The Green House Effect: If You Build it Green, They Will Come: F. W. Honerkamp Co

Remember the days — just a couple of decades ago — when organic food was the province of the health food store or the specialty market? These days, of course, consumers can go into any large supermarket chain and find a substantial organic section.

That business evolution provides a handy analogy for Jeff Honerkamp, 32, chief operating officer of F. W. Honerkamp Co., when he explains why his firm is betting big-time on eco-friendly interior wood products.

"When you see major brands coming out with organic cereal or ketchup, you says. "I believe our industry is going in the same direction. And our company's goal is to make it just as easy for our customers to build green as to not build green."

That means F. W. Honerkamp is finding ways to offer architectural-grade interior plywood products (such as cabinets, paneling and shelving) in which every wood component has been certified "green" — meaning its manufacture has caused a minimum of damage to the environment — and is held together with environmentally friendly, nonfume- emitting adhesive.

It's a market that is still "in its infancy," both in terms of supply and demand, Honerkamp admits. F. W. Honerkamp, a fifth-generation family-owned and –operated business based in the Bronx and Long Island, began to build the eco-friendly segment of the company in 2003. The company, which had $34 million in revenue in 2006, is on track to increase that number by 12% this year, with more than a third of the growth coming from green products, says Honerkamp.

"This is where the market is going," adds Honerkamp. "Standardization of green building products is a long way away, but the interest in it is definitely picking up." Indeed, green furniture was the dominant theme this fall at the High Point Market in North Carolina, the world's largest furnishings industry trade show. And according to the U.S. Green Business Council (USGBC), the value of green building construction starts in 2007 is expected to exceed $12 billion.

What Green Means

To make green a profitable endeavor at this point, however, F. W. Honerkamp has two formidable challenges. One is to educate the consumer, and the other is to buy enough quantity to keep prices relatively affordable.

In very basic terms, a piece of interior plywood can be thought of as a sandwich, with a wood core between two slices of decorative veneer. From an environmental perspective, the wood veneers should be from responsibly harvested forests and be certified as such by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC certification of wood components is a key factor when a building is seeking to meet the USGBC's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

The core can be considered green if it's made from recycled or eco-friendly composite material. And the adhesive that holds it all together should be made with a minimum of chemicals to cut down on emissions. When ordering a type of custom plywood, the customer can choose among many different possibilities for the front, back, core and adhesive.

"Taking a traditional order from a customer takes about 10 to 15 minutes," says Honerkamp. "But if the order is for green products, it can take up to 90 minutes. The industry is moving so fast that even architects who are on the cutting edge of new products need to be educated.

"So we need to ask a lot of clarifying questions. If a customer says 'I want green plywood,' where do you want to start? Are you focusing on protecting the environment, the percentage of recycled material, how the product is shipped, how it's packaged?"

In the end, of course, there's no perfectly green product. "It's like they say, the greenest thing you can do is not to buy a hybrid car; it's to use a bicycle," Honerkamp points out. "But if you can't take a bike to go 60 miles, you've got to focus on the thing you can do. The key for our customers is to at least start going in the right direction."