A large part of being a manufacturer of products designed to make your home spotless (and your life easier) is assessing our own operations – evaluating the impact of our production facilities as well as the strength of our cleaners.  Our factory is a model of efficiency and efficacy, and we use our Diamond Model or Sustainable Cycle to analyze the lifecycle of our products. Ecover takes care of business so that you don’t need to worry about anything but a sparkling clean house for you and your family!  Such comprehensive building, manufacturing and waste guidelines drive our business, and you can rest assured you have some of the best cleaning agents on earth.

We wish that our business model was followed in every industry. Today we’re looking at the case in the construction industry, where fluid economics and demanding schedules can conspire to make building a haphazard process. Commercial building projects can chew through raw materials, consume great amounts of our resources and waste energy and send a seemingly endless parade of waste to landfills.

Fortunately it appears that there’s growth in some ecologically-sound building practices, thanks to the efforts of environmentally savvy (and LEED certified) architects and trade groups. Along with government incentives and education, developers now get greater input relating to the use of sustainable materials and practices.

 LEED Gold certification is a goal for projects seeking sustainable building.

In addition, it’s consumers at home that may be fostering more change than trade groups or government regulations – because of the growth of home projects among DIY’rs.  Popular media outlets like HGTV and Planet Green, and other educational information  provides a wealth of integrated solutions for efficient remodeling in your home.  Big-box retailers like Home Depot and Lowes also help ecologically friendly remodeling and insulation construction more accessible to DIY.

Perhaps this consumer driven effort at home will provide a “trickle-up” effect, with commercial construction following the buzz to less wasteful building practices, and more earth-friendly standards.

Image via Wikimedia Commons: excess or damaged building materials often go straight to landfills.