OPAL’s building products sister company, GO Lab, is moving rapidly toward manufacturing and marketing its game-changing line of wood fiber-based building insulations. Statewide business magazine Mainebiz has published an excellent overview of the company—founded by OPAL executive partner Matthew O’Malia and chemist/materials scientist Joshua Henry—along with an update on its progress. The headline echoes our sentiments exactly: GO Lab’s insulation might be the right product at the right time, and the right place.
Wood fiber insulation is renewable, recyclable, nontoxic, and sequesters carbon. It is also price- and performance-competitive with the existing fossil-fuel based insulation products that dominate the current market. GO Lab’s line will consist of three insulation types—loose fill for attics, batts for wall cavities, and boards for continuous exterior use—addressing all above-grade applications. With the potential to break the construction industry’s reliance on energy- and carbon-intensive insulations, GO Lab’s products will dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, which are responsible for some 40 percent of global emissions.
Work has begun on retrofitting the GO Lab manufacturing facility (the former Madison Paper mill, in Madison, ME), with the loose-fill insulation production line planned to start rolling in early 2021. When all three lines are in operation and at full production, the company will employ about 130 people.
