BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

December 1, 2005
The U.S. branch of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Forest Products Solutions, a consulting firm based in Portland, Oregon, have given the first annual

Designing & Building with FSC Award to Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking, securities, and investment management firm, for its LEED® Certified building at 30 Hudson... Read more

Feature

December 1, 2005

In the late 1990s I was part of a team hired to consult on a model green elementary school for McKinney, Texas. The kickoff workshop for this project included the architects (a firm specializing in school design), our team of consultants, and teachers and other staff from the school district. As the workshop began, participants couched all... Read more

News Brief

We at BuildingGreen have announced the Top-10 Green Building Products of 2005, representing our pick of the most exciting additions to the GreenSpec Directory over the past year.

December 1, 2005

BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of the GreenSpec®Directory and Environmental Building News™, announced the fourth annual Top-10 Green Building Products during the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild Conference and Expo in November. The Top-10 represent the most exciting products added to GreenSpec in the past year. A press release about... Read more

News Brief

December 1, 2005

Sustainable Hotel Siting, Design, and Construction

, published by Conservation International and the International Business Leaders Forum, is intended to help the travel and leisure industry build more environmentally friendly hotels. The book was produced with the support of nine of the world’s leading hotel chains, including Hilton,... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

P. Ole Fanger, D.Sc., director of the International Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy at the Technical University of Denmark and fellow of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (ASHRAE), has won the Pettenkofer Gold Medal, the International Academy of Indoor Air Sciences’ highest honor for... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

California’s updated Title 24 building efficiency standards, approved by the California Energy Commission in late 2003 (see

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 1), took effect on October 1, 2005. The strengthened standards include a range of changes for both residential and nonresidential buildings. Mandatory changes involve indoor and outdoor... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

The U.S. Green Building Council has named Tom Hicks vice president of the LEED® Rating System. Hicks has served as director of LEED for Existing Buildings since November 2004 and before that spent nine years as principal architect and program manager of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star® commercial building rating system.... Read more

News Analysis

November 1, 2005

Waterless Co., LLC, manufacturer of No-Flush™ urinals (see

EBN

Vol. 7, No. 2), is offering $500,000 in discounts on its urinals to building owners, schools, colleges, cities, counties, state agencies, the military, and other facilities in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. For more information, visit www.waterless.... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

The Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) is preparing to release its Sustainable/EPP Flooring Standard© for all hard-surface flooring, following a public meeting in Dallas, Texas, on November 1. MTS is also holding organizational meetings for two new standards it is seeking to develop: the Integrated Design Process... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 have announced a call for entries in the second annual New York City Green Building Competition. The competition is open to projects built in or designed for specific sites within the boroughs of New York City. Awards will be... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

In balloting that closed on October 28, 2005, the membership of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) voted overwhelmingly to approve version 2.2 of USGBC’s flagship LEED® for New Construction (LEED-NC) rating system. While other versions of LEED have been released in the interim, this vote endorses the first substantive update of the NC... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

The Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, has announced the establishment of the Haworth Chair in Integrated Design, funded by Haworth, Inc., under the “Project

evolve” partnership with Direct Energy Business Services. The announcement did not specify whether the Haworth Chair holder will be... Read more

News Analysis

November 1, 2005
Tokyo, Japan, was the latest venue for the World Sustainable Building Conference (SB05), which began in 1998 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and took place in between in the Netherlands and Norway. As at past events, a wide range of technical sessions and poster presentations featured research and experiences from around the world.

A prominent... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005
Blakely Hall, a community center and town hall for Issaquah Highlands, a planned community near Seattle, Washington, earned two Globes (out of four possible) in the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes™ green building performance tool in September 2005, making it the first U.S. building to receive Green Globes certification. The 7,000 ft2 (650... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005
Environmental Design and Construction magazine (ED+C) has announced the winners of its third annual Excellence in Design Awards. More information about the winners, including finalists and honorable mentions, is online at www.edcmag.com.

• The

Alberici Group Corporate Headquarters, 8850 Page, designed by Mackey Mitchell Associates, won... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

A September 2005 report from New Ecology, Inc., and Tellus Institute demonstrates that green affordable housing is more cost-effective than conventional affordable housing. The report,

Costs and Benefits of Green Affordable Housing, features case studies of 16 green affordable housing projects around the country and lays out the long-... Read more

Product Review

November 1, 2005
Toto, a leading toilet manufacturer whose toilets have consistently been among the best in terms of flush performance, introduced to North America the Aquia™ Dual-Max™ dual-flush toilet in May 2005. While this toilet has been available elsewhere for five or six years and is the most popular toilet in Thailand, where it is manufactured, according... Read more

Feature

November 1, 2005
The house I live in is 220 years old, having survived storms, fires, and droughts and having experienced the emergence of petroleum, electricity, automobiles, plastics, and nuclear power. It has been repaired, enlarged (around 1800), plumbed, wired, gutted, remodeled, insulated, and restored by generations of inhabitants—adapting to meet changing... Read more

News Analysis

November 1, 2005

Cellulose insulation manufacturer U.S. GreenFiber, LLC, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, acquired Bonded Insulation, located in Hagman, New York, in July 2005. The acquisition will allow GreenFiber to expand its manufacturing and distribution presence in the Northeast and in eastern Canada. “GreenFiber has the capacity to turn what has... Read more

News Brief

November 1, 2005

DuPont and Tate & Lyle have begun construction on a $100 million plant in Loudon, Tennessee, that will convert corn into 1,3 propanediol (PDO). The product, also known as Bio-PDO™, will replace petroleum-based PDO in the production of Sonora®, DuPont’s newest polymer, used in clothing, carpeting, plastics, and other products. The production... Read more