Kelly-Moore Paints Green Solutions Go Beyond Just Meeting Regulations
Kelly-Moore Paints is a leader and innovator in waterborne-coating technology, including two zero-VOC, low-odor paint lines, Enviro Coat and Green Coat. Enviro Coat is a premium, 100% acrylic interior paint with outstanding performance properties and excellent hide. Green Coat line is an ideal choice for professionals looking for high-quality, co-polymer waterborne interior paint and enamels. Both of these lines have received Green Wise certification and meet the Master Painters Institute’s Green Performance Standard as well as the Green Seal GS 11 VOC criteria for architectural coatings.
The lower VOC content has not meant a lowering of quality—in fact, quite the contrary. “As we’ve lowered the VOCs with new resins, our products have performed better. Technologically, we’re using advanced ingredients and creating better-working green products. We have the proper technology to make low-VOC and zero-VOC products and formulated the products accordingly to create better value.” said Mark Zielinski, VP Business Development for Kelly-Moore Paint Company.
The reduced VOC content is good for the environment, but there is another quality that resonates with end users: the low odor. “These products don’t usually sell because they are low in VOCs,” Zielinski explained. “More often, they sell because they have low odor! This makes them good for use in residential homes, hospitals, schools and commercial facilities. And while the low odor is a selling point, they become functionally green, adding value for the customer.”
In addition to these zero-VOC paint lines, Kelly-Moore has developed other paint products with low VOCs, including all flat paints that have a VOC content of less than 50 g/l meeting the strict regulations in California and includes an alkyd emulsion paint. “The alkyd emulsion paint. KM Professional Water-Oil Hybrid is an interior/exterior hybrid formula that offers great workability of an alkyd enamel, but cleans up with water,” explained Zielinski.
As further testament to its environmental focus, Kelly-Moore was the first paint company to offer recycled paints for sale. The recycled paint line, known as eCoat, is made with a minimum of 50-percent post-consumer waste product. “The collected paint comes primarily from professional painters,” Zielinski reported. “We take it off their hands so that it doesn’t go in a landfill. We only recycle Kelly-Moore Paints, which assures that we are producing a high-quality product but offered at a lower price point.”
Available in three sheens—flat, eggshell and semi-gloss enamel, eCoat also has the largest selection of stock colors available in a recycled paint line with a total of 10.
As consumers become more discriminating about what is really “green” and which products are merely meeting regulations, Kelly-Moore is responding. The company will introduce soon, heat-reflective paints for exterior applications. Taking a page from heat-reflective roofing technology, Kelly-Moore will introduce their reflective paints in factory-made, ready-mixed colors. Kelly-Moore expects this paint to reflect a percentage of heat away from the outside wall, decreasing the outside temperature, thereby lowering the available heat transfer to the inner space. The cooler room will not require as many air-conditioning cycles, decreasing the energy requirements over time.
In addition, Kelly-Moore Paint Company has won several key environmental awards on a local, county and statewide basis. In 2010, Kelly-Moore was the recipient of the “Green Large Business of the Year Award,” presented in recognition of the company’s recycling programs that diverted 60-percent of its waste and for its ability to motivate employees to commit to the recycling effort. Working with PG&E, Kelly-Moore was also recognized for its carbon-offset program that has resulted in its San Carlos plant being carbon-neutral.
In 2007 PS3 (the Pretreatment, Pollution Prevention and Storm Water) 2nd place for Facility of the Year Award by the California Water Environment Association and bested over 100,000 California companies to receive this award; the 2008 Outstanding Achievement in Industrial Wastewater Control by PS3 of the California Water Environment Association; the 2008 Green Business Certificate by the Board of Supervisors, County of San Mateo, State of California; and the 2009 San Carlos Certified Green Business by the California Legislature Assembly.
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