BuildingGreen's Michael Wentz has been coordinating for some time with DOE on case studies of the green rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, which had 90% of its buildings destroyed by a tornado in 2007. He described the work in a blog post here last year. Then, in a congressional address last February, President Obama cited Greensburg as "a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community," to which Michael added, "they are also a leader in green building including initiatives to work green building strategies into their building codes."

A compelling hour-long documentary about what happened in Greensburg and the community's subsequent decision-making process in the wake of the two-mile-wide, F5 tornado is available to watch over the web.

Previous coverage in Environmental Building News:
Kansas Town Rebuilding as the Greenest in America
First U.S. City Resolves to Build LEED Platinum

GreenBuildingAdvisor.com offers up another free webcast on June 29 at 4 p.m. Eastern. Rob Moody, consultant at Organic Think, LEED Faculty member, and partner in the National Center for Sustainability will be talking about current and future funding opportunities for green building projects courtesy the economic stimulus package. Rise above the recession!

Register here.

Find out about more webcasts from GreenBuildingAdvisor (like Trade Contractor Management for High Performance Homes, and Smart Strategies to Market Your High Performance Homes, and Inspiring Sustainable Residential Interiors...)

Recently, I broke one of my long-standing rules and blogged about something BuildingGreen-related at my own blog. My Costanzian fears were indeed warranted, and I've been egged on to cross-post it to the Live blog. Here she is, warts and all: my unvarnished opinion on the very best parts of the BuildingGreen product GreenBuildingAdvisor.com./BF

I don't often blog about worky stuff here, but decided this week that my "Worlds Will Collide!" fears are probably completely unwarranted. Besides, I'm working on some cool stuff these days. And finally, when my wife asks me, "What have you been doing?," when I come to bed at an obscene hour, I have an acceptable answer: "Changing the world, baby. Changing the world."

BuildingGreen launched a new property several months ago, GreenBuildingAdvisor.com (GBA). Now, this was in process as I came into the company in September 2008 and involved a whole lot of organization and reorganization to get the team in place for even content production, but I can't get into much of that here. What I *CAN* get into are what I think are the absolute coolest content areas on this Drupal-based site.

Green Basics

It's really important to come at a new field with a common vocabulary. Think of this as a vocab-building primer of terms and concepts bandied about in Green but seldom explained or contextualized. Click anywhere on that page and you get access to detail diagrams and explanations of key concepts and terms. I subscribe to a couple of building magazines and use their sites a lot. NOTHING is as good as this, period.

Green Homes

Now, case studies are not something new for BuildingGreen given the popularity of the High Performance Buildings Database, but there's one aspect in the corresponding Green Homes feature area that stands out: these pictures are gorgeous and inspiring. Sure, I can look up a product if I hear about and learn enough to put it in myself... but watching it get installed? Or seeing it in a context that gives me another product idea?? Reading about the compromises that lead to selection of that product in tandem with another? That's pretty awesome.

Product Guide

The Product Guide is some content syndication from GreenSpec, another key BuildingGreen property that provides a ready-to-use index of green products, manufacturers, and product categories. They sum it up on the GBA page with this: "Product manufacturers can not buy their way on to this list." These are a true best-of and where I first turned for ideas when we did our kitchen remodel this year.

Summary

Now, I know I've probably alienated some portion of the site that's behind the payed membership wall (oh yeah, some of this content is part of a paid GBA Pro membership that gets you even more like CAD Details & whatnot), but these are the stand-outs from my perspective and key to what makes this site a truly amazing asset. At the time of this writing, you can get a 10-day trial to the premium GBA Pro content - the energy savings I've realized alone have outvalued the cost of this annual or monthly membership - or be a lurker for a while before you take the plunge. Personally, I'm probably not renewing some of those magazines whose sites I use in favor of this totally righteous tool.

Paul Hawken gave the commencement address for the University of Portland earlier this month, and it's making the rounds. Deservedly. Its message is as good for the building industry — for anybody living, for that matter — as it was for those graduating seniors. Here it is. Please read it.

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food — but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

Read more...

Christian Kornevall, the director of the Energy Efficiency in Buildings project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), sent the following in response to my May 9th post titled "4 Years + 15 Million Dollars = Old News, No Actual Solutions."

It thoughtfully addresses my comments — some of which were critical. It also provides clarity about the spirit of their intent and steps going forward. Steps we all need to take together.

The WBCSD and EEB project team members are very interested in receiving constructive feedback on their work, so we appreciate individuals such as Mr. Piepkorn taking a close look at the results, analysis, and recommendations we presented in our recent report, Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Transforming the Market. Fundamentally, Mr. Piepkorn is looking for more specifics on how the tools and approaches outlined in our recommendations can be applied to achieve large-scale change in the building sector. Undoubtedly, many others in the green building field share this desire for some well-defined answers. Unfortunately, finding a true mechanism to foster the necessary market response remains elusive.

Our report talks in considerable detail about the barriers to energy efficiency in buildings and what should be done to remove them. Ultimately, however, there is a complex process that needs to be exercised to assemble the political and financial will behind the market forces to drive change. The EEB project, in a credible way and backed by an organization of 200 major international corporations, makes a powerful point that without increased attention to this process to drive change, the "interesting models" to scale the market response Mr. Piepkorn implicitly seeks will not come to fruition. Education is, indeed, the first step. Since we launched this report on April 27, more than 140 separate stories communicating this important point have appeared in newspapers, on websites and blogs such as this, in trade journals, and on TV and radio broadcasts. We estimate that our message has been seen by hundreds of millions of people in more than 20 countries. Although raising awareness is important, as Mr Piepkorn rightly acknowledges, we will continue to do everything we can to get past this stage quickly so we can move on to the real objective: action.

Read more...

Who could be more qualified than one of the principal authors of LEED for Homes to provide insight on the best ways to make the program work?

LEED for Homes, like other rating systems, is an assessment tool. This means that while it provides some "how-to" information (at the level of individual strategies or "credits"), it doesn't offer any guidance for how to approach the design and construction of a high-performing home differently than a conventional project. Ann Edminster will offer some of that missing guidance in this webinar.

It gets better. Not only do you not have to jet off to some city to sit in some auditorium during some high-priced conference to take this in... it's free. Just sign up and it's yours for the taking on June 2, at 2:00 pm Eastern (1:00 pm Central, noon Mountain, 11:00 am Pacific), right on your computer. A gift from GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.

The presenter, Ann Edminster, is a longtime green building mover and shaker. In addition to being one of the main people who developed LEED for Homes (she was its co-chair through most of its making), she's also a past member of the LEED Steering Committee, and a member and past co-chair of the USGBC's Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group. She co-authored Efficient Wood Use In Residential Construction: A Practical Guide to Saving Wood, Money, and Forests, has written bunches of technical papers and articles, and has been an invited speaker at dozens of regional, national, and international green building conferences over the past 15 years. She's the founding principal of the environmental design consulting firm Design AVEnues.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development website says that its new study, Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Transforming the Market, is "the most rigorous study ever conducted on the subject."

New modeling by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) shows how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60 percent by 2050 — essential to meeting global climate change targets — but this will require immediate action to transform the building sector. This is the central message of the report from the WBCSD's four-year, $15 million Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) research project, the most rigorous study ever conducted on the subject.

It ain't exactly the 2030 Challenge, but the words "shows how" popped off the screen. Finally, a clear path forward. I dove in. Deeper. Deeper. And then I climbed out.

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The Obamas put in the first food garden (organic, natch) on the White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden during World War II. We dig that.

Skeptics may scoff that's it just symbolic, but I don't think so. According the The New York Times, the garden will have "55 varieties of vegetables, from a wish list of the kitchen staff. Cristeta Comerford, the White House's executive chef, said she was eager to plan menus around the garden, and Bill Yosses, the pastry chef, said he was looking forward to berry season."

And 1100 square feet can produce a lot of produce — the Old Farmer's Almanac says that "A good-sized beginner vegetable garden is 10 x 16 feet [160 square feet]. A plot this size can feed a family of four for one summer, with a little extra."

It's not likely, however, that the first family or their handlers are going to (publicly, anyway) spice up the reasons behind this good move with the hard arguments of filmmaker Robert Kenner in his high-impact new movie, Food, Inc.:

On Wednesday, April 29, Alex Wilson presents The Future of Housing — "leading-edge strategies for achieving net-zero-energy homes, transportation energy use associated with where we live, the looming challenge of water, passive survivability as a residential design criterion, and thoughts on incorporating food production into the built environment. Today's economic crisis makes this discussion all the more important and points to the need to focus on our existing housing stock, which will also be discussed."

Then on Monday, May 11, Alex is back with What's New in Green Products, in which he will "discuss how BuildingGreen assesses products for its GreenSpec directory of green building products and review some of the more exciting new products that have come across his desk recently. Though he has been reviewing and reporting on green building products for more than 20 years, Alex is still excited when he comes across innovative new products. This is a chance to share in that excitement."

Tuesday, June 2, a great treat: Ann Edminster — nationally recognized expert on green home design and construction; a principal author of the LEED for Homes Rating System; consultant to builders, owners, developers, supply chain clients, design firms, investors, and public agencies — addresses LEED for Homes: Tips for Successful Projects. "LEED for Homes, like other rating systems, is an assessment tool. This means that while it provides some 'how-to' information (at the level of individual strategies or 'credits'), it doesn't offer any guidance for how to approach the design and construction of a high-performing home differently than a conventional project. Ann Edminster will offer some of that missing guidance in this webinar, highlighting the role of energy modeling, the value of teamwork both among design professionals and across the traditional design-construction divide, and some useful tools for streamlining the certification process."

Also coming on Thursday, June 18: Navigating ANSI 700 with Michael Chandler, president of Chandler Design-Build of North Carolina and a certified Green Professional '08, NAHB University of Housing.

All this week, webcasting service BrightTALK is honoring Earth Day by providing five days of free green building presentations. Many of the presenters are world-class. If you can't fit it into your schedule, the recorded sessions will be available on-demand later.

Monday addresses Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability — the highlight is likely to be the Executive Director at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Center for Responsible Business, Jo Mackness, speaking on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Next Generation of Business Leaders.

Tuesday is Water Management day, and there a couple programs that are particularly intriguing. Jonathan C. Kaledin of The Nature Conservancy introduces the Alliance for Water Stewardship, which is building an international certification organization akin to the Forest Stewardshp Council (FSC); and Linda Hwang, Manager of Environmental Research & Innovation at BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), will speak on Global Water Trends and the Corporate Response.

Wednesday's topic is Green Building. There are ten presentations that day and half of them look like real winners — check them out — but if you only do one, don't miss BuildingGreen's own Residential Program Manager, Peter Yost, with a session titled Sustainability Requires Durability.

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