e2e Materials’ New e2e Office Brand Wins Gold by Going Green

September, 2012

Over the last few years, e2e Materials has seen its soy-based biocomposites utilized in products ranging from home furniture to skateboard decks. This summer, the Ithaca, N.Y.-based company announced that it had “gone corporate” with e2e OFFICE™, a new brand of office products that are safer, stronger, lighter and more affordable than conventional wood-based alternatives.

The Next Industrial Revolution.

Green jobs are critical to our country’s future, these jobs are most sustainable when derived from new business endeavors leveraging new, clean technologies that are more than competitive with our current energy consuming practices – they have to be better and cheaper.

e2e delivers on the promise of Green Job creation. Through a concept we call Regionally Integrated Manufacturing tm (RIM), our facilities are planned to address market demand within a radius of 500 miles with the agricultural feedstocks intended to be sourced within 100 miles of the facility. All of the jobs created will be in the same regional economy where the product was produced – creating unparalleled, sustainable economic impact and employment opportunities spanning agriculture, manufacturing, sales and high-technology.

Soy Many Possiblities…

Utilizing soy-based products in the manufacturing of building products is sustainable and environmentally sound. Soy is also plentiful; grown in 26 states, soybeans are America’s No. 2 crop after corn. In fact, if we converted the entire global market of wood composites to our technology we’d only use 6% of the world’s available soy protein.

Substituting soy as a raw material for the petroleum ingredients should lower air emissions, while helping to preserve clean water and reduce worker exposure to potentially toxic compounds. Reducing industry dependence on petrochemicals and farm dependence on nitrogen fertilizers helps to conserve energy. Growth in the farm sector creates new jobs and stimulates both rural and urban economies.

Saving energy and trees.

e2e materials uses one-third of the energy required for average wood-based products dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of our facilities. Our material is also lighter, which requires less energy to ship, as well as handle and install.

The first commercially available product from the e2e OFFICE brand, the TransFORM™ WorkStation, won Gold and Innovation Awards in the Best of NeoCon 2012 competition, the contract furnishings industry’s premier event. Subsequent branded product offerings include privacy panels and noise-reducing office acoustics – with a mobile whiteboard slated to debut in the near future.

“Winning the highly coveted Best of NeoCon Innovation Award is especially gratifying because only a shortlist of vendors demonstrating remarkable new ideas in commercial interior design and furnishings is selected,” said Pat Govang, CEO of e2e OFFICE. “And as a clean technology company, we’re thrilled to be recognized for bringing a breakthrough product to market that is environmentally friendly and contributes significantly to LEED certification.”

During a TEDxTalk delivered this summer, Govang attributed e2e’s cost competitiveness to an eco-friendly business model that sources biobased materials from within a 500-mile radius of its production facility in Geneva, N.Y. The company estimates that for every manufacturing job created through its products, an additional five agricultural jobs are generated. Meanwhile, customers save by purchasing a product that has traveled only 700 miles from the farm fields to the store shelves, as compared to conventional products shipped to China for assembly and back for a collective journey of more than 21,000 miles.

“When people come to us and say that American manufacturing is dead, we say, ‘Nonsense,’” said Govang. “Innovation can create true green-collar American jobs by servicing customers with greater products that are cheaper, smarter and easier to make.”

To learn more about e2e Materials, visit www.e2ematerials.com and www.e2eoffice.com