The Most Sustainable Demountable Wall on the Planet…

To become the most sustainable demountable wall on the planet a company or product must go beyond dealing with simple concepts such as simply stating that “we use recycled and recyclable content”.  You must go beyond images of trees, grass, animals, etc., as marketing backdrops that might leave individuals believing a strong commitment to the environment.  To be the most sustainable demountable or “eco-friendly” demountable wall on the planet, you must rely on substance…and this is exactly what StarwallUSA does!

Before we get to the issues that are easily understood, it is important to consider the most important aspect of being a sustainable solution: to be realistically or affordably sustainable to a company.  As we know, all companies who strive for the triple bottom line of people, planet and profits must show allegiance to all facets.  Note in the often seen concentric circle image of the triple bottom line, the sweet spot of sustainability is achieved at the integration of people, planet and profits.  The intersection point delivers a truly viable sustainable product solution.

Triple Bottom Line Diagram

Without being sustainable and affordable, demountable walls will take a back seat to the bigger items associated with larger building system line items that are provide bigger point valuations than a demountable wall system that can be sacrificed due to its price position.  StarwallUSA will deliver one of the most competitive and realistic price positions of any wall system in the industry!

There are other substantive issues associated with being an “eco-friendly” demountable wall system beyond price.  These features must provide some realistic benefit to the facilities managers charged with managing the millions of square feet of office buildings today.  The issues in play are as follows…and are placed in order of importance by an un-official, yet anecdotally accurate accounting or surveying of facilities management professionals.

1.      Product Reuse

2.      Ease providing or introducing light emitting material for daylight harvesting

3.      Easy and cost effective recycling

4.      Regional material usage

5.      Minimal use of VOC’s

Product Reuse

StarwallUSA boasts the largest percentage of product reuse of any wall system due to its “field fit” or “field modify” characteristics.  StarwallUSA’s products’ heights, widths, structure, wall board and glass can all be put back to use.  Conversely, the “unitized” or “pre-engineered/pre-manufactured” product may not.  A single change to a ceiling height, wall width, configuration places a significant planning burden on these earlier generations of walls found in the industry today.

Light Emitting Material for Daylight Harvesting

Chicago, IL - Finesse Series Huddle Rooms with Sliding Glass Doors

StarwallUSA’s demountable field fit approach provides an affordable solution and ease of change beyond compare.  A StarwallUSA solid wall can be changed out over night without buying new panels or special attachment brackets. Further, glass panels need not to have special treatment or detailing at a plant hundreds or thousands of miles away.  No manufacturer delivers sidelights, clerestory and glass fronts in such a simple and quick fashion like Starwall.  A solid wall today can quickly become a glass wall overnight.

Ask how your current demountable glass wall can be changed or added…then check out StarwallUSA.

Easy and Cost-Effective Recycling

The purpose in using a demountable wall is to provide for product re-use as well as enabling a company to perform easy changes to the interior building architecture.  These simple and quick changes allow for a strong return on investment.  StarwallUSA’s position is that our field adaptable product can be reused over and over again.

Of course, all facilities managers will ask to have the recycling cost explained.  The StarwallUSA product can be recycled with either a cost neutral position or with a return! All the material can easily avoid the landfill.  We are happy to offer a strategy of “return it and we will reuse it or recycle it responsibly”…that’s a promise.  Our approach is very different to dealing with labor costs to break product down to get the product into its various material bins, and this costs your customers money.

Our aluminum, steel, glass, plastic, insulation, wall board…all are welcomed and or purchased by recycling centers which are quickly growing around the country.

Regional Material Usage

This is a very simple concept…which minimizes the carbon footprint created from the plants and logistics required to get our competitors product that must be manufactured in a plant hundreds or thousands of miles away.

StarwallUSA’s demountable wall solution utilizes regionally produced wall board material, glass, insulation and labor (we call this community-based labor).  The unique field fit features of these movable walls do not require special detailing of wall material.  StarwallUSA does not require wall material to be shipped to a plant, altered and then shipped back out.  There is an easier and less costly way to producing a wall.

Minimize Use of VOC’s

The use of volatile organic compounds is of course being reduced by all or most producers of demountable walls.  There is no argument that the “off gassing” of newly produced materials into the environment or breathed in by the office occupants must be eradicated or drastically reduced.  StarwallUSA utilizes the most environmentally friendly production process and finishing materials on the market today.

The providers of interior demountable walls and modular architectural elements have an opportunity to address what facilities managers consider as “the real issues”.  A simplistic focus on a single dimension or the materiality aspects of a product solution is short sighted and misses a tremendous opportunity to be more relevant to the customer’s needs.  StawallUSA has seized on this opportunity.

The challenges of delivering an interior demountable floor-to-ceiling wall solution adhering to the existing approach of design, build, teardown, disposal and rebuild of interior walls are many.  The biggest challenge is delivering an interior movable wall that is affordable.   The idea of investing in a demountable wall solution without the benefit of having a movable wall that can meet the varying space, height, and building constraints has limited the logical growth potential for this industry.  Today, with the use of space compression, open-plan workstations replacing panels and confidentiality requirements, the next or new wall that both looks and acoustically performs like a built wall has not been established within the market.  The demand persists for a fundamentally different approach- one that replaces the confusing strategy of utilizing gypsum or constructed sidewalls and glass fronts or with “furniture system type” or “unitized” walls that have not been able to support the real change facilities managers must confront in today’s work spaces.

InterXect Series with Clerestory

Today, there is a new wall designed for the facilities management community.   StarwallUSA’s NxtWall InterXect series interior movable and architectural demountable wall is truly like none other.  This “new generation” of field-adjustable and or adaptable walls, provides a real game changing opportunity and guarantees to make a difference.  No product delivers on flexibility, cost, acoustical needs, aesthetic, strength and durability, fire rating and sustainability like the NxtWall InterXect product.  The integration of our NxtWall InterXect series demountable wall enables StarwallUSA’s product offering to deliver the broadest and most scalable interior wall solution on the market today.

The NxtWall series solution offers the following features:

• Sound Transmission Category in the upper 40’s depending on the wall option you choose
• Options for Fire-Rated walls with minimal Class A ratings
• Minimized “nearly seamless” wall joints providing a typical gypsum wall appearance
• Robust standard construction wall thickness, 4 7/8”, with ability to utilize standard construction hardware, accessories, and materials readily available in the market
• Ability to integrate with StarwallUSA’s Finesse, Classic and Vision Series as well as competitive glass front solutions
• Height and width adjustable, unlike the less flexible “unitized” or pre-engineered demountable wall solutions from earlier generations
• High quality and high definition wrapped wall board material with many finishes
• Demountable construction consisting of tracks and studs that snap fit together
• Whiteboard accessory options
• Truly reusable while cost effectively recyclable (no breakdown cost of “unitized” panels or parts)
• Clerestory for “daylighting” and or “daylight harvesting” options
• Minimized kit of parts for ease of inventory and facilities management
• Financial benefits including accelerated depreciation benefits, personal property tax savings and alternative financing methods

InterXect Series with Whiteboard Option

The NxtWall series product line is unique, and like no other demountable floor-to-ceiling wall solution on the market.  This product makes StarwallUSA’s offering, not only the most scalable demountable wall solution on the market today, but also one of the most affordable.  The NxtWall InterXect price position (from a first cost standpoint), really allows for facility managers, developers, and real estate professionals, to consider an environmentally responsible replacement to drywall for a price that is similar to a drywall budget.  The InterXect series wall promises to deliver a different kind of interior movable wall…one with an affordable price and flexible “field adaptable” product design.  The next wall to replace conventional construction with a flexible movable interior wall solution is the NxtWall InterXect wall.

There is no dispute about the amount of waste and energy consumption attributed to the construction, maintenance and operation of commercial buildings in North America.  Today, facilities Managers, architects, designers, etc., have made great progress on answering the question on “how to meet the current needs of business without compromise to future generations”.  We have learned much and have much work to accomplish to reverse some of the following findings that represent a small amount of data for an industry that can have a dramatic impact on our energy and waste.

• United States Environmental Protection Agency – Approximately 30% of all landfill waste is from construction, renovation and demolition.  Over 55% is from buildings.
• California Integrated Waste Management Board, 2002 – Over 10% of drywall in new construction ends up as scrap.
• Cornell University Study concluded that for every square foot of drywall installed one pound was waste.
• U.S. Dept of Energy – Commercial Buildings in the U.S. use 17% of all energy.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Of the 14 Sectors that account for 84% of all Green House Gas (GHG) emission, the construction industry was the 3^rd highest with 6% of all GHG emissions.

The above are but a few of the statistics that clearly demonstrate the impact of commercial building construction on our planet…but the impact is equally as great to our people and profits.  Our thinking must change from build, demolish, dispose and re-build to reduce, reuse and recycle.   All sectors must take responsibility so that through our collective stewardship we can make a lasting impact on our environment.

StarwallUSA’s new approach to supporting the “triple bottom line”

Manufacturing of any type has an impact on the environment.   Environmental responsibility begins with a products ability to support significant change and reuse. StarwallUSA has spent much time considering 2 very important aspects of sustainable product design; product reuse and product recycling.  It is our belief that our new generation of movable architectural walls considers all aspects of the “triple bottom line”.

What separates StarwallUSA and our platform of products from earlier generation of walls, both “unitized” or “pre-engineered demountable” wall panels, is our unique product design.  The unique track and stud system with snap fit wall board and glazing options deliver a new generation of interior movable walls.  Our “truly demountable” approach, with “field assembly and fit” allows for a responsible reuse and recycling strategy like no other product in the market today – without the cost.

These short term views coupled with the short-term memory that we have, will put at risk the great progress we have made in the development of sustainable “green” solutions and the push for it.  As a business owner, it is understandable to hear customers comment that while it is good to hold or to work hard to employ sustainable building or facilities management concepts, the first focus must be on is it affordability.  This mantra has quickly replaced the most recent views of “let’s be green at just about any cost”, with this serious downturn in our economy.

I believe that if it was a good business decision during the good times, then it should be good during the tough times.  Business decisions should be made considering all aspects; social, economic, environmental, et al.  We cannot simply let people believe that a decision for demountable architectural walls was all about “being green”.  Unfortunately, this view may have crept in due to more sizzle and marketing than on substance or reality.  Too many products brag about their “cradle-to-cradle” design due to the products materiality, and nothing to do with performance, reuse, and the realities of recycling.  A few key questions that should be asked are as follows.

1. Tell me how the product can be changed during use?
   (Be certain to include realistic and often simple changes that are done.)
2. How easy is it to change to address human factors such as sound, natural light, ergonomics, etc.?
3. How will change or reuse impact my costs?
4. What are my costs for the product to return to the “cradle”.
   (This is a very important question; labor too often makes this prohibitive!)
5. Are the materials recyclable and at what costs?

All participants, including manufacturers, sales consultants, designers, architects, engineers and facilities managers, must play an important role in ensuring the progress that has been made in the push to create green buildings to live, learn, and work.  It is time to remove the rhetoric and ratchet up our knowledge and provide the justification that business decision makers need to support a net positive impact on the triple bottom line of economic, environmental and the employees.  We should move beyond “green for green sake” to “green to save green!”  When we accomplish this the momentum will become greater as it will allow our industry to work with the financial decision makers as opposed to against them.