This week’s Green Scene column in Crain’s Chicago Business: Home design showroom aims to be a green beacon to designers, homeowners


The Green Home Chicago showroom

Karen Kalmek calls herself a late bloomer.

She waited till her fifties to launch a business of her own that combined her interests in art, saving the planet and job creation. But Ms. Kalmek’s decision to open Green Home Chicago in 2008, just as the sustainable interior decor movement was taking off, seems to have been well-timed.

She opened her showroom in the Fulton Market area when most interior designers weren’t yet seeking green home products for their clients and the trend for such finishes in commercial space was still considered cutting-edge.

Green Home Chicago’s interior finishing products include flooring, tiles, paint, carpets, furniture, lighting, fabrics and one-of-kind pieces made by local artists. The showroom carries a custom cabinetry line that’s made locally with FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified wood.

The market for these goods has grown since her first days in business. Last year, sales rose 70% from the year before (she declines to specify dollar amounts), but 2010 was slightly worse than the year before, she notes. About two-thirds of the company’s revenues come from residential clients, but Ms. Kalmek is placing more emphasis on growing the commercial side of her customer base through architects and interior designers.


Karen Kalmek

Ms. Kalmek began her career as a speech therapist in her native South Africa and worked for Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. She then veered toward entrepreneurial ventures, including a stint with a non-profit that imported home decor products from Africa that helped combat poverty in communities on that continent. And throughout, she was also an artist.


The locally manufactured chair

Ms. Kalmek is expanding her business by adding a manufacturing component to source more design products closer to home. She’s working with a mechanical engineer on the North Shore who’s crafting handmade chairs from sustainable North American wood that’s primed with soy-based, formaldehyde-free technology. The chairs are laser-cut out of one sheet of material (reducing waste) and flat-packed for easy shipment anywhere in the world.

But she has bigger expansion plans: Ms. Kalmek is trying to convince city officials to establish a partnership with her to turn some vacant warehouse space into a small-scale manufacturing plant for countertops made from recycled glass.

Ms. Kalmek is an advocate for green design even outside her showroom. She’s in the midst of organizing a panel discussion event in May that will focus on the bigger picture of sustainability in building.

Crain’s met up with Ms. Kalmek to learn more about her business and green philosophy.

Crain’s: How do you define eco-design?

Ms. Kalmek: I see design at the end of the line of a construction project. Heating, air quality and other big things that go into construction are very important if you’re trying to build green. But if you have products inside that are off-gassing, you’ve defeated the purpose. Interior design is at the end of the budget, so it gets value-engineered out of the project lots of the time. I try to work with the decision-maker to change their minds about what’s really important.

Crain’s: How would you characterize the local green design sector in Chicago?

Ms. Kalmek: It’s emerging. When I started my research in 2007 there wasn’t much green design. Today, many people still don’t know what’s available, others think it’s too expensive. And then there’s human nature. People are used to doing what they always do. I have designers coming in here saying their clients are asking for green and that’s why they’re here for the first time. There isn’t much green design in the Merchandise Mart, but there’s lots of lip service and greenwashing there.

Crain’s: You’re very particular about what you choose to sell in your showroom. Can you describe your 10-point green classification system?

Ms. Kalmek: It’s a system that educates clients and allows them to find the right mix between aesthetics, price and sustainability. On my 10-point scale, saying things are local is big. It creates jobs locally, supports our community and keeps people from moving elsewhere.

I also look at how the product is made, what’s in it, what kind of toxicity is put in the atmosphere to make it — not just the final product. In my field, I want to do the heavy lifting and dig in and get people the real story.

A perfect example is paint. No VOCs (volatile organic compounds) is a good thing (and widely available). But most paints are still petrochemical based. And the bigger story is the tints. I found out through a client that tints in most paints are filled with chemicals and toxins.The only line I carry is Green Planet Paint because the base is not made from petrochemicals, it’s clay and soy-based. And the tints are from natural minerals. This is especially important for people who have immune deficiencies or have young kids.

Crain’s: Even though Green Home Chicago is a for-profit venture, you exude a mission-driven ethos. Can you describe that philosophy?

Ms. Kalmek: It’s really important to educate people about the choices they have and what it could mean for the producers of those products and for the planet as well. For example, I began selling Arzu handmade wool carpets imported from women in Afghanistan and other carpets from Tibet. The sales were helping women there earn a fair wage to support their families and give them health care, and the end user took home a beautiful product.

When a business thinks about the people who are making things, they see they can have a bigger impact through the power of their choices. That’s also why I want to help manufacture more products right here in Chicago.

Crain’s: You’re meeting with representatives of World Business Chicago this week to try to get in on some exporting opportunities. What are you hoping to accomplish?

Ms. Kalmek: There are thousands of empty warehouses in Chicago. I’d love for the city to give me one for a dollar in a private/public partnership to keep costs down and I’ll create a place to manufacture countertops. This is a project that I know is in huge demand in the U.S. and overseas, in the Middle East in particular. It would create 12 jobs initially, and we’d be using recycled glass to create beautiful things, sell it locally and export it too. I’m ready to go.

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