LUXE Magazine

Exciting!! - ecoFiber will be featured in a 2- page spread in the Spring issue - the interview and photo session went really well.  Look for LUXE Magazine in the spring - I'll have more details later.....

Less can really be more....

Saturday, April 14, 2012 Central Texas will have the opportunity to see eleven homes in varying architectural styles that exemplify utility and clever design in 2,500 square feet or less at the first Austin Smarter Spaces Tour. On this self-guided driving tour from 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM, attendees will discover how architects, builders, designers, and space planners made homes as small as 182 square feet feel spacious through use of sliding doors, innovative storage and brilliantly placed windows. A portion of the proceeds from the tour will benefit The Big Give, a program of I Live Here, I Give Here, a local non-profit that educates and connects individuals and charities in this area.
The following curated homes were selected for the Smarter Spaces Tour:
2019 East 11th Street, Austin, TX 78702 (Newcastle Homes)**1006 Prospect Avenue, Austin, TX 78702 (Newcastle Homes)1715 Giles Street Unit C, Austin, TX 78722 (North Arrow Studio)1602 Forest Hill Drive, Austin, TX 78745 (Thoughtcrib, Inc.)**4813 West Park Drive, Austin, TX 78731 (GnM Lohr Homes)**2900 East 4th Street, Austin, TX 78702 (Harris Welker Architects)2110 Kenwood Avenue, Austin, TX 78704 (Sago International, Austin Modern Living)3112 Lafayette Avenue, Austin, TX 78722 (Texas Construction Company)2301 South 5th Street, Austin, TX 78704 (DEN Property Group)443 Bastrop Highway, Austin, TX 78741 (Sarah Stacey Design, Reclaimed Space)**3404 South 2nd Street Unit A, Austin, TX 78704 (DEN Property Group)

2301 S. 5th St. photo by Patrick Y. Wong
To experience the true meaning behind “less is more” on the Smarter Spaces Tour, tickets may purchased in advanced for $25 at http://smarterspacestour.com/tickets.html and picked up at designated Will Call locations. Tickets will also be available at all properties for $30 the day of the tour. Children 12 and under will be admitted for free. For more information please visit: http://smarterspacestour.com/.
Presented by Compact Appliance and founded by Launch787 & Modern Home Tours, the Smarter Spaces Tour was created to promote innovative design in smaller spaces. As many cities are moving towards a more urban landscape, living spaces are decreasing in size, the Smarter Spaces Tour highlights the Architects and Designers that are addressing this trend and finding progressive solutions to enhance function and design of living spaces.

Recycled Homes in Austin, Texas

Reclaimed Space is making news as a unique company which builds “one of a kind modular structures” from reclaimed or repurposed materials. Headquartered in Austin they use reclaimed galvanized metal, salvaged wood and home fixtures to build sustainable modular homes designed for use on or off the grid.

The focus of Reclaimed Space is to counteract the environmental impact of new construction and give a new slant to old materials. Their structures can function as offices, guest homes and cabins. They use reclaimed materials from homes with historical or architectural significance to create sustainably and beautifully designed living spaces.

Check it out!

A carbon-neutral opportunity

The typical journey of a 60,000 pound rug shipment from Kathmandu to New York amounts to 25 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. To put this figure in context, 25 tons of carbon is equivalent to the electricity usage of 12 homes over the course of a year or the use of 9,500 gallons of gasoline.

ecoFiber Custom Rugs and Goodweave have partnered with Carbon Clear to provide the ability to calculate transportation emissions and to purchase offsets from some of the most reliable and high quality offset projects available in the marketplace. A custom portfolio of projects, including two textile projects in India, ensure that your contribution will make a difference to the environment and communities where GoodWeave operates.

Working with Goodweave and Carbon Clear is another example of how ecoFiber is working to reduce our environmental impact, while maintaining the aesthetics we hold dear.

You’ve already made your design choices for your child’s room, but have you thought about the hidden impacts on your child’s health and well-being of those choices? When decorating a room you are probably unaware that a component used in paints, furniture and carpeting can compromise your child’s health.

Formaldehyde categorized as a VOC and is used extensible in the manufacture of paint, furniture and carpeting. VOC’s are released into the air with the normal use overtime of these products and can have short and long-term effects on your family’s health contributing to increased asthma, headaches and respiratory ailments. One of the most common sources for harmful VOCs is the carpet upon which your child crawls, lies, rolls and plays. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recently established a direction link between the surfaces upon which a child walks or crawls as having a direct relationship to respiratory diseases. The rate of childhood asthma has increased 12% since 2001.

Choosing products which have eliminated the use of artificial chemicals and dyes reduces the percentage of air contaminants. Mass-produced commercial rugs undergo extensive chemical treatments prior to ending up in your child’s room.

As a parent what you choose when decorating your child’s room can have a lifelong impact on your their health. Making educated choices is the first step to providing a safe healthy interior. ecoFiber Custom Rugs are completely chemical free.

ecoFiber Custom Rugs has looked beyond the healthy production of their rugs to examine who produces their product. With an eye to this ecoFiber became a leader in demanding ethical labor practices when making their rugs. We have aligned with Goodweave (www.goodweave.org.) an international organization which monitors and prohibits the use of child labor in international rug production. This partnership guarantees that the rug you purchase will be free of any child labor.

You want the best in all aspects of your child’s environment from choosing the best childcare to ensuring that your decisions make a positive difference in the health and well being of your child and children around the world.

Earth Day 2011: Fired Up for Sustainability

At ecoFiber, we're big advocates of a healthy, sustainable global environment. Our standards of production are based on an ethic of responsibility, which mandates choices that are good for the planet. Despite all the damage that's been done to our planet, there's plenty of hope for the future.

Today - Earth Day 2011 - We at ecoFiber are fired up about the increasing number of businesses and individuals around the globe who share values for sustainability.

What is Earth Day?

It may be hard to imagine that before 1970, a factory could spew black clouds of toxic into the air or dump tons of toxic waste into a nearby stream, and that was perfectly legal. They could not be taken to court to stop it. There was no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect our environment.

In Spring 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to “force this issue onto the national agenda.” With the efforts of government and grassroots efforts, 20 million Americans demonstrated in various U.S. cities.

The momentum from this epic movement persuaded Congress to authorize in December 1970 the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

20 years later, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage.

Earth Day Today

The national Earth Day Network is promoting a Billion Acts of Green initiative this year. The goal is to demonstrate the impact that can be made by millions of people who commit to bettering the environment. It's a people-powered campaign to generate a billion acts of environmental service and advocacy before June 2012.

People can make healthy pledges to the environment to participate in sustainable development of a green economy. We at ecoFiber plan to pledge to continue to mandate choices that are good for the planet, which include using natural fibers and chemical-free vegetable dyes. We also intend to chase new ways to promote sustainability, health and comfort.

What will you do for Earth Day 2011?

Is your rug slave-free?

We discussed the positive change GoodWeave is making to end the child labor epidemic in the rug industry in ecoFiber Proud to Offer Product That's One-in-a-Million. Today, CNN produced a segment that shows how GoodWeave is trying to put a stop to child slave labor practices in Asian rug factories. We hope you'll take a few minutes to view this great feature, as reported by CNN's Maggie Lake:

Goodweave to be Featured on CNN April 18

We hope you have been following the CNN Freedom Project's ground-breaking coverage of modern slavery across the globe. From California's tomato fields to India's rug looms, CNN is bringing its viewers to the scene of exploitation, and telling the harrowing stories of children and other turned prey for profits.

The Freedom Project also seeks to tell stories of hope and liberation - the stories of emancipated slaves. This Monday, April 18, CNN will air its premier segment on GoodWeave's innovative market-based solution to child slavery. The piece will be shown on World Business Today at 9 a.m. EST, and subsequently aired on other shows throughout the day. The piece will also be archived on the CNN website along with a slideshow of images of GoodWeave's Faces of Freedom photo exhibition.

We invite you to tune in, and inform your friends and colleagues of the coverage. If you haven't already, become a GoodWeave Facebook fan and/or Twitter follower and you'll be updated as the coverage unfolds. You can also join the GoodWeave Ambassadors group on Facebook, which will ensure that you see the latest news and enable you to spread the word.

We hope the project inspires you to take action against the enslavement of children. Click here for a list of other ideas on how you can help GoodWeave take a stand. With your help, we can replace exploitation with education, which should be the birthright of every child.

Volatile Organic Compounds and the Air You Breathe

The links between sustainability, health and comfort are becoming increasingly understood and appreciated. Nowhere is this more acute than with indoor air quality. In Natural Fiber Rugs and Your Family, we discussed how non-natural fiber rugs can be dangerous for you and your family by the off-gassing of chemicals from various materials. But you may be left wondering: What exactly are the chemicals that result in dangerous indoor air quality?

What are VOCs?

They're called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), present in many paints, carpets, and rugs that we buy to perk up the interiors of our homes.

Often the 'new smell' of products we use in our homes are actually VOCs being released into the air we breathe. VOCs may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. These substances can harm human respiratory health, and make you or your loved ones more susceptible to headaches, allergies or asthma. Young children are particularly vulnerable.

Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

VOCs in Your Rugs and Carpets

Mass-produced, commercial rugs have often undergone extensive chemical treatments, including dye and bleach, before they end up on your floor. Some handmade rugs also use chemical treatments in their creation. These chemical treatments have a direct impact on your indoor air quality.

Carpets can also be culprits of poor indoor air quality, not only from the chemicals used to treat them, but also from the glues and adhesives used to stick them to the floor.

Health problems associated with indoor air quality can come on slow, resulting in inadequate preparation. Fortunately, we know more about VOCs today than ever before, and there's clear choices we can make when designing our interiors to err on the side of health, safety and comfort.

Improve Your Indoor Air Quality

Installing as much hard flooring as much hard flooring as you can is a way to reduce VOCs in your home. Rugs made with natural fibers can provide the comfort and warmth of carpet without the health risks. You'll be able to rest easy knowing your flooring won't negatively affect your health.

At ecoFiber, we decided early on that there's a clear link between sustainability and health and comfort. Our standards of production are based on an ethic of responsibility, which mandates choices that are good for the planet. We do not use petroleum-based fibers or chemicals. Our simple, elegant designs are not beautiful, but also sustainable and safe.

ecoFiber Proud to Offer Product That's One-in-a-Million

100 years ago more than two million children under the age of 15 were employed in American industry in conditions that bordered on child slavery. We now live in a world where millions of children are subjected to child labor beyond our borders.

One-in-a-Million: GoodWeave’s Campaign to End Child Labor is raising awareness of the child labor epidemic in the handmade rug industry and inspiring consumers to take action. We’re proud at ecoFiber Custom Rugs that our products bear the GoodWeave label.

What’s great about GoodWeave’s campaign is that it doesn’t just inform consumers about the problem, it offers solutions.

Consumers who buy a rug that’s certified by GoodWeave can be assured that their purchase is one in a million — because adult artisans made it, not child laborers. At ecoFiber, adult workers whose families are provided health care and tuition hand make our rugs in Nepal, where they use only natural fibers and chemical free vegetable dyes, creating products of true ethical elegance.

GoodWeave offers ways that concerned citizens can help end child labor in the handmade rug industry, including insisting on the GoodWeave label when shopping for a handmade rug. Check out more ways to get involved with GoodWeave.

Nearly a century ago, grassroots efforts helped to end child labor in the U.S. With the aid of social media tools and other unique approaches, GoodWeave is helping to eradicate child labor throughout the world. It’s inspiring. And ecoFiber Custom Rugs couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of it!