Imber Akse House – Burlington’s LEED home

As consumers or specifiers we all have the privilege of choice. Choice to consume, choice in what to consume, choice in with whom we’ll chose our products to consume. Consequently we have a lot of power with our dollar, much more than we realize. Over the decade there has been a quiet revolution – the consumer choice revolution. Consumers have been quietly expressing forms of idealism while shopping; sometimes called responsible or simply choosy they are directing their dollars towards products that resonate and make sense to them – green, responsible, philanthropic, community minded – these are the attributes consumers are using to make critical differentiating determinations between brands or manufacturers because we can. We have that luxury.

In a consumer perspective, one such responsible differentiator is FSC. Forestry Stewardship Council certifies companies within a chain of custody, following a tree from its managed forest, through the mill, to the manufacturer and finally to the retailer. This chain is managed, audited and always traceable to ensure that every stage maintained a responsible use of the material as well as responsible management of waste materials with the goal of achieving a very high rate of recycling. It really makes sense.

For LEED, sustainable or green homes, FSC is a key concept as it does the work for the purchaser, saving you the trouble of responsibility up the chain where you might have had little control in the past. On an earlier post we talked about the idea of upstream pressure when considering change and responsibility and FSC is precisely this idea at work. With FSC, the end user is empowered in their decision – to choose FSC or not.

Unfortunately FSC is still in its early years and consequently supply of materials are limited – a chicken and the egg scenario because consumers aren’t yet driving the FSC demand, and the FSC supply isn’t driving consumer demand. What can we do? Well a few years ago a local lumber supplier, Nicholson and Cates, decided to go down the road of certification because they felt it was the right thing to do. Nic Cates supplies retailers in Canada and the US so they considered that this would be a benefit to their customers, the retailers, as it could be a good differentiator between retailers among consumers. Now that they have their certification, they’re finding demand for FSC material slow to pick up and to make matters worse, the supply of FSC material from up the chain is more difficult to source than regular goods.

Nevertheless they insist that FSC is right for their industry and they will do what they can to educate their customers and supply anyone who wants the FSC material. We met with Nic Cates recently to review the possibilities for our home as we require framing and roof deck materials as well as exterior cedar. We wanted to know what retailers/resellers would be carrying these materials and they are going to act as a sourcing agent to direct us to available FSC materials at area retailers as well as work with a retailer of our choice to bring in specifically what we need. Hopefully we’ll be able to make FSC a practical requirement.