October 2006 | Person to Person
Green Squared
By Heather Swift Nordell
Cruising the aisles at Environmental Home Center, I linger over the rich palettes of bamboo and cork flooring and delicious tones of paint that could makeover my bedroom. I feel the same warm heart and solid emotional ground of shopping at a PCC Natural Market. Everything at Environmental Home Center is pre-screened to my values so I can have a field day without wondering what harm has been done to bring me this product.
Carrying out my Yolo zero-VOC paint, I thought, I’m so glad this store exists.
The story of Environmental Home Center or EHC just gets dreamier. Over the summer, EHC merged with its Oregon neighbor Environmental Building Supplies (EBS). Together, the two businesses now have 50 employees working three stores in Seattle, Portland and Bend, along with a vision for future growth.
Sales at EHC and EBS have each grown 20 to 30 percent annually for the last five years. EHC CEO Tim Taylor says the new green company is aiming to grow even faster over the next five years. He is happy to add that not one person lost a job because of the merger and that employees will get more career training and advancement opportunities.
The merger comes when mainstream America is catching on that “green is the word.”
Nationally, there has been unprecedented growth in green building, in both commercial and residential sectors—no doubt in part because of soaring energy prices, increased awareness about health and indoor air quality, and the specter of global warming.
One highlight for Seattle customers: EBS offers a multitude of home improvement workshops for do-it-yourself projects that will now be available here. The Oregon stores will also introduce their solar photovoltaic systems and installation to Seattle customers.
Better yet, EHC is a market maker. It has long helped emerging green building product entrepreneurs bring their products to market. Tiger Mountain Innovations, eco-friendly countertop maker, is just one success story. EHC’s helped Tiger Mountain launch a first product and today EHC sells Tiger Mountain’s popular Squak Mountain product line. Oregon customers will now have access to Squak Mountain. On a national level, EHC has helped several other green building supply companies get started over the last four years.
Best of all, the feel-good nature of shopping at EHC and its sister stores remains.
“This is an important move for us and the industry,” says Abby Mages, co-owner of EBS and a key executive in the new company. “As people become more and more interested in green building, contractors are coming to us looking for materials, good service, installation information, in the right time frame. We will now be better able to help the industry grow and thrive.”
Heather Swift Nordell is a regular contributor to Seattle Conscious Choice.
![[Send]](http://seattle.consciouschoice.com/sendlink/send.gif){kind=small}
Recommend this page to a friend
Top Ten pages recommended to friends:
