The 31,000-ft2 (2,900-m2) building, designed by Ross Barney Architects and completed in February 2008, has now earned a Platinum rating from... Read more

The Energy Conservation Code of Albuquerque, New Mexico, enacted in January 2008 with the unanimous support of its city council, seeks to increase energy-efficiency requirements for multifamily and commercial buildings by 30%. The code requires more insulation in single-family houses, outlaws electric water heaters, and imposes high efficiency... Read more

BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of Environmental Building News (EBN) and the GreenSpec Directory, announced its seventh annual Top-10 Green Building Products during the 2008 Greenbuild Expo in Boston. The list recognizes the most exciting products added to GreenSpec or covered in EBN in the last year; a detailed announcement and full product... Read more

Thousands of companies have sought an environmental marketing edge by advertising the recycled content of their products. Those claims come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which first published definitions for common environmental terms in its Green Guides in 1992. The LEED Rating System offers credit for recycled-... Read more

I read with interest your thoroughly researched lead article, “Bringing Nature Indoors”. I would argue, along with others in the bird advocacy world, that plants may do more harm than good inside buildings if they are placed next to transparent glass façades. In the U.S. each year between 100 million and a billion birds are killed by glass.... Read more

ThermaRock, a new wallboard from Serious Materials, offers superior insulating value with no added thickness. The product incorporates Aspen Aerogels’ Spaceloft blanket insulation bonded to gypsum or magnesium oxide to provide an insulating value of up to R-4.1. The product carries a steep price but offers up to eight times the R-0.5 insulation... Read more