Northampton County, Virginia lies on the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Eastern Shore (between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean). The tiny, rural county extends roughly 30 miles in length and averages just three miles wide. Dependent largely on agriculture, the county is struggling economically and its population of 13,000—... Read more

Motorists in Germany can now save on their auto insurance rates if they use public transportation. As reported in the February 23rd issue of

Global Environmental Change Report the German insurance company Rheinland (Neuss) has begun offering a 10% discount for policyowners who hold annual passes for the national railway system or for a... Read more

Joseph Demkin, editor. The American Institute of Architects. Published annually by John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Three-ring-bound. $150 + $2.50 for handling. Call 800/225-5945 to order.

Environmental Resource Guide (ERG) uses an effective combination of text and graphics to convey the environmental implications of building... Read more

Willammette Industries, Inc. has just retooled a particleboard mill in Eugene, Oregon to produce a higher-quality medium-density fiberboard (MDF) using at least 50% recycled wood. The mill will use wood waste from construction sites, pallets, and packing crates.

You’re on the cutting edge again! We’ve been grumbling for the last couple of years about “Eco” homes carved out of the forest whose residents are forced to drive cars every day. Yours is the first article I’ve seen in green building literature that tackles transportation. Congratulations.

Energy Outreach Center

Olympia... Read more

100 pages; $5.00 covers postage & handling. Available from the American Forest & Paper Association, 1111 19th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036.

Real Goods’ new “Solar Living Center” in Hopland, California will demonstrate the philosophies of energy independence and living in harmony with nature that the company preaches. Real Goods hired Sym Van der Ryn’s... Read more

At a workshop sponsored by Environment Canada’s Winnipeg, Manitoba office, participants decided to establish the Used Building Materials Association as a networking forum and common voice for the salvage and reuse industry. With a core group of twelve American and Canadian nonprofit and for-profit salvage and reuse organizations, the... Read more

Thanks for your article on “Establishing Priorities.”

Anderson has set the company on the path toward sustainability. Awakened only within the past two years to... Read more

The San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) has just announced a new Master’s Degree program in Ecological Design. A professional certificate is also available, and the program is not limited to students of architecture. Enrollment is open for the Spring 1996 semester, which begins February 26. Contact the SFIA Information Office, Box... Read more

Tax cuts and tax reform are getting lots of attention as we enter this election year, but a proposal that really makes sense is being heard only on the fringes.

A government program to promote high-performance commercial buildings in Canada now has three buildings under construction. In two of these cases, program administrators were surprised to discover that their stringent criteria are being met using only conventional technologies, with little or no increase in building costs. They credit this... Read more

Two small stands within a government-managed forestry operation in central British Columbia were certified in November 1995 by the Silva Forest Foundation. The 25- to 30-hectare (60- to 75-acre) stands in the Vernon Forest District are part of a larger area run by the Ministry of Forests Small Business Programme, which is collecting and sorting... Read more

A bill to create the National Institute for the Environment (see

EBN

Vol. 4, No. 5) has finally been introduced in the current Congress by Representative Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and twenty cosponsors. The Institute is widely supported by business leaders, scientists, and environmentalists.

Cork has been used as a flooring material for more than one hundred years. Cork flooring is durable, it provides acoustical and thermal insulation, it cushions the foot, it is resistant to moisture damage and decay, it is fairly easy to clean, and it is harvested from trees in a sustainable manner. Though imported and thus energy-intensive to... Read more

by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., August 1995. Published by Western Wood Products Association, Yeon Building, 522 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR 97204-2122; 503/224-3930, 503/224-3934 (fax). Spiral bound, 28 pages (not including appendices), $125.

On October 31st of last year, new fluorescent lamp standards took effect that eliminate some of the most widely used lamps in commercial buildings. Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the old standby T-12, cool-white, F40 lamp can no longer be manufactured or imported into the U.S. Lamps must now have a minimum color rendering index (CRI)—a... Read more

Americus, Georgia-based Habitat for Humanity International is well-known for its coordination of locally based affordable housing projects. Working largely with donated materials and volunteer labor, Habitat (with its many local affiliates) is now one of the nation’s twenty largest homebuilders. Minimizing environmental impact has not... Read more

Submissions are being accepted until February 15 for the 1996 Quality Building Conference Design Competition. New to this year’s competition is an Unbuilt Projects/Proposals category. Contact JoAnn Lawrence at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, Massachusetts 01301, 413/774-6051, 413/774-6053 (fax... Read more