Two players in the wood treatment industry are joining forces. Starting in January 2007, Rohm and Haas Company will operate a joint venture with Chemical Specialties, Inc. (CSI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Rockwood Holdings, Inc. The new venture will join Rohm and Haas’s wood biocides division with the wood protection chemicals division of CSI. Like others in the chemical treatment industry, including Arch Chemicals (see

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Vol. 15, No. 8), CSI plans to develop organic chemical wood treatments and has pledged to introduce new preservatives in 2007. Rohm and Haas will pay $75 million for its share of the venture, which will be equally owned by both partners and located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rohm and Haas is online at www.rohmhaas.com; CSI is online at www.treatedwood.com.

In an October ruling, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) approved hard-surface flooring certified by the FloorScore^TM program (see

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Vol. 14, No. 10) as an alternate path to achieve a credit for low-emitting carpets in the LEED^® Rating System. As originally written, credit EQ 4.3, “Low-Emitting Materials: Carpet Systems,” required that all carpet and carpet cushion installed in a building meet the standards of the Carpet and Rug Institute’s Green Label Plus™ program (see

EBN Vol. 13, No. 7). The new ruling allows buildings to earn the credit if hard-surface flooring comprises at least 25% of the finished flooring in a building and if all of that flooring is FloorScore-certified. Developed by the Resilient Floor Covering Institute with third-party testing performed by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., FloorScore certifies vinyl and linoleum flooring, among others, that have met standards for low emissions of indoor pollutants.

The Communities and Local Government ministerial team in the United Kingdom has announced that it will release its new green building code, the Code for Sustainable Homes, by the end of 2006. Although the code is voluntary for private sector projects, all projects funded by the government will have to meet the code’s requirements. The code will assign points to new homes based on their energy and water efficiency, surface water and site waste management, reduction of material use, and household waste management. To meet the minimum requirements of the code and earn the 30 baseline points, homes will have to exceed the performance requirements of current building regulations; homes can earn up to 70 additional points through further energy, water, and material savings measures. More information on the code can be found online at www.communities.gov.uk.

Green Communities^TM, a partnership between Enterprise Community Partners and the Natural Resources Defense Council (see

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Vol. 14, No. 3), is now offering grants of up to $5,000 for affordable housing developers who wish to incorporate green planning charrettes into their design processes. The grants, designed to pay for charrettes led by Green Communities facilitators, join larger construction grants already available from the group. More information about the charrette grants can be found online at www.greencommunitiesonline.org/Charrettes.asp.

The Green Building Alliance (GBA), based in Pittsburgh, has announced its Green Building Products Initiative, a program to encourage manufacturers in western Pennsylvania to develop and promote green products. Part of the Pennsylvania Green Growth Partnership, GBA hopes to create a hub of green product manufacturing in the region. The initiative is funded by $1.25 million in grants from two sources: the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, a state agency; and The Heinz Endowments, a private foundation. More information on GBA and its programs can be found online at www.gbapgh.org.

Among the many announcements at the 2006 Greenbuild conference was the formation of the Green Cleaning Network, a nonprofit group dedicated to spreading information about green cleaning in hospitals, schools, offices, and other buildings (for more on green cleaning, see

EBN Vol. 14, No. 9). The founding members of the network include the Healthy Schools Campaign, Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, International Executive Housekeepers Association, Responsible Purchasing Network, and the U.S. Green Building Council. Stephen Ashkin, of the Ashkin Group in Bloomington, Indiana, will serve as executive director. More information is available online at www.greencleaningnetwork.org.

Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, a major provider of property and casualty insurance, announced new green building coverage plans in October 2006. The plans are available for owners of certified green buildings, or property owners who want to not just rebuild to preexisting standards following a fire but also add green features. For buildings certified by the LEED^® Rating System or by Green Globes™, the company will fund replacements for green features such as nontoxic and low-odor paints and carpets, Energy Star^®-rated appliances, green interior lighting systems, efficient plumbing fixtures, and commissioning. LEED-certified buildings can also qualify for discounted coverage due to lower risk factors. “At Fireman’s Fund we support and financially cover property owners who are green or would like to go green,” said Steve Bushnell, product director at Fireman’s Fund.

California bill AB 2496, which would have mandated toilets using no more than 1.3 gallons (4.9 l) of water per flush (see

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Vol. 15, No. 6), was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in September 2006. The bill, which had passed through the State Assembly in May 2006, was held up in the Senate by concerns over the addition of waterless urinals until a compromise was reached, adding health and safety mandates to the bill. According to John Koeller, P.E., technical advisor to the California Urban Water Conservation Council, the veto did not come as a total surprise, as the governor is trying to push the regulation into the hands of the State Building Standards Commission. Koeller told

EBN that the bill will likely return in the next legislative session with “important fixture performance items that were not in the current bill.”

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has published a list of companies across the U.S. and Canada that recycle construction and demolition (C&D) waste. C&D waste amounts to roughly 136 million tons (123 million tonnes) each year in the U.S., or 25% to 45% of the total waste stream, depending on the region, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The C&D waste database is available for free as part of the online

Whole Building Design Guide and is searchable by region and material, as well as by whether the company picks up waste or simply accepts it. “We created this tool to help building designers, project managers, and contractors easily find recyclers who offer services that keep construction waste out of our landfills,” said Don Horn, director of sustainable design for GSA’s Public Building Service. To access the database, visit www.wbdg.org/tools/cwm.php?a=1.

What do you do if you find yourself the custodian of a number of permanent sports stadiums that cost hundreds of millions of euros to build and are now—many of them unused—generating hefty maintenance bills? If you’re Greece, the host of the 2004 Olympic Games, you tear them down. According to

Der Spiegel, that’s what the government is considering doing with buildings like the Helliniko Olympic Complex south of Athens, which includes venues for hockey, baseball, softball, and canoe and kayak slalom. Although, like all recent Olympics, and the upcoming Beijing Olympics, Greece’s Games were highly touted as “green,” several soccer venues are too expensive either for local clubs to use or for the government to maintain, and a rowing course that was built in a wetland is no longer usable due to environmental restrictions.