OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE: 2014 EDISON AWARDS SELECTS ECOR® AS FINALIST IN SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS CATEGORY
SAN DIEGO – Noble Environmental Technologies (NET) is proud to announce that ECOR®, its patented composite material and technology, has been selected as an Edison Awards™ Finalist in the Sustainable Systems category. The Edison Awards, which are in their 27th year, honor excellence in new product and service development, marketing, human-centered design and innovation. Award winners represent cutting edge products and services, excellence in leadership, and innovation around four criteria: Concept, Value, Delivery and Impact.
127 finalists were selected out of nearly 12,000 applicants. The Edison Awards Steering Committee and more than 3,000 professionals from the fields of product development, design engineering, science, marketing and education voted for and selected the finalists. The winners will be announced April 30, 2014 at the Edison Awards Annual Gala, held in the historic Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco.
“We are honored to be recognized by the Edison Awards as an innovative product and technology that can have a profound effect on human health, communities, the environment, job creation and economic growth,” said ECOR creator Robert Noble, Founder and CEO of the company. “ECOR is design-versatile, giving architects and designers the freedom to create shapes and forms that would be impossible with traditional materials. It is also environmentally superior and can contribute to every credit in the LEED materials category.”
The Awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), whose extraordinary new product development methods garnered him 1,093 U.S. patents. Edison pioneered five industries that transformed our world, including the incandescent electric light and distribution system for electrical power, the phonograph, the telephone transmitter, the electrical storage battery and the motion-picture camera. The Edison Awards symbolize the persistence and excellence personified by Thomas Edison, while also strengthening the human drive for innovation, creativity and ingenuity.
“It’s exciting to see companies like Noble Environmental Technologies continuing Thomas Edison’s legacy of challenging conventional thinking,” said Frank Bonafilia, Edison Awards’ executive director. “Edison Awards recognizes the game-changing products and services, and the teams that brought them to consumers.”
ECOR is 100% non-toxic, 100% recycled and recyclable, USDA certified 100% bio-based and Cradle to Cradle certified. It is manufactured through a clean technology conversion process that transforms virtually any natural cellulose fiber into high density, compressed molded fiber panel material suitable for thousands of product applications.
ECOR is also lightweight, extremely strong and can easily be curved and formed into a limitless number of shapes. Applications range from interior architectural applications to consumer goods. ECOR has been used by Starbucks for interior decorative wall panels, at Google headquarters as lobby features and wall partition systems, at 20th Century Fox’s studio as stage sets, and in Whole Foods for signage.
Noble Environmental Technologies (www.ECORusa.com) is a manufacturing technology and product company founded by sustainable design architect and inventor Robert Noble, LEED AP, AIA. The company, in partnership with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory, developed key intellectual property to begin commercialization of ECOR brand products. ECOR’s product line includes trade names FlatCOR™, WavCOR™, HoneyCOR™ and other proprietary products targeted to six fields of use including furniture & finishes, displays & entertainment, construction, transportation, containers & packaging, and consumer products.
View the full list of finalists here.