f e a t u r e
Buying locally
locally made products are often of high quality and, in many cases, made sustainably. Additionally, buying locally can also reduce the total distance goods must travel and reduce the carbon emissions associated with transportation.
What is it, how do you do it and why by Jake Sadler Buying locally has become an increasingly popular trend, and evidence of this can be seen in town after town. Just a quick trip into your local downtown will probably reveal restaurants that are buying food from local farms. Artists, potters, furniture makers and even clothing retailers are advertising locally made products. So why is buying locally becoming increasingly popular? How do you define buying locally? And what does buying locally mean for building a home? The process of buying locally is not necessarily as straight forward as it may seem, and defining it can be difficult. Here are a few simple guidelines. We can divide local products into three major categories: locally sourced, locally produced and locally sold. Sourced means where the materials are found produced is where a product is made, and sold is the location where the product is purchased. Each of these categories, however, depends on defining local. Using LEED criteria, local is defined as any material extracted, processed and manufactured within a radius of 500 miles. However, 500 miles from Western North Carolina can take you as far as Arkansas to the west or Pennsylvania to the north, which many of us would not consider local. Nevertheless, keep in mind that many of the benefits of buying locally are realized the closer to your home they are sourced, produced or sold. The benefits of buying locally are increasingly seen and valued by consumers, and the practice is gaining popularity. In addition to supporting your local economy by securing jobs and keeping money circulating within a community,
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WNC Green Building Directory
Using your hard-earned money to purchase local goods benefits you as a consumer and plays a vital role in allowing future generations to enjoy a healthy and vibrant local economy. Buying locally is an excellent way to get the products you want and need, and it will help enable consumers in the future to do the same thing. There is perhaps no better time than now to begin using locally made, sourced or sold products when considering home construction. Whether you’re building an addition or breaking ground on a new home, local building-industry businesses need your support in this tough economy, and spending your money locally will benefit you now more than ever with competitive prices and high quality. Buying locally, however, is easier said than done, especially when working on your home. For example, there are certainly products you will need for your home that you cannot buy locally. It can also be confusing to use the term buying local, when, for example, a non-local retailer is selling local products or vice versa. To address some of this confusion, and help define buying locally, let’s look at some of the ways you can benefit from your local economy when working on a home.
Locally sourced
This means that the basic material components of a product are found, extracted or harvested nearby. Some examples of locally sourced products include the following: locally harvested and milled wood products including lumber, siding, trim, etc.; locally extracted rock and mineral resources; and locally grown native plants and landscaping features.
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WNC Green Building Council