Beyond Sustainable in Las Vegas
Urban Woods is bringing the newest “Beyond Sustainable” furniture designs to the World Market Center in Las Vegas February 1st 2010. Check out the action in Building “B” – second floor.
Las Vegas World Market – Living Green Pavilion – September 14-17, 2009
Urban Woods is showing it’s newest Sustainable Furniture lines in the “Living Green Pavilion” at the Las Vegas World Market.
Living Green Pavilion
The Living Green Pavilion is a perfect environment for furniture manufacturers to showcase their new lines of sustainably made designs.
Since it’s inception, The Living Green Pavilion has been one of the more popular destinations at Las Vegas Market. This year, it continues to grow as the home furnishings industry’s largest space dedicated exclusively to ec0-friendly products.
At this market, the Sustainable Furnishings Council (SFC), will present a series of seminars dedicated to educating retailer and manufacturers about sustainability. The Brave New World Environmental Leadership Series offers the most comprehensive lineup of any market on sustainability education and events. There are nine events. Eight are free. And you’ll find that all seminars take place conveniently in WMC Building B, 2nd Floor Living Green Pavilion.
Urban Woods is located in WMC Building B, 2nd Floor Living Green Pavilion, B-200
The Newset Eco-friendly Furniture is a Hybrid
What do you get when you cross a Wilcox with a Trousdale? a Wildale!
A perfect blend of rustic and refined reclaimed wood blended together to create a unique new collection.
The creative minds at Rum Runner Home came up with the Hybrid furniture design this summer and feature many combinations on their floor in the Hamptons.
The newest Urban Woods, eco friendly, hybrid collection has also just arrived at SC-41 in Soquel, CA.
Custom Made Eco-Friendly Furniture by Urban Woods
More and more designers and retailers are choosing to make their custom furniture from reclaimed wood with the eco-friendly manufacturing processes available from Urban Woods.
Retailers and designer agree that the peace of mind and quick turn around time of our sustainable, domestic production beats their former sources over seas. Americans are starting to request “made in the USA” again for their household purchases and the fact that they can get exactly the dimensions and finishes they need in a relatively quick time period is a big selling point.
All pieces at Urban Woods are made of reclaimed wood and finished with water based stains and low VOC finishes.
Get what you need at www.urbanwoods.net
Reclaimed Wood Furniture Made in Los Angeles
reclaimed wood furniture
- Reclaimed Douglas Fir at Urban Woods
The term “reclaimed wood” may conjur many different images. Some might imagine sunken logs that have been rescued from Amazonian river bottoms, or old barn siding from a dilapidated Southern plantation, or a peasants home razed in the third world because the value of the ancient timber is more vauable than the shelter it provides. All of these woods are reclaimed by some one, some where for some purpose and by some different method.
When it comes to sustainability and the making of sustainable furnishings one must consider the degree of sustainability of the ingredients. Is it constructed from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) wood (the FSC promotes responsible management of the worlds forests), Bamboo (actually a rapidly growing grass) or the most sustainable of materials, Reclaimed Wood from local sources?
Urban Woods is always striving to create a more sustainable product. In fact our products are beyond sustainable. By eliminating waste wood from landfills where they are left to decompose and release carbon into the atmosphere, reclaimed wood is “rescued” and repurposed for a second life.
See the full range of furniture made in Los Angeles from reclaimed wood and inquire about custom furniture options made by Urban Woods.
Kirei Board…Beautiful
Kirei Board inlaid in Palisades dining table.
Kirei Board is a beautiful, sustainable creation manufactured from reclaimed agricultural fiber from the Sorghum plant grown around the world for food. The stalks of this plant are usually burned or thrown into landfills after harvest. The stalks left over after harvest are heat-pressed with a non-toxic adhesive to form lightweight, strong, unique Kirei Board. By using them in the production of Kirei Board this material is removed from the waste stream, reducing landfill need and air pollution, while giving rural farmers a new source of revenue from a previously unused waste material.
Kirei Board is used throughout the Urban Woods furniture collections and utilized in many custom applications by Urban Woods. The Trousdale Collection features Kirei Board accents and panels together with reclaimed Douglas Fir creating a perfect blend of sustainable materials.
Check out the “friends” link on our home page to see Kirei Board used in unique ways.
Ben & Jerry’s serves up Green Ice Cream
Ben & Jerry’s has teamed up with Greenpeace to unveil an environmentally-friendly freezer being called, “The Prius of Refrigeration.”
The freezer, which will eliminate dangerous F-gas emissions found in standard freezers, runs on about three cigarette lighters’ worth of propane.
Greenpeace is hoping their initiative, called “Greenfreeze,” will catch on in the U.S.A. as it has in Europe.
Today, Greenfreeze technology is in use in more than 300 million refrigerators worldwide, but it was not allowed into the United States until earlier this year when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authorized Ben & Jerry’s to run a test trial of units equipped with Greenfreeze technology.
The impact the project expects to have will be equivalent to taking 850,000 Hummer H3 SUVs off the road.
Greenpeace engineers developed a new climate-safe refrigeration technology known as Greenfreeze in 1992 and gave it away to any company that wanted it.
The technology was developed by two scientists, Professor Harry Rosin and Dr. Hans Preisendanz from the Institute of Hygiene in Dortmund, Germany, who were looking for a refrigerant which neither destroyed the ozone layer nor contributed to global warming. They settled on a mix of the hydrocarbons propane and butane.
“The beauty of Greenfreeze,” Dr. Preisendanz told the UNEP magazine “Our Planet,” back in 1996, “is that anyone can have the technology. It cannot be patented because all we have done is find the right mix of two existing common gases. The technology is totally free and can be used by the whole world, whether rich or poor, for a whole range of uses.”
“The irony is that the chemical industry also searched for a substitute for CFCs but only in one direction – to find substances they could patent.” he said.
Ben & Jerry’s acquired the freezers as part of a two-year EPA-approved trial program of the “Greenfreeze” technology.
Norway gives Billion Dollars to protect Amazon Rain Forest
Norway will give Brazil US$1 billion to preserve the Amazon rain forest, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday, as long as Latin America’s largest nation keeps trying to stop deforestation.The Amazon loses the equivalent of one-and-a-half football fields of forest every minute to logging, ranching and farming, the Brazilian environmental group Imazon has estimated. READ WHOLE ARTICLE HERE***
Beijing LEEDS the way to Sustainability
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presents the LEED Gold Award to Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing Olympic Village. (Photo courtesy BOGOC) |
The Beijing Olympic Village received a LEED gold award from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certifies that buildings have met a set of criteria for sustainability and energy efficiency.The LEED gold award was presented to Chen Zhili, head of the Beijing Olympic Village, on Wednesday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Chen said the presentation affirmed the cooperation between China and the United States in clean energy technology for Olympic Games.
More than 16,800 athletes, coaches and officials of national teams are living in the residential section of the village – in 22 six-story buildings and 20 nine-story buildings that were constructed using environmentally-friendly paint and other materials.
The Beijing Olympic Village uses solar cells and geothermal heat pumps to supply energy to the buildings. The buildings feature solar heat, solar hot water, solar thermoelectric cogeneration, and intelligent control devices. They consume just 1/30th of the energy consumed by conventional buildings, according to the contractor, Guoao Investment Company.
Through a heat exchange system, the Village is projected to draw 7.89 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy from the Sun during the Olympics and slightly less in the years after the Games are finished and the buildings are used to house other residents.
The system taps energy from Qinghe sewage treatment plant and upgrades it through heat pump devices for winter heating and summer cooling. The technology can save energy by over 40 percent compared with ordinary air-conditioning systems.
In the Village, solar energy collecting tubes have been installed on rooftop gardens. The system can meet hot water demands of 16,000 users during the Games and some 2, 000 households after the Games. The project can save 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year,
The wastewater in the Village is being recycled and the 200 tons of water recycled daily is used for landscape watering in the Village.
Norway’s Sustainable Music Festivals
Norwegian music festivals lead the way to sustainablility by becoming the first music festivals to sign on with the UN Environment Program for climate-friendly events.
The Canal Street Festival in Arendal, Norway and the Hove Festival on the island of Tromoya, outside of Arendal, are lowering the carbon footprint of the entertainment industry through a partnership with UNEP’s Climate Neutral Network. The two big music festivals are the first to sign the UN Environment Program known as CN Net.
The Canal Street Festival, a jazz event taking place from July 21 to 27, is using certified green energy sources for their concerts. They also introduced organic cotton and paper bags in the city and they are selling organic and fair trade T-shirts.
The festival continues through Sunday and features John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, and The Waterboys, many bands of local, European, and U.S. renown, boat cruises, kids’ events, a parade and nightly jam sessions.
The Hove Festival, which featured Jay-Z, Beck, The Raconteurs and the Kooks among their major acts last month, invited their audience, staff, and participants to pay for their individual carbon footprint caused by their travel to the event. They also provided solar-charging points for their mobile phones, LED lighting systems powered by wind and solar power, and they set a target of 50% for recycling materials used during the event.
Funds raised by the offsets are going to support Clean Development Mechanisms in China approved by the United Nations under the Kyoto Protocol.
UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, said, “The greening of live musical events represents an opportunity to lower the carbon footprint of not only the entertainment industry, but those of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of people worldwide.”
He continues, “The Hove Festival and the Canal Street can serve as models for musical and entertainment events everywhere. Climate change tops the charts as the number one challenge facing this planet. Unless all sectors of society step up to the bar and address this challenge, we will all be singing the blues.”
