Q: I am a DIYer and need to make some improvements to my home, but I have strong green values. How can I make sure that when I make these changes, I’m using the greenest materials and products?

A: In any green remodeling project, our greatest goal is to create a healthy and safe home, and one that encourages us to live more sustainably. This entails more than the selection of green materials and products. Before we make any materials selection, it’s important to look at the bigger picture: how we use our homes. Proper space utilization can help us function better—and of course greener—by using less energy, consuming fewer resources, and maintaining better indoor air quality. And by maximizing the use of all our inside, and some outside, living spaces, we can also reduce the need to add extra square footage.

Our changing lifestyle and work requirements often find us multitasking, and these changes necessitate rethinking how we use our homes. While I don’t advocate putting an office in a bedroom, it’s not uncommon that modern homes do away with formal living and dining rooms and merge these areas with our kitchens into a single, more uniformed, multi-functioning space. This “space-use” rethinking is the first step in assessing a remodeling project: to make our home better support a greener lifestyle by decreasing our footprint in square footage, conditioning any underutilized space with heating and cooling, and reducing the resources we use to outfit those spaces. Good, “up-front” thinking can also support our efforts to move less frequently and “age-in-place,” or build and remodel so we can stay in our homes comfortably, safely and independently, regardless of physical challenges.

When it’s time to select and assess new products and materials, be they furniture, carpet or new flooring, it’s important to look at the product’s whole life story. Evaluating the greenness of a product in this way is called “life cycle assessment.” There are many shades of green available to us, as well as, unfortunately, a lot of greenwashing in the industry, so we need to look deeper into what a product is made from, how it’s manufactured, how far it had to travel to get to our homes, and watch out for any possible chemical emissions. We consumers all look forward to the day when we can read the content label on a piece of furniture just as we read a label on a package of food. Currently, although those labels do not appear on many products yet, the information is often readily available on the product manufacturer’s website, or through a handful of third-party testers and certifiers. In the meantime, a growing number of local stores also offer green materials and products and can help us in making more informed decisions.

One very helpful new program currently awaiting launch is a national remodeling guide called “REGREEN.” (The program underwent public review at the end of 2007.) A partnership between the American Society of Interior Designers and the U.S. Green Building Council, this residential remodeling program offers, for the first time, building science-based remodeling best practices coupled with extensive guidance for the consideration and selection of greener home furniture and fittings—everything from flooring to throw pillows. Because the REGREEN program is geared toward DIYers and building professionals, it’s both comprehensive and user friendly. In the future, REGREEN will be developed into a web-based tool that will allow users to identify their own goals and priorities using an extensive “Strategies Library.” The Library will show the relationships and links between different green building issues and the strategies that can be utilized to meet those goals. Extensive links and resources for each of those strategies make the program even more robust.

The REGREEN directory will be launched in print form at “Interiors08,”ASID’s annual conference, in March. In the meantime, the U.S. Green Building Council’s Green Home Guide website, http://www.greenhomeguide.org, is the best location for you to get a sneak peek at the directory before its formal launch and, of course, to find great tips on greening your home.

Victoria Schomer, ASID, LEED AP, principal at Green Built Environments, brings 20 years of green design and building expertise to the Asheville community. She is a professional member of the American Society of Interior Design (ASID) and is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional; Victoria lectures and teaches courses internationally, was the recipient of the national ASID “Design for Humanity Award,” and co-authored the ASID/USGBC “REGREEN” Program. Visit http://www.greenbuilt-e.com for more information.

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