The Refinishing Touch Blog

This past Tuesday, we announced our newest offering with the release of eco-friendly fabrics, from our Touch Textiles brand. These fabrics, which we have worked on with our partners at three different mills that are certified by third party organizations for their environmentally friendly practices, have been awhile in the making, so we’re very excited to now be able to offer them to our customers.

What’s unique about our new fabrics is that not only are they made from 100% recycled materials, but they’re also finished with a new low fluorocarbon treatment called GreenShield. GreenShield is certified by the Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) and uses two-thirds less chemicals that typical fabric treatments. The best part of all is that these factors don’t weaken the color, durability, stain resistance or overall quality of the fabric.

Up to 12 billion pounds of post consumer textile waste end up in landfills every year. We hope that our new fabrics in tandem with our refinishing services will help to significantly reduce the amount of waste caused by textile use, and ultimately strengthen our commitment to environmental sustainability.

We’d like to announce the new The Refinishing Touch website. To our clients, partners and customers this is our ‘store front’ – it’s where we can update these contacts that are spread across the globe, of our news, services and share our achievements. We decided it was time to refinish our site and we settled on what we feel is a more modernized layout.

Visitors will first notice how the general appearance of the site has been completely changed with a new background, new pictures to show our capabilities, that are Flash-enabled to showcase a range of projects.

Other new changes were aimed to make the site more streamlined: the Carbon Footprint Calculator, the TRT blog and the client login all appear on the home page. Also, visitors can quickly access information with direct links to Refinishing, Upholstery, Armoire Conversion and Touch Textiles.

All of these new changes were made with the goal of making the experience of visiting our site easier and more enjoyable than ever. We hope that visitors will come to love the new site as much as they did the old one.

The website is live now, so be sure to drop by and check it out if you haven’t already.

You may have a noticed a short silence from us on our blog – we’ve been busy at the Buyer Interactive Trade Alliance & Conference (BITAC) West over in a sunnier (and drier) California. As many of you know and I’m sure you’ll agree, BITAC conferences are always great events – this year BITAC West boasted a record numbers of attendees, so the word must be spreading.

Several times a year the team at TRT heads over to one of the BITAC events to participate, share our ideas, and contribute to the brainstorms about the challenges facing our industry. Each conference is worthwhile, informative and entertaining. Since 1998, BITAC has brought together professionals throughout all areas of the hospitality industry in order to foster long-term relationships and spread innovative ideas and trends. And that’s not just our opinion – almost all of the attendees voted BITAC as “The Best” or “One of the Best” industry events they attend. With educational sessions, face-to-face meetings, relationship building meals and evening entertainment, they are a fruitful way to spend a few days.

This year TRT sponsored the lunch on the opening day of BITAC West, where we were able to show our involvement with and recording by The Discovery Channel’s Planet Green network and our founder, Mario Insenga, gave a great presentation to our peers in the industry about TRT’s history, the work we do and our future goals.

Attending the conferences is a great way for us to reconnect with former clients and old friends as well as introduce ourselves to others in the industry, and we’re eagerly looking forward to the next BITAC event. To read more about the event we just attended or learn more about the next one, check out the BITAC website.

This week we take a look at the ambitious plans set out by the South Korean government to promote sustainability through the spread of renewable energy. While the government has been trying to do this through various plans, such as the one million “green homes” it has built, renewable energy is still rare in South Korea, with only 2.49 percent of energy coming from renewable sources. Wind, solar and hydrogen fuel cells account for even less, standing at only 0.1 percent.

This is all set to change if the plans of South Korea’s Presidential Committee on Green Growth are successful. First up is the plan to build a 40 MW wind power complex by 2014, enough to deliver electricity to 13,000 homes. There are also plans to create another wind farm on the ocean along the West Coast. This one would supply 100 MW and would also be completed by 2014, costing the government 400 billion won ($322.8 billion).

On the solar power front, the government hopes to expand the solar energy market through the application of a Renewable Portfolio Standard that will require energy providers to ensure that a certain amount of the supplied power come from renewable sources. By 2012 these standards will become mandatory, but the government is encouraging providers to adopt them earlier by offering them benefits. It is estimated that such a program could expand the solar energy market to supply enough power for 33,000 households.

Finally, to increase the use of hydrogen fuel cells, the government has said it will subsidize 30 to 80 percent of their installation costs in households to encourage early adopters, starting at 80 percent until 2012 and then dropping incrementally to 30 percent by 2016.

Initiatives like this one are paramount to creating a more sustainable world, which is by no means an easy task. We applaud South Korea for their initiatives and hope that their endeavors prove to be successful in making their country more sustainable than ever. As they say in Korea: “행운을” (good luck)!

Here at The Refinishing Touch, we’re very proud of our roots and the work that we do. That’s why we’re excited to announce that our founder, Mario Insenga, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal’s Careers section.

The interview, which was carried out by the Journal’s Grace Williams, highlights Mario’s career, from his childhood experiences learning his craft by working in his family’s woodworking shop to the events leading up to his passion for furniture refinishing, his commitment to sustainability and ultimately, his decision to begin The Refinishing Touch. Mario also gives a brief outline of the company’s history, our past work with the White House and a step-by-step overview of our process and how we work.

To get to know our founder or learn a bit more about TRT, you can read The Wall Street Journal article here.

This past June, Americans saw the end of analog television broadcasts and the transition to strictly digital TV. While that transition was lengthy and difficult, it didn’t apply to the millions of cable subscribers that are just now undergoing the same transition that forces them to go digital. Cable companies have begun the switch that allows them to provide far more channels, both high-definition and standard-definition, than with analog, however this switch may not be so beneficial for consumers.

The problems lie in the technology that makes going digital a no-brainer for cable operators but brings problems to cable subscribers. The three technologies that companies are using, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), CableCard, and “tru2way,” have provided confusing and complicated systems to digital TV watchers while failing to eliminate the need for separate hardware, such as bulky cable boxes and knotting wires.

While the switch will likely benefit TV viewers in the long run, the method of transition is causing many problems for home viewers as well as many of the hospitality companies we work with. Changes in hardware alone have created problems with cable subscribers, who make up the vast majority of American television viewers, having to dispose of old cable boxes and televisions that do not support digital signals. Not only can it be costly, it poses a huge environmental dilemma when those materials end up in landfills.

Consumers should look to recycling to counteract these problems and save money. Converting old TV stands and armoires to fit new digital, high-definition televisions, like many of our clients in the hospitality industry do, can be a great way to save money, organize complicated television-cable box systems, and help prevent unnecessary waste. Additionally they should look into television recycling programs that are aiming to assist in the transition to make it as smooth as possible. While cable companies and technology are still catching up to the current demand, consumers can always find ways to do a little more to help themselves through this change.

The hospitality industry is constantly undergoing changes, and more recently we’ve seen these changes being driven by green initiatives. One of the world’s largest hotel chains, Marriott International, has led the way for many years and continues to raise the bar higher and higher for green hospitality with widespread innovative programs.

The Marriott’s drive for eco-friendly programs began in 2004 when it became the first hospitality management company recognized for its energy efficiency by the Alliance to Save Energy. Since then Marriott has added five consecutive years of winning the Energy Efficiency award from the state of California and the U.S. EPA Energy Star labels for contributions across 275 of its hotels to its legacy as a green leader. The chain plans to continue its work in a number of ways: utilizing energy efficient heating and cooling systems and green roofs, creating bike paths on its properties, providing access to SmartCars or Zipcars to its guests and using reclaimed and recycled materials in the construction of its hotels.

Our work here at TRT so closely relates to what Marriott strives to achieve and we greatly admire the chain for all of its efforts. We’re hopeful that with large groups such as the Marriott continuing to pursue sustainable operations, one day industry standards will be based almost entirely on environmentally friendly initiatives.

With so many new green initiatives that are taking place around the world, we at the Refinishing Touch are always keeping an eye out for those that stand out – no matter how far-flung the location.

Today, we’re traveling an estimated 5,600 miles (take a few miles) to Ghana in Africa West, which recently launched its Agricultural Sustainable Land Management Strategy (SLM) and Action Plan. This plan is to be executed throughout the rest of 2009 and 2010 in response to its particularly high rate of land degradation. It’s part of the Ghana Strategic Investment Framework for SLM developed by a partnership of organizations including the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Bank.

Land degradation costs Ghana about two percent of its annual Gross Domestic Product, and most agricultural lands rate below average on productivity. Ghana’s land is further damaged due to its generally fragile ecosystems and their traditional farming techniques such as “slash and burn,” which consists of cutting and burning forests to create fields for agriculture. These traditional methods can sometimes render soil useless for years and do not allow for future land improvement and sustainability.

This new plan encourages financial support for improved fertilizers, the advancement of new land development technologies, the strengthening of land resources and the importance of including food security and commodities development in government work plans and budgets.

It is incredibly inspirational to see how these initiatives in Ghana are aimed at solving issues that will benefit both the nation and the environment as a whole. According to its government leaders, Ghana depends on agriculture for most of its social and economic development, and while this plan is only an initial suggestion, it is a giant step in the right direction for a developing country that has an abundance of natural resources to manage and an enormously promising future.

Around the world different governments, communities, and environments face the same difficulties – how to live with minimal impact and work together to protect the environment. Specific situations may vary a great deal, but the underlying challenge are always the same.