We are honored to be recognized by WSJ for our EcoRock drywall innovation to win this year in the Environment category. It’s always nice when mainstream understands the significance of the problem we are tackling - with the help of all of our partners in the building ecosystem, from green architects, to energy modelers, to installers, and many more. See full list of this year’s innovation winners here. Our full press release reads:

Serious Materials Wins Prestigious Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award
Five Times More Environmentally-Friendly Than Gypsum Drywall, EcoRock Honored in Environment Category The Technology Showcase

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–Serious Materials, the leading energy-saving building materials company in the U.S., received the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for the Environment category. Chosen from among nearly 500 applications, Serious Materials’ EcoRock is among the Wall Street Journal’s top innovations this year. This award adds to Serious Materials’ growing list of achievements, including Popular Science’s Best of What’s New and selection for the first Aspen Institute award for innovation in Energy Conservation. Serious Materials has also been recognized by TIME/CNN, Fortune, BusinessWeek, GreenTech Media and Red Herring as one of the most promising green technology companies.

EcoRock requires 80 percent less energy to make than traditional drywall and produces 80 percent less carbon dioxide due to the natural curing and drying process as well as eliminating the calcining processes, eliminating the energy-intensive processes of traditional gypsum drywall production. EcoRock is made using pre-consumer recycled waste, including waste from steel and cement plants – and zero gypsum. EcoRock is the first product to receive Environmental Claims Validation by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Environment. The UL Environment audit validates the following environmental claims for EcoRock: 80% recycled content, low VOC emissions (meets CA 01350), mercury free, and highly resistant to mold. And EcoRock is the first termite resistant drywall product available anywhere.

“This is a great honor for our company as we continue to innovate and revolutionize the building materials market,” said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. “The manufacturing of standard gypsum drywall has remained virtually unchanged for over 100 years, when the environmental impact of building operations and materials manufacturing processes was not understood. The built environment is the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gases. Buildings account for more than 50% of CO2 emissions generated worldwide, compared to the 9% attributed to car emissions. We are committed to continuous, aggressive innovation that enables the most energy-efficient, cost-effective, environmentally responsible buildings.”

“[It is a] novel solution to a basic problem that has enormous impact,” said Darlene Solomon, chief technology officer of Agilent Technologies and an Innovation Awards judge.

The winners of this year’s Innovation Awards will be a part of The Technology Showcase October 14 and 15, which will spotlight 75 of the industry’s most innovative companies, all vetted by VentureWire editors as industry standouts. Among the speakers at the Technology Showcase will be Walt Mossberg, personal-technology columnist of The Wall Street Journal.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under EcoRock, Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.