Designers Joe Gebbia and Matt Grigsby, both graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, wanted a better way to find and obtain sustainable materials. As told on the Web site of their new company Ecolect (ecolect.net), “Even if they knew about the maker of a certain kind of material, they sometimes found [a] manufacturer’s Web site was confusing, dated, or just plain wrong. These aggravating Internet scavenger hunts slowed their work and made it hard to keep deadlines.”

Living on opposite coasts — Grigsby in Providence, and Gebbia in San Francisco — began musing on possible solu¬tions to this problem. Their resulting start-up, launched with help from designers at their alma mater and a support team on the Left Coast, is described by treehugger.com as “a new online sustainable materials database and community created ‘to be the largest, freely accessible sustainable materials library in the world.’ ”

Here’s how the founders describe some of what sets apart Ecolect, a name formed from the words “ecology” and “intellect”: “an easy-to-use Web site featuring only materials with sustainable attributes; a place that stimulates discussion about defining sustainability and is a source of accurate information; A place for you to contribute user reviews and images of materials you use; Helpful case studies on successful sustainable design; An informative blog that discusses how design and ecology affect the world.”