’t know of any other system that offers such information in an easy-to-understand and unbiased manner.”

Manufacturers who want to receive a rating for their products are encouraged to contact Pace, while retailers who want to participate in the Degree of Green™ program also can contact Pace for details, including licensing information.

Degree of Green™ ratings will be regularly published in Green Building Product Dealer magazine and will be available through the Safe Building Solutions in metropolitan Milwaukee.

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Click Here to Read the Degree of Green™ Fact Sheet

Click Here to See Samples of Degree of Green™ Rating Sheets

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