Kincaid's Homecoming Wins Green Award

September 5, 2011  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on September 6, 2011

New York House magazine has presented an Innovative Green Design Award to Kincaid Furniture for its Homecoming collection.

Hudson, N.C.-based Kincaid, which produces solid wood case goods and custom upholstery, was singled out for its efforts to give consumers specific and substantiated data on the sourcing and production of its Homecoming furniture products. The independent panel of judges made up of experts in sustainable and eco-conscious home building, decor and furnishings products gave Kincaid with the IGDA Award for transparency in labeling. 

In announcing the award, New York House reported, "As more 'sustainable' products come to the market, educating the consumer is crucial, the judges pointed out, because certain marketers are simply slapping a green label on their products rather than truly reducing their carbon footprints. The judges scrutinized each product for 'green washing' and other marketing gimmicks. As a counterpoint to this, the panel singled out one manufacturer, Kincaid Furniture, for its transparency in labeling. Kincaid's Eco3Home environmental footprint label describes all that went into the product€™s manufacturing; its water, electricity, materials use, and waste created."  One judge, Doug Mazeffa, research director for Greenopia, stated, "I wish every product in the world had that label."

Select furnishings in Kincaid€™s Homecoming collection are the first in the furniture industry to be registered under the Eco3Home program, a multi-tiered initiative developed by the American Home Furnishings Alliance to help manufacturers communicate a product's safety, health and environmental attributes to consumers.

The program is backed by a series of educational materials including hangtags, in-store brochures, signage and a consumer Web site, www.eco3home.com, where shoppers can research the attributes of a particular piece of furniture in detail, review the environmental record of the manufacturer, and learn what participating companies are doing to safeguard consumer health and safety and improve environmental stewardship.  Companies seeking Eco3Home product registration must complete AHFA€™s EFEC environmental management program and its Sustainable By Design program, which extends sustainable business practices to global operations including sourcing of raw materials and supply chain management before beginning the product design-specific environmental, safety and health inventories needed as part of the Eco3Home evaluation process.

Kincaid used Homecoming to help pilot the Eco3Home program and also set the path for virtually all future Kincaid collections. The company intends to make the Eco3Home evaluation and registration a part of each new collection it produces.