About Our Products
Green Store Inc is committed to developing and manufacturing beautiful bamboo products that:
- Reduce dependence on dwindling timber resources
- Rely on renewable-resource materials
- Adhere to stringent, environmentally sensitive specifications
- Promote green building
- Help neutralize our company's environmental footprint
Green Store Inc products, green retail, green building, and LEED® credits
As a pioneer in the bamboo products for retail and hospitality industry, Green Store Inc has championed strict environmental standards. We have worked with the U.S. Green Building Council to promote their LEED for Retail™, a system that is under going testing and drafting. Because bamboo is a rapidly renewable resource, all of our products contribute to LEED certification under MR Credit 6: Rapidly Renewable Materials. We are working to have all our products to comply with IEQ Credit 4.4: Low-Emitting Materials.
Sustainably harvested Optimum 5.5™ Moso bamboo
All Green Store Inc products use only 5-6 years old mature Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) known for its dense fibers and grown in the Zhejiang Province of China. With these specifications, we avoid product performance problems like cupping and warping associated with young, soft and often-inexpensive bamboo that is harvested to soon. As a result, Green Store Inc products are exceptionally durable and our source plants remain vigorous and healthy harvest after harvest.
Carbon sequestration: cleaner air, carbon offsets
In addition to relieving pressure on degraded forests, bamboo contributes to efforts to reduce global warming. Bamboos leafy canopy releases 35 percent more oxygen than a comparable cluster of hardwood trees, especially when you consider that the bamboo re-grows and reproduces a canopy many times in its lifespan. In the renewing process, the plant grabs carbon from the air and holds it within its stalk and root system where, in nature, it is not released until the soil, in which the plant decomposes, is turned. Products made from bamboo take that carbon out of circulation. Green Store Inc bamboo products harvested and manufactured correctly can last for many generations, keeping carbon locked up over the life of the products and helping to offset carbon usage that occurs in shipping our products to market.
Environmentally conscious specifications
Green Store Inc specifications protect the environment around the world and in your business. The durable factory finish on our bamboo product line is water-based and solvent-free. Green Store Inc proprietary manufacturing adhesive emits less formaldehyde than allowed by U.S. OSHA, European E1, CARB Phase 1 and Phase 2, and Japanese JIS/JAS (F**) standards. As a company, we are moving swiftly toward exclusive use of adhesives that comply with LEED IEQ Credit 4.4 in all our products.
Positioned to do things right
As a manufacturer, not simply an importer, we control our production process from harvest to distribution. We have partnered with a group of part and raw materials supplier in China that shares our commitment to quality, environmental responsibility, safety and sustainable business practices, including fair wages and safe working conditions.
Green Store Inc is a member of U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). We follow the principles of The Natural Step program that focuses on applying basic concepts of sustainability. Every effort is made to reduce, re-use and recycle what we can. For example, we sell unused portions of each bamboo culms to manufacturers to make other bamboo products and we use shavings from our own milling process as fuel in other parts of our factories.
