2019 Readers' Choice Awards - A Sustainable Brands Survey

DuPont

Building Wrap Products

DuPont™ Tyvek® is voted the Greenest Building Wrap Brand for the 9^th year in a row!

DuPont™ Tyvek® Building Envelope solutions provide superior protection against the elements with pioneering products such as DuPont™ Tyvek® HomeWrap® and other specialized wraps, plus flashing and roofing underlayments. DuPont™ Tyvek® weather-resistive barriers help to prevent air and water infiltration while allowing moisture vapor to escape to help reduce the chance of mold and water damage.

www.weatherization.tyvek.com

Trane

Co-Winner HVAC

Trane, an HVAC leader specializing in home comfort, offers a broad portfolio of energy efficient heating and cooling choices, tools to improve indoor air quality and life-simplifying connected solutions.

Trane’s state-of-the-art HVAC systems allow builders to deliver efficient, reliable heating and cooling from a trusted brand. For example, their variable speed products provide up to 750 stages of comfort and maintains a consistent temperature within ½ of a degree of the chosen set point.

http://www.trane.com/residential

While Amazon Alexa's stronghold on this relatively new brand space remains strong, Google Home has closed the gap since last year. At the same time, Samsung's SmartThings dropped from thrid place to fifth, as Honeywell's complete spin off of Resideo pushed its brand forward.

While Nest cleverly seized the "high ground" early in this category, Honeywell has closed the gap by seven points this year, and Ecobee, which is now backed by Amazon, crept up to the number three position. Emerson's Sensi seems to be losing mindspace, down from 4.7% to 2.5% this year.

If you visited CES this year, you saw dozens of smart plug and switch brands. But they'll have a hard time breaking into the top 10 of this niche. This year's brand favorites fell in the same exact hierarchy as last year, with Samsung losing just a few points as Lutron gained.

Whoever thinks building professionals lack brand loyalty should compare this year's lighting favorites with last year. It's no coincidence that the results almost mirror the order and percentages of last year. It's smart work on the part of brand managers that keeps them in the minds of their customers.

It's no accident that Owens Corning continues to lead in this category. Its container-built exhibit at Design & Construction Week was a masterpiece of multi-faceted marketing. Brand leaders and insulation "types" mostly fell in the same order as last year, although mysteriously, spray foam companies did not make the top 10 list, nor did Knauf insulation brand.

EcoStar dramatically jumped to the top brand spot this year, as EnviroShake slipped to third. Owens Corning's "Roof to Roads" recycling initiative is apparently winning kudos as well. The company rose from third to second position this year. Boral Roofing's shift away from "smog eating" products apparently didn't hurt its green reputation. The company rose from 4.7% to 7.4% this year.

The takeaway from these results is that building pros believe almost any structural system can be green. On the top 10 list are ICFs, SIPSs and several engineered wood systems, with Boise Cascade still leading the pack. SIP enthusiasts may be pleased that Premiere moved up to the number two spot, ousting Weyerhaeuser-Trus Joist.

James Hardie nudged up a few points this year to tie with the much-loved BASF stucco system for brand leadership. Another notable change: Nichiha fiber cement dropped off the top 10 chart, and both Sto and LP's Smartside product made the top brands list, perhaps because they added trim and siding products to the offering.

Perhaps more than any other building product category, brand recognition and loyalty matter in the appliance category. This year, however, GE shot up several ranks to share the top spot with last year's winner, Bosch. What changed for GE? It's been aggressively promoting ENERGY STAR products, participating in appliance recycling and other initiatives. Whirlpool and LG switched positions this year, and continue to tussle just below the top brands.

Corian grabbed the top spot for sustainability for a second year in a row, after unseating Eco by Cosentino last year. Perhaps building pros see it as a greener alternative than granite. Other products in the top 10 maintained their relative brand status, and Zodiaq earned a spot in the list for the first time.

Both Trane and Carrier have done a tremendous amount of R&D to improve product performance recently, and now they happily share the top spot. Carrier, notably, moved from the number 5 spot to number 1 this year—no minor feat. Bosch remains solidly in third place, while other leading brands sustained their relative brand sentiment from last year.

Bosch nudged out Rheem this year for the top spot. The two typically contend closely for the number one position. Brand recognition for this market sector remains relatively unchanged from last year, with no new players among the leading companies.

For the third year in a row, Trex dominates this category. It's a brand position the company has worked hard to achieve and hold. The only notable shift in brand perceptions is GeoDeck, which moved up several spots—perhaps because it has promoted its use of non-wood and recycled fibers.

This year's paint notables follow the same pattern as last year, although Behr and Valspar switched spots. This sector, which was marked by numerous low- and no-VOC brand introductions a few years ago, now seems to have settled into comfortable familiarity for building pros. We're surprised to see PPG drifting downward in the list, however. We know the company is serious about environmental reporting on products, but somehow the messaging in being lost.

It must be tough to be a window maker these days. The products are so well refined that differentiating brands comes down to fine details and service, not building science. Marvin and Jeld-Wen appear to be doing something right: both moved up the list, pushing down Therma-Tru. Andersen, last year's brand leader, drops a spot behind Pella this year.

Despite a regular cadence of controversy about working conditions, company performance and so on—not to mention rogue comments by Elon Musk—Tesla's status as a green brand prevails. Or is it perhaps the controversy itself that puts the brand first in mental space? We expect other serious contenders such as LG, Panasonic and CertainTeed to chip away at the Tesla brand, as will brands with solid manufacturing in the U.S., such as Jinko, as PV becomes a standard in every new home.

Note how SolarEdge's sophisticated, multi-faceted solar offerings have outpaced Tesla. Pros are looking more deeply at how PV systems actually work comparing inverters, software and so on. Enphase boasts similar credentials: A smart company that solved the problem of battery-powered smart gadgets, for example. In this category, the smartest, most reliable, hands-off brands win.

Kohler's brand clout still dominates this category, although it has made a few wrong turns this year, in our view, with its Alexa-enabled products. Moen, in contrast, has mostly avoided more gimmicky upgrades to introduce new technology that saves water, as have TOTO and Niagara. Overall, the trend is a good one. Brands making strides toward more efficiency continue to be held in highest regard by high-performance building pros.

Another year, another leader atop the solar thermal list. SunEarth moves up two spots to unseat Rheem as the maker of greenest solar thermal products, while SunMaxx Solar moves ahead of last year's runner-up, Solar US.

Tyvek's brand lead keeps growing. Seriously, its marketing team deserves a raise. The company is up 8 points since last year. One interesting shift from 2018: Huber ZipSystem, at 10%, seemed to be closing the HomeWrap gap, but fell back to fourth position, and Tremco's Enviro-Dri, a spray-on product, shot to number two. Perhaps code changes that affect air infiltration have spurred awareness of Enviro-Dri's specifications.

Once again, IKEA grabbed the top brand position in the cabinet category, but that's not as notable a feat as it sounds. Cabinet brands in the U.S. typically lack a substantial green narrative. They rely on the fairly weak Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association certification to prove their green credentials. It's time for a U.S. brand to pull away from the pack and offer cabinet options that are free of offgassing and are made sustainably, with genuine environmental commitment and process.

Like cabinetry in the U.S., most flooring is not especially sustainable. The top four brands, in similar position to last year, have each made efforts to improve durability, switching to more sustainable materials, and so on. The challenge is that durability is the primary attribute of a floor. It takes a beating and has to last. Tile is always a strong option, but not always the buyer's first choice. For now, the best way forward is probably to increase the ease and availability of recycling of carpet and engineered flooring products.

The right company again took home the gold in this category this year. We visited Panasonic at the Design & Construction show, and it demonstrated its new Cosmos ventilation product line. It's a game changer. Air King this year edged out Broan, perhaps because Air King's centrifugal fan range hood technology is extremely quiet. Research shows that noise reduction is essential in range hoods. Otherwise, consumers simply won't use them.

Toyota's lead in the mindspace grew by about 5% this year—but Ford and Chevy held on to their strong brand sentiment. All of these top brands have strong reputations for efficiency. The shift to high-torque electric drives, fuel cells and powerful hybrid engines will continue to shake up the industry, which has seldom seen such rapid change.

Tesla's rand clout is undeniable. But Bosch is a powerful contender, with its global reach and vast portfolio of building products, self-driving vehicles and even electric bicycles. Building pros tend to have strong brand loyalties, as the neck-and-neck inclusion of so many other brands illustrates. There's no reason tomorrow's "top" brand couldn't be any one of these other companies.

This chart should come as no surprise if you're familiar with the Green Builder Pyramid. In it, we demonstrate how a well-designed green home starts with the essentials, through insulation, windows and appliances, before "topping" the project with renewables.