In the ever-expanding green marketplace, stores are popping up offering the promise of green living. Sometimes that just means glorified tchotchkes like “organic” potpourri and “eco-friendly” dish towels.

At epOxyGreen LLC there are no towels to be had but there’s an abundance of flooring, tiling, cabinetry and other raw design materials and building products.

The Venice store bills itself as the only green building materials store in Los Angeles focusing solely on this niche.

“I’ve gone to green conferences as far as Orlando, and they have more stuff at epOxyGreen than at those conferences,” said Daniel Salzman, a spec home builder who plans to buy countertop materials and tiles from epOxyGreen for two Manhattan Beach homes he is constructing.

Founded by co-owners Sasha King and Deborah Guyer Greene, the store carries a variety of products sourced from around the world, such as recycled wallpaper, recycled glass countertops and, yes, a durable green epoxy for flooring.

Since opening in March 2007, the store has seen sales grow by about 15 percent to 20 percent each month, according to the owners, who won’t discuss revenue figures.

Just 30 percent of epOxyGreen’s business comes from do-it-yourselfers, while 70 percent of the business comes from professionals, such as spec builders and designers.

EpOxyGreen is getting into the manufacturing business with its own line of cabinetry, which goes on sale later this year. The pair decided to do a cabinet line with a local fabricator, because they say there isn’t cabinetry on the market without toxic formaldehyde coatings.

“It’s a missing component in the market and trying to be a one-stop-shop we need to make sure we have everything from nuts and bolts to cabinets,” said Guyer Greene.

Getting started

The co-founders started the company in 2006 after meeting at a health conference. Guyer Greene, an actress who’s made appearances on television shows including “Mad About You,” said that the store was created with a mandate of “conscious commerce” in mind.

That philosophy was fostered at epOxybOx LLC, a 602 Venice Blvd. gallery she created in 2004 that hosted art openings, parties and other events, and evolved into epOxyGreen.

Guyer Greene, who graduated from Boston College in 1990 with a degree in theater and art history, tried her hand at putting on green marketplaces at the space where craftsmen and other independent purveyors could sell wares. After a handful of those events, the seed was planted for the business.

The pair opened the 1,500-square-foot store in March 2007 after pooling personal funds with money raised from investors, for a total of $100,000. Since then, another $100,000 has been similarly invested in the business.

King, who graduated from George Washington University in 1995 with a degree in accounting, has handled the sourcing of products. She worked for KPMG for five years after college and then worked as a private business management consultant.

“In general you don’t find too many businesspeople in the progressive community,” said King, who added a goal was to “develop the experience and skills that would assist a progressive and sustainable economy.”

The company has opted for a stringent set of green requirements that has sometimes meant turning away goods from suppliers.

For example, the company doesn’t carry countertops made from quarried material, because the founders consider quarries invasive and energy intensive. That means stone products like flooring uses hand-picked or harvested stones. And all products must utilize at least 25 percent reused materials; the pair even considers how manufacturers dispose of their waste.

“Everything from hard materials to resins and liquids and scraps on the floor,” King said. “Companies have to be waste free and energy efficient.”

However, such practices mean that eco-friendly products can cost more. In general, green products carry a 10 percent to 30 percent premium over comparable general-marketplace products, according to Jason Pelletier, a co-founder of Low Impact Living LLC, which operates a consumer-oriented Web site that rates green service providers.

“At these prices are they really going to be making a big impact on building practices in Los Angeles? That is the flaw of a business model like this; there isn’t a huge benefit outside of a few people unless you bring it to a mainstream price point,” he said.

King maintains that epOxyGreen carries products like flooring or paint that are competitively priced with nongreen products, but acknowledged some products cost more.

“Any new industry starts off like this. Your existing economic bulldogs remain profitable based on reaching a target consumer base. Until the green consumer base reaches that point, it is going to be a tad more expensive,” King said.

Moving forward

Still, those higher prices can be off-putting.

Salzman, the spec home builder, said he plans on buying reclaimed wood from another merchant because he can get a better price.

But despite some higher prices, the business has built up a loyal customer base. Gretchen Fourtiq, a Los Angeles-based independent green consultant for architects, property owners and interior designers, said that epOxyGreen is useful because it aggregates many often hard to find products.

“When I first started doing this a few years ago, you could find stuff on the Internet but you couldn’t see anything in person,” said Fourtiq. “That was a real psychological problem for clients it was a real impediment for the design process.”

Once the company’s cabinet line launches, Guyer Greene said that epOxyGreen will start its own line of flooring. And the company hopes to move to a bigger space next year, perhaps 10,000 square feet so that it can host third-party vendors.

As the green industry continues to grow, it is likely that more materials stores like epOxyGreen will crop up. But at the moment, there is scant competition. One established store, Livingreen in Culver City, does carry green building materials but it is more consumer-oriented. Livingreen declined to comment.

Pelletier said that at the moment, only a city like Los Angeles or New York could support epOxyGreen because higher prices make it a niche play. He hopes that growth in the industry will eventually bring prices down.

“For a short period of time, maybe a couple of years, this will remain a high-end product,” he said. “But it is moving down all the time.”

EpOxyGreen LLC

Headquarters: Venice

Founded: 2006

Core Business: Sustainable materials design center and retail outlet for commercial and

residential projects

Employees: 3 (up from 2 last year)

Goal: To grow large enough that economy of scale makes green building products more available and affordable to the public

Driving Force: The desire of architects, developers, builders and the general public for a wide range of sustainable building materials