Green is the New Red Carpet

Image from IMZ.

You've heard of the red carpet. It's all over Hollywood - movie premiers, celebrity events, charity galas. Carpetology even paid tribute to it in Red Carpet Treatment and Create Your Own Red Carpet Experience.

But now, Bollywood, India's version of Hollywood, is taking the red carpet to the next level - green.

According to Wikipedia, "Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. Bollywood is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is one of the largest film producers in the world." Bollywood films are most likely musicals, with formulaic, melodramatic plots. But no matter what else they are, they're also extremely entertaining. [To get your feet wet in Bollywood entertainment, check out Monsoon Wedding - it was up for a Golden Globe here in the States in 2002.]

Geetanjali, a well-known Bollywood actress, walks the green carpet.

Image from jaman.com.

The International Indian Film Academy [IIFA] has held its own version of the Oscars each summer since 2000. Each year, it takes place in a different exotic location like Singapore or Malaysia. This year, it was held in Bangkok, Thailand on the weekend of June 6. The event consisted of an entire weekend of festivities, including an awards ceremony, a global business forum, a fashion extravaganza, and of course, unlimited numbers of dazzling Bollywood celebrities. And this year, instead of celebrities walking down the red carpet, they walked down a symbolic green carpet.

A Bollywood actress on the green carpet. Image from bbc.co.uk.

Last year, the IIFA unveiled its "Green Agenda," a movement toward making the organization's events carbon neutral and environmentally friendly. The green carpet, they felt, represented this shift in priorities: "From last year, the IIFA has changed the color of its star carpet walk from the Oscar-tradition red to green, to comply with the movement's engagement in fighting global climate change," read a story from the Hindu News.

But green carpet isn't only paving the star-studded walkways of India; here in the United States, it very appropriately replaced the red carpet for the premier of Marvel Comic's The Incredible Hulk. Stars Edward Norton and Liv Tyler walked it together on June 9, at the movie's premier in Los Angeles.

But perhaps the most important recent green carpet news comes from the Carpet and Rug Institute.

Earlier this month, the CRI announced that it received accreditation as a certification body for indoor air quality from the American National Standard Institute [ANSI]. Consider that CRI is the first organization within the soft floor covering sector to earn this accreditation. The organization's Green Label and Green Label Plus programs test for and certify the emissions of low-emitting volatile organic compounds found in carpet-related products, making homes everywhere safer and our air cleaner. "Because people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors, it is important to do everything possible to maintain the quality of indoor air, especially for new construction and renovation," says the CRI. The certifications the organization gives assure architects and builders that when they choose a carpet for a home or building, they're choosing one that's both clean and green. Additionally, the CRI is working with the ANSI to create a standard for sustainable carpet.

For the CRI, it will be business as usual. But with this new accreditation, business as usual will have a much bigger - and greener - impact.





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