TreeHouse Founder Speaks to Green Mountain Energy

We recently welcomed special guest Jason Ballard, co-founder and president of TreeHouse®, to our Austin, Texas, headquarters to learn about his company and its future plans.

TreeHouse is an Austin-based sustainable home improvement store that launched in 2011 with a powerful mission:

“We built our company based on the idea that people, communities, nature, excellence and dreams all matter. And that we should all do everything within our power to care for and nurture each of them.”

Each product that TreeHouse offers in its store, from flooring, toilets and cabinetry to rainwater collection tanks and more, is carefully selected and meets its high standards of quality, taking health, sustainability, performance and corporate responsibility into consideration.

TreeHouse-Founder-Speaks-2.jpg Ballard made an interesting connection between TreeHouse and Tesla Motors, the electric-car maker led by well-known entrepreneur Elon Musk. While fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles, such as the Prius, have been on the market for many years, it wasn’t until Tesla began selling its Model S that electric vehicles began to be perceived as “sexy” to the general public. To many, the performance, design and innovative features of the Model S overshadow the fact that it’s an electric vehicle.

In the same sense, Ballard said, TreeHouse needs to win in the home improvement space. Its products must be appealing to the general public to the degree that the products’ sustainable attributes (i.e. toxin-free, energy-efficient) become an afterthought.

Ballard envisions a day when “green” or “sustainable” homebuilding becomes an unnecessary modifier because it simply is the way everyone does things. Per his example, when was the last time anyone recalls seeing the “unleaded” label at the gas station? It’s rare these days. No one sells “leaded” gasoline, so there’s no need to make a distinction.

If you’re in the Austin area, we encourage you to visit TreeHouse to browse the store’s selection of products. Comment below to let us know what you think!

And if Austin isn’t in your future plans, be patient. We wouldn’t be surprised if location expansions are in TreeHouse’s future.

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