I actually had this question come up in another green forum and thought I could get some help with it here.

Webuyitgreen;

 

I noticed that you sell bamboo:
 at a recent "Green Building" seminar it was discussed that bamboo is no longer being considered "green" due to the enormous amounts of fuel needed to import to the US
Was wondering if you had heard that yet?

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the information. I had not yet heard that about bamboo. But I should clarify that I don't sell the products. I allow other businesses who claim to sell green products/services to advertise free of charge on the site. I do offer a definition of "green" on the site as a guideline and refer users to Dr. David Allen's discussion of some of the difficulties involved in determining whether specific products are green. The site is at http://www.utexas.edu/research/ceer/che302/greenproduct/pages/whatisgreenproducts.htm. He gets into exactly the sort of "trade-off" issues you have mentioned--a product like bamboo may have the advantage of being rapidly renewable on the one hand, but if it is transported great distances, the fuel used to transport it may outweigh that advantage in an overall assessment of cradle to grave impact of the product on the environment. If that is the case, then I assume that bamboo becomes a green product as you approach destinations closer to where it is grown. This raises questions, for example, about whether it would be "green" in Hawaii, but not California. I don't know at what point it becomes green, and I don't have the expertise to be the "green monitor" for the site, determining which products are truly green and which are not. But this is why I think the forum is an important and useful context for a site that advertises green products for businesses. People like you are free to go to the sight and raise this question about a particular claim to be green, educating the rest of us. As others respond, hopefully we all begin to move toward consensus around these issues and become more intelligent consumers--at least that is my hope for the site. The idea is that--as with Wikipedia--many eyes will create a degree of quality control. But it depends on people like yourself who have knowledge about a particular product contributing that to the site by posting it for us. I hope you'll do that. I appreciate your input.

Shaw carpet makes "green" carpet,

100 year old hardwood floors? Seems like a no-brainer to let them show. Carpet is bad for allergies/asthma.

Any thoughts on the best "green" finish if he decides to go hardwood?

Even though this is an old post, others might find this of interest. Cork flooring is a great alternative to carpet as it has many of the same qualities of a hardwood floor since it typically has a polyurethane finish as with hardwoods. This means you get the same easy to clean surface with it being softer, quieter, and warmer to feet than a hardwood floor. Cork comes in glue down tiles and floating planks making it a good choice for most any typical application. We have had cork installed in many high traffic commercial applications with great success. One of the keys to a successful installation of cork is to have a qualified installer as it requires more of a craftsman than most flooring to yield a quality installation.

If you are installing any natural flooring product on a concrete slab, be aware of issues with concrete moisture and alkalinity. Read more about this issue at www.bellflooringsciences.com/moisture-alkali/