After two years of public comment and review, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released a revised version of its “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims.” Also known as the “Green Guides,” the publication outlines what the FTC may find to be deceptive marketing; the revised version includes updates and new sections on carbon offsets, certifications, and renewable energy and materials.

Most of the revisions proposed in 2010 (see “FTC Cracks Down on Greenwashing”) were accepted, including the warning that broad claims of being environmentally friendly “suggest that the product has specific and far-reaching environmental benefits [that are] nearly impossible to substantiate.” Among its revised sections, the guide says marketers should disclose any “material connections” to groups providing certification or seals of approval, and carbon offsets should not be advertised as such if the activity providing them is already required by law.

For more information, see www.ftc.gov.

 

 

By Erin WeaverThe U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced the nine recipients of its 2012 Leadership Awards, to be presented during the 2012 Greenbuild conference in San Francisco. The awards recognize “individuals who embody the vision, leadership and commitment to the evolution of green buildings and communities,” and this year’s announcement includes several shared awards.

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Tom Darden, executive director of the Make It Right Foundation, received the NGO Sector award for the nonprofit’s work providing LEED Platinum homes to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

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Tom Lent and Bill Walsh, policy director and founder, respectively, of the Healthy Building Network, received the Advocacy award for their work in encouraging healthier replacements for materials, including PVC and wood treated with chromated copper arsenate.

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Steve Saunders, CEO of Texas Energy Solutions, received the Residential Sector award for advancing LEED for Homes.

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Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President of Syracuse University;

Joanie Mahoney, Onondaga County Executive; and

Stephanie A. Miner, Mayor of Syracuse, received the Global Community Leadership Award for collaborative efforts across central New York, including Syracuse University’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.

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M. Arthur Gensler Jr., founder of Gensler, and

Donald Simon, attorney with Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean, LLP, received the President’s Award; Gensler has been a green pioneer in the design industry, and Simon has led environmental law initiatives in California.

By Erin WeaverA new green building certification program for smaller commercial buildings has been launched in Portland, Oregon, with plans for nationwide availability. Portland-based Earth Advantage Institute (EAI) has announced the Earth Advantage Commercial (EAC) green building certification program for commercial buildings under 100,000 square feet. The system was developed to simplify certification and make it more accessible, according to EAI, because with smaller building projects “green certification is often overlooked due to its perceived complexities and cost.”

Originally a program of Portland General Electric in the 1990s, EAC has been revised and updated with three certification levels (Platinum, Gold, and Silver) based on cumulative, prescriptive measures. A pilot program began testing EAC’s requirements in ten new buildings in 2010, and EAI has since trained representatives from eight Pacific Northwest firms in applying the certification program.

By Erin WeaverGlobal demand for biofuels is increasing, but a new study suggests that most are no more environmentally friendly than gasoline. Swiss research institute Empa concludes in its new assessment that most fuels based on agricultural products “deflect” their environmental impacts: they may reduce greenhouse gas emissions but lead to other problems.

The study compares 25 fossil, methane, ethanol, and biodiesel fuels on 16 environmental impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), acidification, ozone depletion, human carcinogenicity, and land use. All score better than gasoline on ozone depletion, and all but Brazilian soy score better than gasoline for GWP.

The worst offender is intensively grown Jatropha from India, with impacts significantly greater than gasoline in 11 categories including freshwater ecotoxicity and human cancer effects. Expanding production of palm oil, a major cause of deforestation, is expected to release more than 558 million metric tons of carbon in 2020—more than the entire nation of Canada.

The best overall scores were for methane gas derived from wood chips, manure, and sewage sludge. Ethanol can also score well, depending on its production methods: the authors warn against clearing forests for “energy plants” or, indirectly, for food production displaced by a transition to such plants elsewhere.

By Erin WeaverA new publication aims to help local governments gauge and report their communities’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability USA (ICLEI) calls its “U.S. Community Protocol for Accounting and Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions” the first national standard for cities and counties to determine which activities are most responsible for GHG emissions, including use of electricity and fuel, water treatment, and generation of solid waste. Governments can then determine emission reduction targets and strategies as well as compare data with other communities’ and track reduction progress.

ICLEI is currently developing related Web-based software for release next year. For more information, see www.icleiusa.org.

Framing energy as first and foremost “a design problem” for architects to solve rather than exclusively the mechanical engineer’s domain, the guide discusses best practices, types of energy modeling and related tools, and how to encourage teamwork and integrated design. (BuildingGreen, publisher of EBN, sponsored the development of this report.)

A number of cities have passed laws mandating energy disclosure for nonresidential buildings (see “Energy Reporting: It’s the Law,”

EBN Aug. 2012), and effective design, well integrated with energy modeling, can help ensure those numbers are optimal. For example, modeling daylight penetration based on local weather conditions and glazing area can help fine-tune heating and cooling systems for maximum efficiency.

 

Currently, plug loads account for approximately 25% of electricity use in office buildings and lighting for 39%. GSA found that advanced power strips with schedule-based power controls reduced workstation plug loads by an average of 26% in the eight buildings in which they were tested. The lighting study evaluated workstation-specific systems with dimmable ballasts and occupancy sensors, which across five buildings reduced lighting energy use by 27%–63%.

GSA has announced a number of upcoming tests in the Green Proving Ground program, including glazing retrofit coatings and solar thermal collectors. For more information, see www.gsa.gov/gpg.

 

By Paula MeltonThe Building Performance Institute (BPI) has released a new standard for performing residential energy audits. Designed to apply to single-family homes and townhouses, BPI–1100,

Home Energy Auditing Standard, lays out the requirements for an audit—which include not only measurements of energy performance but also an assessment of health and safety issues (such as carbon monoxide and mold), indoor air quality, and moisture management; disclosure of conflicts of interest (such as retrofit services the company offers in addition to energy auditing); and a prioritized list and cost-benefit analysis of any suggested energy conservation measures.

The standard will soon be followed by BPI–1200, Basic Analysis of Buildings. Currently under development, the companion standard covers the technical details of how to perform an energy audit, according to BPI’s national technical director, John Jones. “BPI–1100 is the what to do,” he explained, whereas BPI–1200 covers “how to do it. One points to the other.” Jones emphasized that the two standards look holistically at a home. “A contractor typically deals with one, two, or three systems in a house when there may be 20 systems in the house,” he said. A home energy audit, when performed properly, he argues, not only looks at how all the systems interact but also “educates the customer, helping them make an informed decision” about retrofit options.

For more information, visit www.bpi.org.

A new study shows that retrofits to old windows can provide nearly the same savings with far lower initial costs.

“Saving Windows, Saving Money: Evaluating the Energy Performance of Window Retrofit and Replacement,” from Preservation Green Lab and other groups, compared retrofit options to replacement windows and typical existing single-pane windows in five cities in hot, cold, and moderate climates across the U.S. Retrofit options included weatherstripping, interior films, interior panels, insulated cellular shades, exterior storm windows, and combinations of those options. In all five cities, the combination of storm windows with insulated shades yielded approximately 90 percent of the energy savings of replacement windows at about half the cost. (For more on choosing the right window attachment, see “Making Windows Work Better,” EBN June 2011.)

 

 

By Erin WeaverAutodesk has released Autodesk Simulation 360, the first simulation software on a “cloud”-based, pay-as-you-go model. The platform offers design and engineering tools for complex simulations, such as designing a building for resilience in the face of cyclic stresses, wind, or earthquakes, or predicting the occupant experience of solar heating. Multiple what-if scenarios may be run in parallel, an operation requiring large amounts of processing power; Autodesk Simulation 360’s reliance on off-site servers available through cloud computing should reduce the time needed, as well as upfront investments in hardware, and make complex simulations more widely available.