Made in Minnesota: sourcing local building materials

I just returned from Greenbuild 2009, and the talk this year was focused on reducing carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions. So how do you do this in your community, workplace, home, or building project? One of the simplest ways to do this is to choose local building materials.
I have talked about local in the past and thankfully, there are now even more resources to help you source local building materials right here in Minnesota.

The Dovetail Partners - Minnesota Made project assists communities in meeting sustainability goals and builds projects that use products nearest to specific communities. Dovetail works with the local contractors to put money back into the community, provides green building education, and calculates the environmental impact of using local building materials for each project. Dovetail also offers a map of local building materials and the report Green Building Materials - Made in Minnesota.

The Midwest Home Magazine - Made in Minnesota database allows you to search from over 300 products made in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Building Materials Database from the University of Minnesota's Center for Sustainable Building Research provides a wide array of technical information on building materials, including location and distance traveled for manufacturing.

Remember: not only does choosing local building materials help the environment, but it also helps the local economy!