Posted live from Greenbuild.
There are a couple booths that warrant special mention.
This year, the Armstrong Ceiling Systems booth is a metal greenhouse frame (below banners reading "Come see what's growing") that, after the show, will be donated to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Nice. Most of the companies at these trade shows, especially the big players, spend scads on high-concept booths — shiny, gleaming, lots of lights, computer screens, motorized gizmos — that may only see a few shows, if that.
I'm not cynical about Armstrong's motives. Sure, it doubles as a sweet marketing device — so what? I think it qualifies as permaculture. (And guess what else? Where wood is used in Armstrong's Ceiling Systems, that wood is FSC. You can't not get FSC from them. And none of their products have added formaldehyde. I think they've made a commitment, and I don't believe it's entirely market driven.)
But there's another big-player booth that's taken this sort of concept to an awesome extreme.
Antron, the carpet fiber maker, has a booth that's not a booth at all. There are a few used chairs, and a couple old schoolhouse chalkboards sort of defining a space. It's got mismatched, used (really used) carpet underfoot. There's no lights. No computer. No booth swag giveaways. They don't even have cut sheets! What gives? I asked Henning Bloech, Antron's sustainability guy, to explain, and he did it in under two minutes. Listen.
Antron's "booth"
Henning Bloech
UPDATE — Thanks to Andrew's comment (below), I went to have a look at Forbo's booth. Turns out that they'd unboothed so well that I'd walked right by the day before. There were a couple tables — one with two computer stations set up on it — in an area that had some flooring tiles and sheet laid down. The tablecloths did say "Forbo" in big letters, and there was obvious signage in the corners on easels, so I don't really have a good excuse for missing it... I guess the fancy displays work for people in a state of overload. Anyway, Andrew was right — this one absolutely deserves mention too. I spoke with Eric Bower, northeast regional manager for Forbo Flooring Systems, and he explained how they reduced their booth's carbon footprint from 12,000 pounds to a slim 906. Listen.
Actually, I thought the Forbo booth was pretty interesting as well. I'm not sure how effective the webcam conferencing worked but at least they brought a new angle to what people expected from a Greenbuild booth.
I loved the experience of walking through the open Antron booth. The chalkboards were a really nice touch, too. In a sea of tall booths towering above me, it was great to walk by a booth with the feel of my favorite classroom (or at least what I wish my favorite classroom had been like).
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