The Promise of Green Paint

by: Sarah Kershaw 15 May 2008

When it comes to building, renovating and maintaining a home, paint is a little like milk: it's a staple, a basic ingredient. And much like milk, a product that helped make the organic food movement a mass-market phenomenon, paint is leading the expansion of the green building movement, as stricter regulations, pressure from environmental groups and increasing consumer demand for eco-friendly products force manufacturers to produce paints with fewer dangerous and smog-producing compounds.

In the last few years, the marketplace for paint has undergone a dizzying revolution, with paint companies furiously researching technologies that will help them compete with new green lines in this changed universe. A number of start-ups, too, have introduced paint brands (several made with milk) that they claim are not only safer for humans and the earth than conventional paint, but more durable and better performing than the paints billed as eco-friendly that came on the market in the early 1990s and failed to take hold.

Not everyone is happy about the shift. Many designers, painters and consumers who applaud environmental responsibility are nevertheless worried about the growing restrictions on oil-based paints (which contain high levels of harmful volatile organic compounds), and even on less hazardous water-based latex ones.

They argue that there is no way, at least with the products currently available, to replicate the sheen, consistency or lasting power of an oil-based paint, particularly for use on cabinetry, trim, bookshelves and other specialty jobs. And they complain that painting a wall or ceiling can require several more applications of the newer paints made to be low in volatile organic compounds, or V.O.C.'s, than of old-fashioned latex blends.

Even then, the look is not the same, and flaws like rough brushstrokes are more visible. Maura Spery, who paints apartments in New York, said she has begun to advise clients to expect to spend more time and money on jobs using low-V.O.C. paints, given that she has to use five coats to achieve the same coverage she gets with two coats of traditional latex paint.

"I just wish they could get the product to really perform as well as the other products," she said of the manufacturers.

Jackie Greenberg, an interior designer in Manhattan, said she had designed an apartment for clients who requested low-V.O.C. paint, then demanded a new paint job within a year because of signs of wear and tear; J. J. Snyder, a Brooklyn painter who works on high-end residential jobs, said he has heard from clients about problems that start even earlier.

"They will tell you that the new latex is just as hard-wearing," Mr. Snyder said. "But it's not as hard-wearing. You put this latex on a cabinet, and six months later your clients are complaining."

Eve Ashcraft, an architectural color consultant in Manhattan, agreed. "The products behave differently. If you bring the old ideas in, the paint's going to be disappointing."

Still, Ms. Ashcraft and other designers and painters interviewed said they supported the efforts to protect the environment, and that the demand from their clients for safer, more environmentally responsible paints was getting stronger. Adrienne LaBelle, another Manhattan interior designer, said she was seeing it grow, especially among clients with young children. "Everybody's really on this right now," she added.

The problem is one of expectations, Ms. Ashcraft said: "If you want health-food Doritos, I bet you they will not taste the same. It's a trade-off."

THE environmental issues are complex, the regulations vary wildly across the country, and many questions remain about the performance of paints known as low- or no-V.O.C. They contain small or only trace amounts of volatile organic compounds, solvent additives that manufacturers have long regarded as crucial to paint quality. But they also release harmful vapors and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and can cause headaches and dizziness, can potentially exacerbate asthma and other health conditions, and can even cause kidney and liver damage if exposure is extremely high, according to public health experts.

Oil-based paints, which contain the highest levels of V.O.C.'s, have been tightly restricted in recent years in California, New York and a growing number of other East Coast states. They are still readily available in other parts of the country, but this summer the United States Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose a stricter regulation that would bring the national standards in line with those East Coast states. If the proposal is adopted, sales of oil-based paints would be limited across the country.

The rules have also required manufacturers to bring down V.O.C. levels in their latex paints, which are significantly lower in V.O.C.'s than oil-based ones.

Southern California has the toughest rules, and industry experts said they expected the federal rule to eventually reflect those standards. Anticipating a world of low- and very low-V.O.C. paint, a growing number of manufacturers have developed new paints to comply with the strictest standards, including Sherwin-Williams, the Home Depot and Benjamin Moore, which introduced its premium low-V.O.C. Aura line last year.

"We didn't want to have to go back and reformulate it every time a state changes its rules," said Carl Minchew, Benjamin Moore's director of product technology. "Our view is that what starts in California eventually finds its way across the country."

Benjamin Moore, which is still selling oil-based paints outside of California and the East Coast states that restrict them, has marketed its Aura line as a high-performing paint — requiring only one coat — that also happens to be safe for the environment. It is considerably more expensive than the company's higher-V.O.C. Regal line: $54.95 on average per gallon, compared to $35 to $42, according to company officials.

Mr. Minchew said the higher cost stems from the investment in the research and development that made the Aura line possible, and that he expects the price to come down over time.

Other, smaller manufacturers, like Yolo Colorhouse in Portland, Ore., and Mythic Paint, a Mississippi-based company in business since December, sell only low- or zero-V.O.C. paints. They say they can match any color — any one of Benjamin Moore's 3,300, for example — and also offer their own palettes.

"Consumers are becoming more educated," said Virginia Young, a founder of Yolo Colorhouse, a brand that sells for $39.95 a gallon and that Ms. LaBelle, the Manhattan interior designer, said she had used and was generally pleased with. "Three years ago, when we launched, people didn't know what V.O.C.'s were. On the West Coast, at least, that's in their vocabulary now."

IN March, Consumer Reports released an assessment of 57 interior paints currently on the market, including low-V.O.C. ones, that evaluated their "hiding performance, surface smoothness, and resistance to staining and scrubbing, their gloss change, sticking, mildew and fading." The testers gave "mixed marks" to the low-V.O.C. paints, although they said the products had improved significantly in terms of durability and sheen since they first came on the market.

Benjamin Moore's Aura was ranked third among 21 paints in the low-luster category, which included conventional latex and oil-based paints. True Value EasyCare and Glidden Evermore, both low-V.O.C. lines, came in sixth and seventh, respectively, on the list. But several other low-V.O.C. brands, including Harmony, the Sherwin-Williams zero-V.O.C. line, did not hold up to the performance tests.

For consumers who have decided to use only low- or no-V.O.C. paints, Green Seal, a nonprofit environmental organization that certifies products as eco-friendly, also conducts performance tests that evaluate coverage and how the paint holds up. The group's Web site, greenseal.org, lists 21 brands that have passed its environmental safety and performance tests.

For die-hard fans of oil-based paint, meanwhile, there are still ways to get hold of it, even in the East Coast states that limit its sales. There are exceptions in the regulations allowing the paint to be sold in quarts rather than gallons, and in larger quantities for industrial paint jobs — a loophole that some designers said they had taken advantage of. European lines, like Farrow & Ball, which is sold over the Internet, also have extensive oil-based paint lines, and several designers and painters said that was another way to keep oil in their repertory.

Still, some said they suspect it's only a matter of time before their repertories will have to be reinvented.

"I think it'll be a challenge to figure out something else," said Ms. Greenberg, the Manhattan decorator. "But there have been so many advances just in the last year," she added. "They will have to come up with more in terms of the finishes, but we all have to be more responsible about it."

Mr. Snyder, the Brooklyn painter, was similarly philosophical, if a little less optimistic.

"Every year we're faced with a new set of obstacles to get the same finish," he said, but eventually, "everybody will adapt. People's expectations will change."

"We'll all have our hands tied," he continued. "Hopefully I'll be retired by then."

Making Wet Paint Less Hazardous

VOLATILE organic compounds, or V.O.C.'s, are emitted as gases by products like paint, lacquer, cleaning supplies and pesticides. Exposure to V.O.C.'s in high concentrations can cause short- and long-term health problems, the Environmental Protection Agency says. The agency recommends ventilating spaces that are being painted and buying paint in limited quantities, since even closed containers can emit gases.

Over the past decade, various state and federal regulations have been enacted to reduce V.O.C. levels in paint and other household products. The federal government limits V.O.C.'s in paint to 250 grams per liter for flat finishes and 380 grams per liter for other finishes. Information on V.O.C. content can be found on paint can labels.

The Ozone Transport Commission, an advisory group created under the Clean Air Act of 1990, has established recommendations limiting V.O.C. content further — to 100 grams per liter for flat paint and 150 for other finishes — that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and the District of Columbia have either adopted or are in the process of adopting. This summer the E.P.A. is expected to propose stricter federal standards modeled on these recommendations, agency officials said. The strictest rules in the country are in Southern California, where the South Coast Air Quality Management District, a regional regulatory body that oversees Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, as well as parts of Los Angeles — an area with a population of more than 15 million people — requires that all paint sold contain less than 50 grams of V.O.C.'s per liter. Many of the new paints on the market, including Benjamin Moore's Aura, Home Depot's Freshaire Choice and Sherwin-Williams's Harmony, meet that standard. There are also a number of start-up companies, like Yolo Colorhouse and AFM Safecoat, that produce only low- or "zero" V.O.C. paint.

When paint is mixed with color, the V.O.C. content can increase, because colorants typically contain V.O.C.'s; they do not count toward the limits.