The

Northeast Green Building Awards, sponsored by the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, were announced at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s (NESEA) Building Energy 2002 conference on March 21 in Medford, Massachusetts. The winners are:

•Residences: First prize went to a straw-bale house in Randolph, Vermont, designed... Read more

The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), have begun

a multimillion-dollar “green” renovation of their 1930s Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan. The building serves as a retirement and healthcare facility for 250 of their senior members. The completed renovation, expected in 2003, will feature increased daylighting, a... Read more

Documentary film directed by Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold, produced by Helfand, Gold, and Julia D. Parker. Premiere on HBO on May 5, 2002.

See details at: Blue Vinyl.

The green building movement may have just acquired its first cult film—

Blue Vinyl. The Documentary Award Winner for Excellence in Cinematography at... Read more

2001 was a good year for the

photovoltaics (PV) industry. World cell/module production jumped 36% from 288 to 391 peak megawatts (MW), according to the March 2002 issue of

PV News. Since 1994, growth in world PV production has increased 460%! In the U.S., PV production grew 33.8% in 2001, from 75 to 100 MW. The three largest... Read more

Meg Calkins of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, in cooperation with the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), is conducting a

survey of landscape architects to find out about their involvement in green building projects. The researchers are especially interested in identifying barriers and obstacles to more... Read more

Presentation proposals for the U.S. Green Building Council’s

First International Conference & Exposition (November 13–15, 2002) are due by April 1. Visit

www.usgbc.org to submit an abstract.

Update: (7/27/07)

The WeatherBest brand name, formerly under Louisiana Pacific (LP), has been acquired by Fiber Composites. The acquisition is expected to be completed in October 2007.

Sales of wood-plastic composite lumber products are skyrocketing, according to an article in the February 25 issue of

Plastics News.... Read more

Temple-Inland, the largest producer of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), with a 20% market share, has tentatively embraced wood-products certification. Of the company’s four MDF plants (two in Pennsylvania, one in Arkansas, and one in Ontario, Canada), three have achieved chain-of-custody certification in accordance with Forest Stewardship Council... Read more

On February 7, solar energy pioneer, sustainability advocate, architect, and teacher Don Prowler FAIA died of kidney cancer at his home in Philadelphia. He was 51 years old.

Don cofounded the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Association in the late 1970s and was actively involved with the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council during the 1980s the ’... Read more

Food bought in a supermarket is labeled with a standard nutrition form that tells you the amount of nutrients, salt, and fat contained in each serving. Someday building materials at the supply yard may also have a label, listing each product’s contribution to global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain, habitat loss, and a handful of other... Read more

Johns Manville announced on February 7 that the company will eliminate all use of formaldehyde in its manufacture of fiberglass insulation. The conversions will be completed at manufacturing plants by August, and only formaldehyde-free product will be available by the end of the year.

Phenol formaldehyde (PF) binder has long been used for... Read more

President Bush unveiled his long-awaited

global warming initiative on February 14. Rather than seeking to cap (or reduce) actual greenhouse gas emissions, the initiative calls for a reduction in “greenhouse gas intensity”—the amount of greenhouse gases produced per dollar of gross domestic product (GDP). Specifically, the plan calls for... Read more

Houses built with

structural insulated panels (SIPs) are failing in Juneau, Alaska at an alarming rate. Failure is typically occurring at the roof peak, where the well-insulated, thick expanded polystyrene SIPs join. This problem was first publicized in the January 2002 issue of the

Journal of Light Construction. According to... Read more

Once the writing was on the wall that consumers didn’t want arsenic in and around their houses and playgrounds, the decision by the treated wood industry to phase it out was quick. On February 12, less than two years after the issue of high arsenic levels in playgrounds was brought to public attention by the

Gainesville Sun, an... Read more

by the California Sustainable Building Task Force and the State and Consumer Services Agency, December 2001. Available free as a 75-page Adobe Acrobat™ PDF file from

www.ciwmb.ca.gov/greenbuilding/blueprint/.

As in most things, when it comes to green building initiatives, California is out in front of the rest of the country. Driven... Read more

We reported last month (EBN,

Vol. 11, No. 2) that an agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the treated wood industry was expected by mid-February to eliminate residential uses of CCA-treated wood. That agreement was announced on February 12 by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, the American Wood... Read more

Collins Products LLC, a subsidiary of the Collins Companies of Portland, Oregon, has just introduced an FSC-certified version of its popular Tru-Wood® siding. TruWood is an engineered (hardboard) siding, produced from wood chips, phenol formaldehyde binder (5-6% by weight), paraffin wax, acrylic sealants, and finishes. Collins has been producing... Read more

Thank you for the January 2002 (EBN

Vol. 11, No. 1) article on radiant heating, which I enjoyed and wholeheartedly agree with. It is refreshing to see attention paid to mechanical systems instead of assuming an efficient envelope is enough to make a building efficient.

My experience designing and installing hydronic heating systems... Read more

The results of a survey by the Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT) about the

effect of building codes on green building practices (see

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 7/8) are now available, and confirm what many practitioners already knew: building codes can be a barrier to the use of alternative building materials... Read more

“We’re very pleased to host the first zero emissions Olympic Winter Games,” announced Mitt Romney, Salt Lake Organizing Committee president and CEO on January 31, 2002. For the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, the Australians built a solar-powered village, set up light-rail transportation systems, and worked with Greenpeace to improve environmental... Read more