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"   VIEW MORE PHOTOS&amp;amp;gt; Green home furnishings not only promise a healthier home and planet, but they also tend to appeal to modern tastes, with their frequently austere, Zen-like lines and natural finishes. But the choices can be very confusing. Not only are there cost, quality and aesthetic issues to consider, but an avalanche of claims about a product&amp;#039;s environmental virtues can make buying for the home seem like a science exam. Shopping may now require homework. For example, you want furniture made from FSC-certified wood, which comes from forests managed to conserve biodiversity and approved by the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council. You also want furniture made with paints and stains and even fiberboard that does not contain high amounts of volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs, such as formaldehyde. These can cause eye and throat irritation, not to mention damage to the central nervous system.    VIEW MORE PHOTOS&amp;amp;gt; As for the look of green, the good news is that sustainable design has come a long way from the early days of rough-hewn hemp. Designers are experimenting with a new generation of environmentally friendly materials. Many are going beyond bamboo, the fast-growing grass that is the current darling of green design, and fashioning furniture from unusual substances. Consider Plyboo, a laminated plywood product derived from bamboo strips boiled in a bath of boric acid and lime. And then there&amp;#039;s Kirei Board, made from discarded stalks of sorghum, which looks like plant cells sandwiched together. With the mainstreaming of green design, everything from recycled paper to seat belt straps are ending up in furniture. Sometimes, the results are mixed. When designers Alex Valich and Christine Warren first showed their Metropolitan bed at New York&amp;#039;s International Contemporary Furniture Fair last year, they were disconcerted by what seemed to be the sound of tiny crunching jaws coming from underneath the frame. In fact it was: Much to their surprise, the Brooklyn designers, who go by the name redstr/collective, discovered several mice nibbling on the art deco\u2013inspired bed, which was made of pressed sunflower seed board. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s mice food,&amp;quot; Valich says about the material, which is popular among eco-aware designers. But failed experiments aside, these days, designers are producing innovative, high-end work that is &amp;quot;less &amp;#039;80s college dorm room, more life and soul and sophistication,&amp;quot; says Paulette Cole, CEO and creative director of ABC Home, a retailer that has pioneered green design. (About 25 percent of the store&amp;#039;s merchandise is sustainable or socially responsible.) But bargain hunters beware: While many eco-conscious materials sound humble walnut scraps, for example prices often are not. For example, the Abigail settee, a stylish high-backed sofa by Q Collection, the luxury eco-brand that launched in 2004, is $16,217. Jesse Johnson, Q Collection&amp;#039;s chief executive, says the lofty prices relate to higher material and production costs, which aren&amp;#039;t always obvious. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a lot you don&amp;#039;t see,&amp;quot; explains Johnson, who has a degree in environmental management. For example, the Abigail&amp;#039;s green credentials include the use of natural jute, not plastic, to secure the springs, and the wood in the frame is FSC-certified. And, Cole adds, Q Collection pieces are not just good for the earth, they&amp;#039;re &amp;quot;like one-of-a-kind functional art.&amp;quot; Happily, you can go green on a more modest budget, too. At redstr/collective, designers Valich and Warren have created the Cha coffee table, a sleek Plyboo creation for $650 that combines a &amp;#039;70s-era top set on angled legs inspired by Jean Prouv\u00E9. Ikea&amp;#039;s PS Eden table can be considered green and a deal at $219 because it is made from birch heartwood, the core of the tree that would otherwise be thrown away during milling. At any price, the biggest source of confusion for green consumers is figuring out what the label means. (Or if there is no label, what&amp;#039;s inside that sofa or nightstand.) Not even experts always agree: Is bamboo a saintly material, because it is so fast-growing and biodegradable, or a villain because so much energy is required to ship it from Asia? While you can be confident that food labeled &amp;quot;organic&amp;quot; has a regulatory seal of approval, there&amp;#039;s no such single designation for many other green ingredients, aside from wood. With so many conflicting claims about how green a product is, &amp;quot;it can seem like the wild, wild west out there,&amp;quot; says Michael McDonough, an innovative green architect (and contributing editor at Metropolitan Home). McDonough suggests relying on manufacturers who provide comprehensive product lists, and such retailers as ABC, which tags each piece with a provenance of its green origins. Taking risks can also pay off with the discovery of how beautiful a few stalks of sorghum bonded together with formaldehyde-free adhesives (that&amp;#039;s Kirei) can be. Impressed with Kirei&amp;#039;s linear patterns, Philadelphia designer Michael Iannone used it to create the Signature 2.0 console. made from recycled materials critical components in green design doesn&amp;#039;t mean that it has to look like it has been dragged from a Dumpster. Jill Salisbury, of sustainable design firm E-L Environmental Language in Chicago, often uses coconut palm wood, which is eco-friendly because after 80 years the trees no longer produce fruit and must be chopped down anyway. Once committed to green, a crucial question is how green do you want to be? Some designers are pushing the envelope on how sustainable a product can be: Salisbury founded her company on sustainable standards, and Q Collection has a toxicologist on its board of advisors. Meanwhile, Maria Yee, a Santa Cruz, California\u2013based designer, developed her own material called BambooTimbre, a version that is thicker and more durable than the more commonly used bamboo veneer. What&amp;#039;s more, Yee&amp;#039;s manufacturing plants in China recycle wood chips and sawdust to fuel lowemission boilers to lessen air pollution. Not everyone is behind green design. More traditional decorators like Mario Buatta say sustainable design can be gimmicky. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a selling point, but I don&amp;#039;t dwell on it,&amp;quot; he explains. &amp;quot;Not that I don&amp;#039;t care about my fellow man or global warming,&amp;quot; he adds. &amp;quot;I just don&amp;#039;t think it should be the focus of attention, except for fabrics.&amp;quot; Yet more and more companies are trying to address environmental concerns. Many firms may not be producing green products but are taking small steps in their production and distribution systems. There&amp;#039;s no perfect state of green, experts say, but perfection isn&amp;#039;t required: Every effort to reduce the debris sent to landfills and improve indoor air quality is important. Crate Barrel&amp;#039;s huge product line, for example, isn&amp;#039;t 100 percent green, but the chain is venturing into sustainable products with its Basque collection of tables, chairs and sideboards with some pieces made from kiln-dried reclaimed mango wood. Designer Ted Boerner in San Francisco tries to use certified wood, which isn&amp;#039;t always possible, but he is integrating green principles into his business model by using a delivery service in California that runs on eco-acceptable bio-diesel fuel. He&amp;#039;s also experimenting with materials like PaperStone and Richlite, made from eco-resins and recycled paper. Maggie Wood, a green design consultant in Jamesport, New York, says that greening a home is all about striking a balance between sustainable materials and production methods, and, of course, design. After all, Wood says, &amp;quot;furniture that harms the environment is not good design.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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