New Hope to Feature Green Building at 2003 Expo West

In an effort to expand its range, New Hope Natural Media will include a green-building pavilion at its Natural Products Expo West 2003, slated for Mar. 6 – 9 in Anaheim, Calif. The first-ever green building pavilion at Expo West will feature environmentally preferred products that include lighting, flooring, interior and exterior building materials and non-toxic finishing materials.

“We wanted to help grow green building the way we helped grow the natural products industry,” says Bud Wilson, New Hope's green building pavilion consultant. “What we find is that more and more people want to come into 'full integrity.'” Wilson believes that manufacturers and sellers of natural foods products are prime candidates for adopting green building strategies because, in most cases, their businesses are built on sustainability principles. In addition to its usual constituency, Wilson is working attract architects, builders, contractors, developers and designers to the 2003 Expo West.

However, Wilson notes that adding green building to New Hope's natural products show is challenging: “What we're really talking about is fundamental transformation and systematic change,” he says.

To illustrate the intersection between selling natural foods and the retail spaces in which they are housed, the 2003 Expo West will feature a “store of the future” to be built using sustainable techniques and products and featuring environmentally preferred products on the shelves, says Wilson.

This year at Expo West, New Hope included for the first time a natural living section that focused on ecological home products and related goods as well as a section on complementary and alternative medicine. Wilson says both additions were well-received.

Those interested in exhibiting green building products at the Expo should contact Wilson at 303.998.9030 or bwilson@newhope.com.