Newsbriefs

In October,

Gaiam, Inc., based in Broomfield, Colorado, announced a merger with

Real Goods Trading Company of Santa Rosa, California. Both companies have been marketing healthy living products to environmentally aware, health-conscious consumers—the so-called “Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability” (LOHAS) market. Real Goods’ 2000 revenues are expected to be approximately $16 million, but the company had stretched itself too thin due to some aggressive expansion plans, according to an unnamed source

EBN spoke with. Gaiam will maintain the Real Goods brand name and its 12-acre (5 ha) Solar Living Center in Hopland, California, but Gaiam will consolidate most of the Real Goods operations into its own existing infrastructure. For more information, contact Gaiam at 303/222-3230 or visit www.gaiam.

com or www.realgoods.com.

’s Alex Wilson is among the

U.S. Green Building Council’s new board members, elected in December 2000. Other incoming board members include Jim Hartzfeld of Interface Americas, Jerry Yudelson of Portland General Electric, Ted Caulkins of Cushman Wakefield, David Eisenberg of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, Lucia Athens of the City of Seattle, Jim Goldman of Turner Construction Company, and Lynda Grasser of Firemans Fund. Prior members not returning to the board include Sandy Mendler, Diane Morrison, and Steven Piguet. The list of board members will be updated at www.usgbc.org following the January 17–19, 2001 USGBC board meeting.

² (3,000 m

²)

Philip Merrill Environmental Center that serves as Headquarters for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland, is the first building to achieve the highest Platinum rating under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System. As noted in

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 4, this building was one of a dozen “LEED Pioneer” buildings rated under the no-longer-current pilot version of LEED (also called Version 1.0). Under that system, 36 points were required for the platinum rating. The building received 38 points, with an additional point still pending. The point breakdown by category is:

The Center was designed by SmithGroup Architects, with Donna McIntire (now the LEED Project Manager at USGBC) and later Greg Malla as project architects. Jan Harrison was the consultant for green aspects, and Clark Construction was the contractor.

(see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 10) announced in September that it had received two orders for a total of 350 microturbines. One order will provide 250 microturbines to Hazra Energy LLC, a new energy services company that will focus on power systems and distributed generation. The other order, from the Hanover Company, is for 100 microturbines that will be used at oil and gas wellheads to generate electricity from waste gases. For information, see

www.microturbine.com.

, reviewed in the September issue of

EBN (Vol. 9, No. 9) is now available in Austin, Texas. For information, contact Manny Martinez at Termi-Mesh, LLC, a joint venture company formed per the marriage between Termi-Mesh Australia and ABC Pest & Lawn Services of Austin (512/997-0066).

The Worldwatch Institute Board of Directors has named

Christopher Flavin as the second president of the Institute. Flavin replaces Lester Brown, who wants to cut back on his level of activity but will remain Chairman of the environmental research and policy institute he founded in 1974. Flavin has been with Worldwatch since 1978 and is their leading expert on renewable energy. He has contributed to all 17 of the annual

State of the World reports from Worldwatch and has written many other reports. For information, visit www.worldwatch.org.

, who directed the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in Washington for 14 years, has left to start his own strategic marketing and political consulting firm. The Stella Group, Ltd. will initially focus much of its attention on three clients: Energy Conversion Devices/Uni-Solar; Duke Solar; and STM Power Corporation. Sklar will also maintain some involvement with SEIA and various other nonprofit, multilateral, philanthropic, and industry organizations in the Washington area. The Stella Group is based in Arlington, Virginia and can be reached at 703/522-3049; solarsklar@aol.com.

Newsbriefs

An unusual collaboration among British Columbian forest products companies and environmental groups will examine

conservation-based ecosystem management of temperate rainforests. Four of the largest timber companies in BC (Canadian Forest Products, Fletcher Challenge Canada, Western Forest Products, and Weyerhaeuser) will work with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club of British Columbia, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and the Coastal Rainforest Coalition. Under the collaboration, announced in late July, the groups will develop an ecosystem management framework that will encompass the range of ecological, cultural, and economic values found in the area. In a July 28 article in

Pulp and Paper Online, Greenpeace forest campaigner Catherine Stewart called the initiative “potentially a significant and precedent-setting step towards ending many years of conflict over forest management on the coast of British Columbia.”

Collins Pine Company, based in Chester, California, has just harvested the two billionth board foot (4.7 million m³) of timber from its 94,000-acre (38,000 ha) Collins Almanor Forest. Harvesting activities in their northern Sierra forest began in 1941 when the company had approximately 1.5 billion board feet (3.5 million m³) of standing inventory. Today, after almost 60 years of sustainable harvesting, the forest still holds 1.5 billion board feet of diverse sizes and ages of standing timber and provides habitat for spotted owls, bald eagles, and salmon. In 1993, the Collins Almanor Forest became the first privately owned forest in the U.S. to receive Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification (see

EBN

Vol. 2, No. 4, page 4). For more information, visit

www.collinswood.com.

A big water controversy is bubbling up in the community of Sandy Valley, Nevada, where the La Jolla, California-based Vidler Water Company hopes to

extract 600 million gallons (2.3 million m³) of water per year. The water would be pumped 600 miles (965 km) and across a mountain range to a cluster of condominiums near the California-Nevada state line. Vidler hopes to pump enough groundwater from Clark and Lincoln Counties to supply 160,000 people—earning millions of dollars in the process. There is considerable local opposition to the plan, but also local support, owing to the tens of millions of dollars the water sales would bring to the region.