Made Greener in a Factory Near You

(This article was published in the November, 2011 issues of Merchant Magazine and Building Products Digest.)

Over the last thirty years, the manufacturing core of the United States has been dismantled piece by piece and shipped off to other countries.  Looking for competitive advantage through least-cost labor, brand owners and manufacturers have gradually concentrated in China, which now accounts for a large proportion of product sold through this channel.  Even commodity products are very likely to be sourced from China or other faraway places, and not without complications.  Has anyone forgotten the drywall controversy? 

Low prices are good, or so market logic would dictate, but in a globalized economy there are unintended consequences.  Economists have argued that the American middle class, made up of folks who save to buy a house or remodel the one they own, has been significantly diminished by the loss of good paying manufacturing jobs.  This has had a devastating effect in hundreds of local economies that still struggle with high unemployment and underemployment.  In addition, cheap goods and materials from abroad may have other, hidden costs.  Lower quality, for example, can slow productivity or require expensive remediation. 

From a green point of view, there’s another unintended consequence.  Most imported goods and materials will have much higher embodied energy, in other words, a larger carbon footprint.  Shipping goods across the ocean spews tons of carbon into the atmosphere.  More importantly, a foreign factory may get its energy from inefficient coal-burning plants, so before the import is even shipped, its carbon footprint may already be wildly off the charts compared with a domestically made alternative.  There may be other environmental consequences, too, where factories are located in countries with few safeguards in place against pollution, deforestation, etc.

Reducing the embodied energy in buildings is the main motivator behind USGBC’s LEED credit for locally-sourced goods and materials.  This is good, but does it matter?  Is anything even made in this country anymore?  Yes and yes.  Obviously, sourcing goods and materials close to the building site means lower embodied energy, lower amounts of carbon emitted to the atmosphere.  It also helps to support local businesses and encourages builders to incorporate local materials.  Lumber, stone, strawbale, cob – regional resource strengths will help recreate regional building vernacular, too, providing a welcome break from the homogeneity of mass home production.  Shortening the supply chain also delivers strategic business benefits, such as less risk of disruption from overseas events and, potentially, more collaborative relationships between manufacturer and dealer.

And yes, there are still plenty of products made in this country.  A Montana builder made news promoting his 100% American built house (www.theallamericanhome.com), demonstrating that it can be done and with little extra cost.  It also showed that there’s strong interest from builders and prospective home owners to source their goods closer to home. 

So, what’s a good, green dealer to do?  Work with your distributors and manufacturers to identify where the products and materials are made, then identify opportunities to make some changes.  Shorten the supply chain.  Products made closer to home are better or “greener”, theoretically, than those made farther away.  For example, qualified products and materials made within 500 miles of the jobsite earn LEED credits.  Weigh the costs and benefits wisely – a toxic product made next door is always worse than a green import from Europe.  Do work with local manufacturers to green up their product line, if necessary.  In the store, develop signage that educates and informs your customers about the benefits of buying local or buying American.  Finally, resist the temptation to wave the flag, but do make the case based on quality, economics, and environmental benefits, there’s a strong one to be made.