Our Favorite 10 Sustainable Products for the Home (in 2018)

As sustainable homes continue to gain acceptance and traction within the real estate market and construction and housing industries, more and more companies are releasing innovative, sustainable products for the home. In the past few years, thousands of new products hit the market, and all of them promised to improve the sustainability of your home in some way or another. Unfortunately, the increased environmental awareness of homeowners and consumers, in general, has led some businesses to green-washing the products they offer.

To help you discern among products that will offer an important sustainability upgrade to your home from those whose supposed environmental benefit is debatable at best, below we offer a complete rundown of the top, recently-released, sustainable products for the home. The 10 products reviewed below offer ideas and innovative ways to help you turn your home into a healthier, more energy-efficient, and planet-friendly place to live. RISE does not endorse any of the products reviewed below, nor have the companies paid for promotion or marketing.

Bosch Benchmark Induction Range

According to the 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey by the EIA, electric stoves and ovens account for under 3 percent of total household energy usage. However, finding ways to cut back on energy consumption, no matter where it comes from, is an essential element of the sustainable home. An induction range relies on electromagnetic induction to generate heat in the cooking pot or pan.

The 30-inch Bosch Benchmark Induction Range costs $3,799 but offers seventeen different power levels so you can choose the best temperature for your cooking needs. This product also includes a 4.6 cubic foot oven, and a powerful 3,600 watts to reduce your overall cooking time.

Tesla Powerwall 2

It is only a matter of time before rooftop PV panels will be on top of every home and electric vehicles (EV) will be the main cars on the road. California recently passed legislation requiring new home construction to include rooftop solar panels and several of the largest cities across the country are investing in EV charging stations. Even if your home doesn’t currently have a rooftop PV system or an electric vehicle, the Tesla Powerwall 2 is a worthwhile investment to upgrade the sustainability of your home. This powerful lithium-ion battery can power your essential appliances during an electricity outage, allow you to use stored energy during peak times, and can also store energy to feed to your future EV.

Tea Leaf Dream Mattress

While Memory Foam mattresses are widely considered to be the most comfortable on the market today, studies have shown that these types of mattresses can emit dangerous VOC emissions into your bedroom. The Tea Leaf Dream Eco-Friendly mattress includes EverGreen™, a product made from all-natural green tea that is embedded into the memory foam to keep the mattress fresh for a long time. The foam itself blends natural and synthetic materials including a hemp blend cover to radically reduce VOC emissions.  At just over $2,300, this mattress isn’t cheap, but it offers a healthier way to enjoy the most comfortable sleeping solutions on the market.

Natural Light Solar Skylights

One of the easiest strategies to cut back on your household energy use is by limiting the need for artificial light in your home. While cutting out areas for large bay windows might lead to an expensive renovation bill, Natural Light Solar Skylights only cost around $275 and can be installed in one day. These little skylights are specifically designed to maximize the amount of concentrated sunlight that floods into your home. The tubular design is extremely energy efficient and won’t lead to any heat loss or gain in your home.

Nebia Spa Shower

Low-flow showerheads don’t mean that you have to sacrifice the luxury of enjoying a misty, soaking hot shower. The Nebia atomizing spa shower system claims to use 70 percent less than a regular showerhead while simultaneously offering up to ten times more spray coverage. The unique design of this spa system will saturate your shower experience with millions of microscopic droplets of water. You won’t even have to call a plumber to install this spa as it also offers easy, DIY installation.

Molekule Air Purifier

Home sustainability goes beyond simply reducing the number of natural resources and energy your home needs to function. Actively promoting a healthy lifestyle should also be prioritized by all sustainable and health-minded homeowners. Despite the fact that there are dozens of VOC-free or low-VOC products on the market today, air purifiers will drastically improve the quality of the air inside your home. 

The Molekule Air Purifier was recognized by Popular Science as one of the ten greatest home innovations of the year. It utilizes the innovative science of nanotechnology and Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) to destroy all different types of indoor air pollutants at the molecular level. While other air purifiers simply filter out common indoor air contaminants, the Molekule can destroy micro VOCs that are as small as 0.3 microns which routinely pass through HEPA filters. The Molekule currently costs $799 and comes with a free one-year filter subscription.

Florafelt Vertical Garden Systems 

The advantages of being surrounded by the natural world are well documented, though most of us spend around 90 percent of our time indoors. Living green walls are a great way to bring nature into your home and enjoy the benefits of biophilic design. For many homeowners, however, it is difficult to imagine different ways to incorporate plants into the interior of your home, beyond the traditional Laceleaf of Lucky Bamboo growing in a plastic planter in the corner of your dining room.  

Florafelt Vertical Garden Systems is offering an easy and practical product to help you design a vertical living wall inside your home. Their planting system incorporates 100 percent no-drip pockets and root-wrap, which allows you to grow a wide variety of plants without having to worry about dripping wet soil on your new carpet. Florafelt offers different designs for their vertical garden systems. The Florafelt Recirc, 33 pocket free-standing vertical wall can be conveniently placed anywhere in your home and costs $2,995.

Sink Positive Greywater Recycling System

About 40 percent of all the water that we use inside our homes gets flushed down the toilet. Even for small families, using greywater for flushing our toilets could easily save upwards of 5,000 gallons of water each year. The Sink Positive Greywater Recycling system offers an innovative design that allows you to reuse the water from your bathroom sink. Instead of utilizing fresh water for each and every toilet flush, these devices are a simple and easy way to recycle the greywater produced in your bathroom without worrying about clogging your toilet. The deluxe model includes a chrome aerator to reduce splashing while sending the greywater directly into your toilet tank and costs $149.

Leviton ODC Vacancy Sensor

According to the Energy Savings Trust, turning off lights that you aren’t using could help to remove up to 376 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year. The problem, of course, is that old habits are hard to break, and leaving the bathroom light on as you rush out the door to work might have become a part of your rushed morning routine. Vacancy sensors are usually seen in public restrooms. These simple devices use motion sensors to determine when no one is in the room and will then proceed to turn off any light that remains on. 

The Leviton ODC Series vacancy sensor uses microprocessor-based technology and is organized to work via a Manual ON and Auto OFF configuration. Thus, you will be required to manually turn on lights while they will automatically shut off, keeping your cat or dog from turning on the lights throughout the day while you are at work. The Leviton ODC Series vacancy sensors can cover up to 1,500 square feet of space and only cost $100.49. If you regularly leave your lights on for extended periods of time, this investment should pay for itself relatively quickly.

Pioneer Minisplit Heat Pump

According to the US Department of Energy, “heating and cooling account for about 48% of the energy use in a typical U.S. home, making it the largest energy expense for most homes.” Heat pumps are widely regarded as one of the most sustainable technologies for reducing your household energy use. While forced air and hot water baseboard systems are relatively complex (and expensive) to install, this Pioneer Minisplit Heat Pump offers 24,000 BTU of cooling capacity with a 16 Seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) efficiency along with 25,000 BTU/H of heating capacity with 9.0 Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) efficiency. 

This heat pump currently costs $1,118 and has an estimated annual operating cost of $750 for both heating and cooling, which is significantly less than what most homeowners pay for heating and cooling their homes throughout the year.

Article by:

Tobias Roberts

Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.