The Green Scheme

In the roofing industry, and the construction industry in general, but roofing in particular, there’s an obsession with “green” technologies. Green this, green that; everything has to be green, unless it’s a Cleasby, and then it has to be orange. That was a joke that only roofers will get, and no, it isn’t funny to us either.

Since the whole marketplace seems to be experiencing a wide-eyed, childlike giddiness over “green” products, some people have realized that you can mark up a product, even a completely worthless one, call it “green” and idiots will line up to buy it. This is less prevalent in construction, and probably more prevalent with the “green” products under your kitchen sink, which are so environmentally friendly that we use them as sterilization agents.

This isn’t to say that “green” products are a fraud, or that you should ignore calls for environmentally sound practices, no, believe me, these are usually a good thing, it’s just that most people have no idea what makes a product “green” and instead just trust that because a product claims to be “green” that it has to be good for the environment.

“Green” as an adjective isn’t well defined, unless you’re talking about the color, and even then there’s gray areas (see what I did there?) like tennis balls (are they green or yellow?). For example, recycling is thought of as a green practice, until you realize that you need another set of garbage trucks to collect the recycling, and that generates more air pollution than would be generated if people didn’t recycle, and so recycling is actually bad for the environment (I’m told that this is called “irony”).

Now, some of these “green” products are actually, um,  “green” and helpful to the environment. There’s a new tile made out of a special concrete that through magic (by which I mean chemistry) actually eats the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, which is to say that this new roofing tile absorbs smog. This is truly a “green” product, and one that actively scrubs out air pollutants, which are probably the most dangerous type of pollutants because of that whole climate change thing.

The point is not that “green” products are a scam, but that in order to actually practice things like environmental sustainability, everyone needs to do their homework and realize that while intuition and common sense may suggest a product is “green”, the actual science behind the product may be the complete opposite of environmentally sound.

At National Roofing, because we care about the environment and sustainability, we are constantly doing research and our own evaluations and investigations into if a product is truly “green” or not. Since “green” products typically cost a little extra, it’s very important that the consumer actually receive what they think they’re getting, and that’s our pledge to you. If you decide to get a “green” roof through National Roofing, we will make absolutely clear just exactly how “green” a product is, and if there isn’t something “greener” available. Not just because we happen to care about the environment, or because we’re dedicated to honesty in customer service, those are true too, but because people’s good intentions shouldn’t be used to fleece them out of extra money, especially when the product does the opposite of what it is supposed to. That’s just bad business.

So if you have any questions about the environmental soundness of a roofing product or practice, please do not hesitate to call or write to us. We’ll give you a straight answer, and if we don’t know right then and there, we’ll look it up and get back to you.