sePicture thisl"

55plcrunE rHts!" directs Augie

I

Venezio. oresident of Fairfax Lumber & Hardware in California's Marin County.

He says that a lot-but then, he's clearly a man of vision. For starters, he proceeds to paint the scene of Fairfax, a town of 7,500-"fairly affluent, very anti-change, and antichains: no Starbucks, no Shell gas station." And, more to the point, no room for new housing. "If you're in a hurry, you don't wanna be here," he advises (unless you're pedaling downhill; it's also the mountain bike capitol of the world, he adds.).

Yet Augie himself has been here for over 35 years, experiencing the operation's evolution into an employee-owned business when, several decades back, its five partners wanted out. One of the very first ESOP yards in the country, the concept motivated its then-staff of 30 (today 39) to work together to achieve profitability, a benefit to be shared by all. And that meant moving forward with ideas just taking shape on our industry's horizons. Maybe-talk went, some years back-it was time to dabble in the newly emerging green movement they'd read about in magazines and heard about at trade shows. Why not? "Let's try it!" the staff-owners agreed.

"So we put out feelers with manufacturers, vendors and customers, starting with simple things like windows that open and siting buildings to take advantage of natural light. Then we started in with the garden department," Augie recalls: things like combating weeds, bugs and fungal problems with non-toxic products that would allow your kids and pets to play in the grass. "It took off like gangbusters!" he proclaims, "so we decided, 'Okay,let's try paint."'

Low- or no-VOC paint, sealants and adhesives also proved an easy sell. "Picture this!" he asks again. "A pregnant woman comes in looking for paint for the nursery. 'Traditional or non-toxic?' we ask her." Well, what's a mother gonna say?

Next, Fairfax expanded its green offering to include energy- and watersaving items. Finally, it was time to take the plunge and opt for "green" lumber. too. After hours-weeks-of vigorous debate, the crew decided to go for FSC certification.

Winning homeowners over was easy (okay, this is granola land), but what about builders, notoriously resistant to change? Fairfax simply decided those guys didn't have to. No forcefeeding. The yard simply continued to offer its traditional products as well, so there was always a choice, not a mandate. "We didn't lose any builders," Augie can boast.

"The year 2006 was the first year everything was in place," he sayscoincidentally, the same year the State Legislature enacted Bill 32- landmark legislation to control greenhouse gas emission. The state also enacted a new, green-friendly building code"the first in the nation," Augie states.

Manna from Sacramento. "So, here we're all going, 'Holy (smokes)! We're in the right place at the right time,"' fully positioned to take the lead.

But, who knew? "We're a hundredyear-old yard, so we had to get the message out that we had changed," Augie underscores. Fairfax hired a design firm to create a new logo and website-and that's all it took.

"With that website, we picked up business all over the country. People Googled key 'green' words on the Internet and found us. All of a sudden, our customer base grew from Marin County to all over the place." And with the new business came new awards, including recognition from the state in 2008 acknowledging Fairfax's efforts to introduce building science to the building trades.

"We encouraged homeowners to start with the lowhanging fruit, like household cleaners without chlorine and energy-saving light bulbs. Then, we might mention indoor air quality. 'Picture thisl' I'd say. 'The air in the fooms you spend time in all day is worse than a day in L.A. smog. What's more important to you than your family's health?' If they held back because of cost, I'd remind them of the medical bills involved with asthma or emphysema. We didn't dictate. Just simple actions like that....

"To entice customers, we started using a lot more advertising to get the word out, both print and electronic. We also began offering homeowners one or two demos a month, leading off with gardening: edible landscaping, composting, food preserving." Business just kept on building.

To sustain growth, however. requires staying ahead of the curve, the folks at Fairfax fully recognized: "What next, what next?" they pondered. "By 2009, we had all our products in line, so we had to think further"-look not simply to cherry-pick a new green line, but to think much bigger and beyond: a whole new concept.

The idea they came up with was... recycling. People were invited to donate discarded stuff from their remodeling projects to a collection called The Away Station, which was opened behind the showroom. Successful? "It brought in customers we'd never seen before," Augie crows. "And, picture this! If someone found an old door with lead paint on it, we'd suggest a non-toxic paint remover. It brought 'em through the store. It went against our industry's business model at the time, but soon it became commonplace.

And, within the next decade," he adds, "zero waste will be the law in California. Plus"-an all-important plus-"it positions us as a leader. We'll be top of mind."

Examining the green horizon once again, Fairfax has partnered with the Community Land Trust of Marin (CLAM) on a housing project for farm laborers, intended to demonstrate that green building is not just for the One Percent. The company remodeled an existing house and built a second one, using Passive House technology.

The technique has been a big player in Europe since the 1970s, Augie reports-but here, not so much. The idea is to utilize a near-airtight shell in tandem with a filtered ventilation system to create a living environment that's comfortable 2417 for 365 days a year, without-get this!-a furnace or air conditioning. These homes use less than 2OVo of the energy employed in a standard new home, says Augie-a savings in cash and ecology. "It makes economic sense for low-income housing," he's quick to demonstrate.

Is it taking off? Well, not so much. Not yet. In these dire economic times, people haven't the wherewithall to move forward with this scope of remodeling project. But that will change, Augie is convinced. "Picture this!

Seventv-two Dercent of California's homes were built before 1978-that's 13 million older homes! The state is starting to offer tax credits and government financing for retrofitting, so this is a huge opportunity. And," he stresses, "We're ready! We're ahead of the curve. It's more fun for us to be a winner than to be playing catch-up. So it's great for our staff, too."

Picture that.

Carla Waldemar cwaldemar@comcast.net

By James Olsen