“I wanted to provide a resource for my colleagues that would make the process of choosing “green” products easier and less time consuming,” she says.  “Also as a “green” consumer myself I wanted to provide an outlet for the average person to go and find out what products are available and where to buy them locally.”

The passionate green designer’s consulting firm EcoAmmo provides sustainable design services to the building industry. These services include materials research, Eco Interior Consultation, workshops and independent LEED project facilitation.

Carter started her own library of researched green products. Then she learned Alberta Employment Immigration and Industry (AEII) had been seeking someone to create and manage a database of Alberta-made green building products.

By March 2007, Carter founded Green Alberta with Brandy Burdeniuk, Sheniz Kassam and Michael Rawson Clark. In partnership with AEII,  C3 EnviroTech Solutions and EcoAmmo, Green Alberta launched in late November.

The online database already has “green screened” 20 products, 12 manufacturers and eight suppliers listed on their website. “Our services to manufacturers are geared to help them become more sustainable,” explains Carter.  “We will walk them through the process of what it means and then connect them to organizations who can help them.”

An introductory level of information on products and materials will be available free to anyone on the Green Alberta website.

The online database will support itself though from services offered to those that make or sell products, including manufacturers, suppliers and distributors and those specifying products and materials like design professionals.

For example, suppliers can purchase an annual membership for a flat fee of $150.  Their benefits would include the “company green screen,” having their location associated to all products on the website that they carry, a Biblioteca listing, marketing perks, training and workshop rebates and access to further publications and knowledge.

Design professionals are now being mandated by the government, Carter says, to perform in-depth research on products and materials for Green Building Rating Systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). “Our services to them will cut down their research time and make their projects more efficient.”

The service will allow design professionals to be more involved with the database compilation and earlier access to information.

David C. Bengert, president of Built Green™ Society of Canada, recognizes the value of Green Alberta.  Built Green™ has a database of products and over 6,500 homes registered in Alberta and B.C. and moving into Ontario in 2008

“The database will be a good source for information on sustainable products,” says Bengert.  “I think that the Green Alberta database will be useful for companies that are not part of Built Green™ and may not know where to start to search for green products.  I believe that the two organizations should work together and cross-link our websites for mutual benefit.”

Carter says the site is adding new listings all the time.

“We will be pushing hard this new year to obtain 40 products per month with a year goal of 400 products,” says Carter.

How Green Alberta Evaluates Products

Through the extensive collection of data on green building products and materials, Green Alberta utilizes their own verification tool designed in-house to be able to confirm that the information put forth by manufacturers is accurate and true.  Using these facts, Green Alberta can extrapolate a series of indicators to show how products score in terms of their environmental, social and economic performance.

Green Alberta gathers information based on the life cycle assessment of a product’s impact performance by looking at the product, the manufacturing process and the company’s profile.  This in-depth verification process allows viewers to see a product’s overall achievements in four major categories called the E4 criteria:

•    Environmental: The impact of the product and its associated uses on the external environment.
•    Ethical: Social and health related concerns of the product and its associated impacts on the community.
•    Economic: The amount of return a product gives for the dollar value invested.
•    Evolutionary Potential: The product’s capacity to become more sustainable in the future.

Source: Green Alberta

What is a ‘green’ product?
We consider a product green if:
•    The product has been innovated to address safety and health considerations of its users, above and beyond current industry standards.
•    The product has been designed with environmentally low-impact practices in mind, such as having a closed-loop recycling program for the product.
•    The company demonstrates a level of commitment to sustainability through operational and ethical policies that pay attention to their social, environmental and economic impact and resource efficiency.
•    The manufacturing process accounts for the life cycle impact and embodied energy of its actions, from extracting raw materials to production to transportation of the finished product to the distribution site.
•    The product or company can be certified by an independent body to verify that they have achieved a certain standard of environmental performance. This is called third party certification. 

For more information go to:  http://www.greenalberta.ca    http://www.ecoammo.com    http://www.builtgreencanada.com