BuildingGreen.com LIVE - Greenbuild '08

Videos from Greenbuild '08 at Greenbuild 365

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:40:00 GMT

From the Father of Green Chemistry to that guy from This Old House, a couple dozen videos of speakers and presentations from Greenbuild '08 have been posted at Greenbuild 365, "USGBC's interactive green building learning portal." Among them, there's a very special episode in particular. You may have heard that our own Alex Wilson received a Leadership Award from the USGBC during Greenbuild. (Okay, the story's getting old, but the quality keeps getting better.) Check out Mister Wilson now!

Touring the Greenbuild Expo with CNN

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:21:00 GMT

I'm not usually all that comfortable in front of a camera, but I had fun walking the Greenbuild 2008 Expo floor with a video crew from CNNMoney.com and Fortune magazine. We focused on four or five technologies in our tour, only two of which made it into the final two minute video (after a nice lead-in by Scot Horst of 7group). The CNN crew were looking for photogenic presentations, while I was looking for products I believe in to talk about. I'm pleased with how it came out in the end — though it would have been nice to cover a lot more stuff!

A Rare Glimpse Inside

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:04:00 GMT

This is the really slick two-minute video that was projected onto the giant auditorium screens just before our own Alex Wilson was given a USGBC Leadership Award during Greenbuild. Get a sense of our offices in the historic Estey Organ Factory... see some of the faces behind the work... and meet Roxy Wilson, the Retriever...

Other's efforts to bring clarity to product certifications

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:42:00 GMT

I promised participants at my GreenBuild session (Nutrition Labels for Products: Taking control of deciding what is green for you) a list of the efforts to bring clarity - through summaries, comparison tables, databases, whatnot - to the plethora of green building product certifications out there. I should have done this in the session, but here it is now: Building Products only:

Behind the Logos: Understanding Green Product Certifications, from EBN in January 2008
GreenStandard's EcoLibraryTM Matrix provides one quick-view
Green Building Alliance's Green Product Labeling Grid provides another
PharosWiki's Labels and Standards portal has a great in-depth analysis of IAQ and other standards – using the Pharos Lens as an analysis tool – but not a quick 'comprehensive' summary like the two above

[More]

Homebuilder's Day speaker: Homebuilding "Not so much a system as a bad habit"

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Greenbuild 2008 included the first ever Green Homebuilder's Day, a conference within the much larger overall conference. Homebuilder's Day welcomed old hands and newcomers to the field of green building, and the sessions were full. BuildingGreen organized the event, which coincided with the announcement of our soon-to-be-available, residentially oriented Green Building Advisor. That this day of educational sessions took place at all is a good sign for the future of houses in America and for softening their environmental impact. But in a general session on that topic, three speakers--Kevin O'Connor, host of "This Old House"; Tedd Benson of Bensonwood Woodworking Company; and Steve Kieran of architecture firm Kieran Timberlake--all expressed the view that American homebuilding is fundamentally flawed, and that the current mortgage meltdown is only one symptom among many. [More]

A Pedicab at Greenbuild

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:39:00 GMT

(A Project Frog zero-energy classroom is in the background.)

"Listed on GreenFormat" - What Does That Actually Mean?

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:20:00 GMT

There were quite a few of these placards in booths on the expo hall floor at Greenbuild. They were nice-looking signs, and seemed to give some green cred. But... no. As it says on GreenFormat's website, " GreenFormat is open to any manufacturer that wants to list a product." Now, I don't want to dis GreenFormat — BuildingGreen is actually working with CSI on this project, which is sort of an offshoot of their MasterFormat system — but being listed doesn't actually mean anything. Product manufacturers pay a fee to be listed; they input their own data; and GreenFormat takes no responsibility for the relative greenness of anything listed. Their FAQ answers the question "What about greenwashing?" like this:

GreenFormat does not seek to determine whether a product is green. Instead, using a comprehensive questionnaire, GreenFormat reports on the properties of a product, referencing specific industry standards wherever possible, and allowing space at the end of each category for individual manufacturer input.

This system is designed to allow users to compare product data and make their own judgments — and the potential for it to be exceptionally valuable is high if there's enough buy-in from manufacturers. We're excited about GreenFormat and are pleased to be assisting in its ongoing development. The day when it's de rigeur for any building products being introduced to the market to be added to this database is going to be a mighty fine day. The placards at Greenbuild were really publicity for GreenFormat, to help achieve its purpose... but were easily misconstrued as some kind of endorsement — which unfortunately means that those signs were helping to create the very mess that the program is intended to help clarify. That said, this well-intended misstep doesn't diminish GreenFormat's ultimate goal. Check it out if you haven't already.

Being 22.1% (give or take) of the Top Ten Feels Darned Good!

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:06:00 GMT

Preston Koerner, over at Jetson Green, posted his "Top 10 Tidbits from Greenbuild 2008." Check out numbers 2, 4, 6, and 7:

2. The LEED AP Program undergoes major overhaul and the GBCI talks about LEED Green Associates, Legacy LEED APs, LEED AP Fellows, and the other family of LEED APs (ID+C, BD+C, Homes, O+M, and ND).
This item links to a post our own Tristan Korthals Altes wrote here on BuildingGreen.com's blog.

4. BuildingGreen soft launches a new online information resource on residential green building and remodeling called GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.
That's us.

6. The USGBC gives 2008 Leadership Awards to Alexander Karsner, Alex Wilson, Scot Horst, Ted Strickland, CB Richard Ellis, San Diego Gas & Electric Sustainable Communities Program, and the founding members of AIA COTE.
Alex Wilson! BuildingGreen's founder.

7. BuildingGreen announces their seventh annual list of green building products with the 2008 Top-10 Green Building Products
That's us, too.

Seriously, it's great to be a contributing cog in an organization that was a major player in defining the green building movement at its inception and is still at the forefront after all this time. Here's to the next 23 years.

Long-Time Energy Design Update Editor Joins BuildingGreen

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:17:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. This announcement was actually made a couple weeks ago, but it flew pretty much under the radar. Martin Holladay of Energy Design Update (a publication with similarities to Environmental Building News) has joined the BuildingGreen team. This is a really. big. deal. He's working on the GreenBuildingAdvisor.com project (see the previous post) that was highly publicized during Greenbuild, and will be contributing to EBN. This guy is world-class, and his involvement adds considerable weight to the already formidable wall of green at BuildingGreen. Press release:

Martin Holladay, who has single-handedly written Energy Design Update for nearly seven years, has joined the editorial team at BuildingGreen, publisher of Environmental Building News. "We are thrilled to have Martin's building knowledge, research skills, and journalistic abilities at BuildingGreen," said company president Alex Wilson. "Martin will add considerably to our depth as an information company, particularly in residential construction and building science." Prior to taking on his role at Energy Design Update in 2002, Holladay was an editor at the Journal of Light Construction for two-and-a-half years.

[More]

New Residential Green Building Website

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. Press release:

BuildingGreen, LLC, announces a new online information resource on residential green building and remodeling. GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, which will be officially launched at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas January 20, 2009, is an online suite of expert advice, proven construction details, and real-world tools for residential architects, builders, remodelers, and highly engaged homeowners. "GBA builds on the decades of experience and depth of the two partner companies that came together to create this resource: BuildingGreen, publisher of Environmental Building News and The Taunton Press, publisher of Fine Homebuilding," says BuildingGreen director of residential services Peter Yost. "In the works since the two companies joined forces in early 2008, GreenBuildingAdvisor.com will be the most comprehensive, useful, and easy-to-use online resource serving the residential green building community," noted Yost. GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, which was previewed at the Greenbuild Conference in Boston, will include seven primary components:

[More]

A "Year of Greenwash" Update

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:50:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. I ran into Michelle Moore, senior vp of policy & public affairs for the USGBC, yesterday. I asked her if she had any new thoughts on the "year of greenwash" prediction that she made during her visit to our offices last May — if the market and movement will survive the growing onslaught of confusion, misinformation, and misdirection. She was characteristically optimistic, expressing her opinion that the waters will be choppy for a while, but that the state of the world is well enough understood by enough people that truth and goodness will prevail. Yay for voices of hope.

Jute Ceiling Tiles, Soon

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:48:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. I mentioned Armstrong Ceiling Systems' booth earlier, and the fact that they don't use any wood that's not FSC, and that they don't have any added formaldehyde in any of their products. I didn't mention that all their ceiling tiles are Class A fire rated, because it started to feel I was cheerleading. There's one other thing that I didn't mention. In February, they're slated to roll out a ceiling tile made with 46% jute. The stuff goes from seed to harvest in 90 days; talk about rapidly renewable. Like all their tiles, no added formaldehyde. There was a sample there... it looked and acted just like fiberglass. These tiles will have the standard scrim facing that most of their lines use. No word on what the line will be called.

Alex Wilson Receives USGBC Leadership Award

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:40:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. This has been long in coming, and judging by the response of the audience this afternoon, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Yes, I work for the guy, but I'm no sycophant. He's one of the most focused, dedicated, knowledgeable people I've ever known. A press release sent out from the USGBC today said this:

Executive Editor of Environmental Building News, Alex Wilson, received the award in the Education category. For more than 25 years, Wilson has been bringing unbiased, reliable information, tools and resources to the building industry. He is the author of numerous books and textbooks on sustainable building, and has written hundreds of articles for publications outside of EBN, including Popular Science and Architectural Record. He served as the executive director of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association and on the board of directors for the USGBC, and is currently a trustee of The Nature Conservancy — Vermont Chapter.

Take a couple minutes to listen to this... it's audio of the announcement and a very short film (kinda like the Oscars). The recording is poor but understandable, and lasts less than three minutes. Check out the enthusiastic crowd response.

(here's a link, in case the player doesn't display)

Unlike the tale of woe I told last year, this time I got to see the award given. It was great to be on hand to witness the well-deserved moment. (The following are photos of the movie... which, argh, were the best shots I got.)

Link to BuildingGreen press release

Major changes announced for LEED AP credential program

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:01:00 GMT

Posted from Greenbuild '08. Update posted 11/24/08, below: Do existing LEED APs need to retake the exam? If you thought the proliferation of various different types of LEED rating systems was confusing, wait till you find out what the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) has in store for LEED Accredited Professionals (LEED APs), the folks who can pass an exam to be recognized as an expert in LEED. (GBCI, by the way, took over the LEED AP program about a year ago from USGBC.) First, I'll explain what GBCI has planned for the 65,000 people (like me) who are already LEED APs. These people will be known informally as Legacy LEED APs: [More]

2008 Top-10 Green Building Products

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:45:00 GMT

Posted live from Greenbuild. Here's another little scoop for you. The press conference announcing this doesn't start for another 15 minutes... but since I'm the co-editor of GreenSpec, I'm going to take this liberty.

BOSTON, MA, November 20, 2008 — BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of the GreenSpec® Directory and Environmental Building News™, today announced the 2008 Top-10 Green Building Products. This seventh annual award, announced at the U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild Conference in Boston, recognizes the most exciting products drawn from additions to the GreenSpec Directory and coverage in Environmental Building News. "Our selections of the Top-10 Green Building Products represent a wide range of product types in many different application areas," noted BuildingGreen president Alex Wilson. There are a particularly large number of interior products in this year's group of winners: the first FSC-certified and formaldehyde-free bamboo flooring; doors made with wheat-straw particleboard; a line of zero-VOC paint; a transparent finish produced from a byproduct of cheese making; and a line of organic fabrics. Three of the products this year save energy, including a low-cost, solar water-heating system; a combination heating, water heating, and heat-recovery ventilation system; and a system for monitoring real-time energy (and water) use in buildings. Water saving products are represented by a line of rainwater storage tanks — the first rainwater storage equipment ever recognized in our Top-10 lists. Fully half of the products this year are green in part because they are made from natural, rapidly renewable, or agricultural waste materials; natural materials often require significantly less energy to manufacture. A new compressed-earth masonry block is particularly noteworthy in this regard. "Most of the Top-10 products this year have multiple environmental attributes,"said Wilson. BuildingGreen's Top-10 product selections, as in previous years, are drawn from new additions to the company's GreenSpec product directory. More than 200 product listings have been added to the GreenSpec database during the past year. "New products seem to be appearing all the time, making it a challenge for our staff to keep up,"said Wilson. The GreenSpec database the company maintains now includes more than 2,000 product listings. A big driver in the development of green products continues to be the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® Rating System (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which awards points for the use of certain product types, such as certified wood, or for the energy or water savings that green products can achieve. "Designers of LEED buildings are looking for green products, and manufacturers are responding," said Wilson. In the online version of GreenSpec, users can find products organized by LEED credits. The 2008 Top-10 Green Building Products are listed below. More complete descriptions and contact information is provided on the linked pages:

[More]