One to One with Paul Shahriari
Paul Shahriari, founder of Ecomedes, has a civil engineering background and was motivated by a desire to improve the planet for future generations. He embraced the concept of building sustainability early on, and was one of the first one hundred people to be LEED certified.
Ecomedes is a technology platform geared to the sustainability and green building communities. It houses 1.2 million products with 3,000 green attributes, offering immediate documentation for certifications, streamlining a process that used to take hours.
Paul works closely with industry associations in the construction industry. Prior to the Flooring Sustainability Summit in Washington, D.C.,which he attended, he was a featured speaker at the Tile Council of North America (TCNA) Marketing Committee, held in town.
Your talk addressed the continued need for collaboration of all parties in the sustainability space. You spoke about the need to embed product performance data into intuitive, interactive decision-making tools across devices. How does Ecomedes facilitate this or help simplify the process?
I started a consulting business called Green Mind Inc., and was working with the USGBC as a faculty member and trainer on LEED. I also have a passion for data and spreadsheets. I realized quickly that the process for specifying sustainable projects was complicated and at times very cumbersome. You have a lot of parties involved in the process: from manufacturers to designers to project owners. You also have a lot of ingredients that go into this.
And while the specifier creates a specification, we all know there is a big difference between that and what often gets installed on the job. I was consulting and speaking on how to train general contractors on green building, how to green architecture practices and how to help manufacturing groups become greener in production. Around 2005 I realized that everyone’s looking for data to drive better buying, better decision making and design and better selling. You cannot sell to the architect or project owner without the data. Ecomedes was born out of the fact that the right person needs three to five elements of good data to make the right decision, and they want as much of this as possible optimized.
How do you bring all the parties involved to understand and use a platform like Ecomedes?
We created Ecomedes to be a tool that works great with trade associations. Tile Council of North America is a good example in flooring, and we work with ASID and IIDA in design. Basically, our tool helps you navigate through a scavenger hunt of information and map this to all the different rating systems, grids and frameworks. Ultimately with one click, it gets you the document you need to specify a project. We used to do this kind of work as consultants, and now we offer this tool free to anyone – which does what we used to for about $300 an hour.
Since you are so connected with the design and building industry, where do you think there might be some opportunities for ceramic tile and natural stone for the next several years?
You have an incredible opportunity with millions of square feet of commercial real estate in urban markets that are converting office space into living spaces. High-end residential construction is also embracing sustainable design elements. The opportunities are right there for your trade. You may have to look for technological solutions such as large-format panels and less grout, but there is a lot of versatility in your industry’s products.
How important is life cycle when comparing products to designers and specifiers?
They talk a lot about comparing the life of a product from Cradle to Cradle (production to the jobsite) vs. Cradle to Grave (production to the landfill or dumpster). This is more about circularity as a brand. If you have a product like LVT that is not going to hold up for 30 years, how important is that if the intended use of the building might be 5-10 years, and the owner plans to sell it or demolish it? Logic has to be factored into the sustainability picture here. It can be important to differentiate, but it all boils down to intended use of the building and finding the appropriate products that fit that need.
The latest buzz is carbon reduction in manufacturing processes. How important is this right now?
It’s a big deal. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Ingredient Transparency are very important. Life cycle assessments are important too, but these cost a lot of money, and are often used to prove or disprove declarations on carbon footprint. As a person who cares about the planet, I don’t want to run out of resources on the planet. But putting in all this effort to just track carbon isn’t the only thing that matters. It is also important to declare what the ingredients are in the product. Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and Transparency Certifications are just as important as carbon. Building finishes and EPDs really matter most. The real carbon intensity of most buildings is in the concrete and the steel and aluminum and glass.
What can the tile industry do to be as effective as possible in the Ecomedes platform?
Young people love technology, and most of them care about the environment and sustainability. If they find your industry lagging in the information they are looking for, they will discount you as irrelevant. A lot of construction-related product brands and sectors are not modernized enough. You have some of the greatest green products in the world, but if the people looking for this information can’t find it quickly in a platform they feel they can trust, you may not see your product specified on many of these projects.
Stakeholders in your industry can have some dialogue about the importance of getting the most important information into our platform and utilizing the technology with high-quality imagery and be willing to invest a little bit of money into building that database.
Transparency is vital to this as well. You also need to look at your trade association and make sure contractor and labor leaders embrace the products and technology you are promoting in the sustainability field. Your members should be proud to say they embrace these products being promoted in the sustainability world.
There’s an opportunity for you to tell a story that is something that everyone’s going to want to follow. Get your manufacturer brands to follow that same storytelling. Showcase or feature actual projects that have met these certifications and create a place where this can be found easily by the A&D Community (such as at whytile.com). Your industry has a great story to tell in this community.
Bart Bettiga is the Executive Director of the National Tile Contractors Association. Bettiga is a member of the Board of Governors of Coverings, one the largest tradeshows in North America. He has over 30 years of experience in the tile and stone industry and has served as the NTCA Executive Director since 2002. He is a well known speaker and author on ceramic tile and natural stone distribution and installation. He oversees the financial operations of the NTCA, TileLetter and the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation.
