Cellulose Insulation "Greenest of the Green" Campaign Launched

Oct 15 2008

The Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association (CIMA) launches "Greenest of the Green" industry campaign in conjunction with a new industry website to educate consumers, architects, builders and contractors about Cellulose Insulation -- the insulation with the lowest "embodied energy," the highest recycled content and excellent performance.

The Greenest of the Green campaign is the industry's effort to work with charities to provide the highest performing and most environmentally friendly insulation material to those who really need it. Programs have already been started with the donation of material and installation services to Habitat for Humanity.

With the rapidly rising cost of energy, more and more people are aware of the importance of insulating their homes and businesses to save money. But not all of them are aware of the significant impact their decisions can make on the environment by selecting cellulose as their insulation of choice.

The "Greenest of the Green" campaign's environmental highlights include the facts that:

Cellulose has the lowest estimated "embodied energy" of any insulation product. "Embodied Energy" is the energy required to produce and transport materials. Fiberglass, common insulation in homes, has 10 times more embodied energy and foam products have up to 64 times more embodied energy than Cellulose insulation.
Cellulose has the largest amount of recycled content in the industry - up to 85% post-consumer recycled newspaper. Utilizing recycled paper is less energy than other manufacturing process for insulation. In addition, paper is the largest component of landfills and using this paper to produce cellulose insulation diverts waste from the landfills preserving valuable landfill space.
Cellulose insulation prevents the release of "greenhouse" gases (methane) which is released when newspaper decomposes in landfills.
Cellulose earns LEED and US Green Building credits for green construction. Architects and builders can earn credits towards certification under both the LEED and US Green Building green building programs.
Cellulose insulation can be locally produced. Local recycling programs and processing brings new meaning to the old slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally." In addition to saving transportation costs, local recycling can be used as a fund-raising tool to help local community groups.

By increasing cellulose usage in homes and businesses, the environment can be positively impacted by:

using less energy in production
utilizing recycled content
minimizing greenhouse gas emissions by diverting newspaper from landfills
helping local communities in fund raising and "downcycling" landfill materials
delivering financial and energy savings

"We feel that the Cellulose story has not been fully explained to consumers, contractors and architects and we aim to correct that," said Lea. "While any insulation is better than none we believe strongly that the choice of cellulose is 'Greener' than others."

Besides the environmental advantages, the product performance of cellulose has been proved in a variety of studies to offer better results than fiberglass and foam.