I have been reading your article in the April 2002 issue of

Environmental Building News (

Vol. 11, No. 4) and generally agree with your take on the recent developments with SCS. However, as a Board member of the Silva Forest Foundation I must point out your error in describing SCS as “one of two organizations in North America... Read more

2002 Sustainability Award from Civic Trust.

Located between an industrial area and suburban housing, the campus features energy-efficient, mixed-use buildings with green roofs. The buildings’ energy efficiency is due in part to a close collaboration between the... Read more

Amid the dramatic success and rapid market penetration of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED™ 2.0 Rating System, there are concerns that the extensive documentation requirements—some applications have arrived in multiple three-ring binders—are an obstacle for users. To address this concern, the Council is preparing to release an update to... Read more

DuPont Commercial Flooring has created the DuPont™ Antron® Sustainability Advisory Council, a volunteer network of multidisciplinary experts who will help the company understand and manage the total environmental impact of its Antron fiber over the entire life cycle of commercial flooring applications. Members of the Council are: Penny Bonda of... Read more

Portland, Oregon voters have spoken out against modifications to an

Oregon state law restricting urban sprawl. A ballot measure brought by Portland developers called for stripping the local governing body, Metro, of its ability to mandate land-use patterns within Portland. According to the state law, Oregon urban areas must define... Read more

the nation’s largest rooftop solar electric system—located atop the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California.

The 1.18 MW photovoltaic (PV) system is an expansion of a 640 kW PV system that was completed in the summer of 2001. The PowerGuard® system, which covers... Read more

Electric lighting has advanced tremendously in the past few decades, yet the leading technologies in use today still generate 90% of their output as heat (incandescent lighting), or rely on the toxic heavy metal mercury to operate (fluorescent and nearly all HID light sources). Clearly there is still progress to be made.

This article... Read more

The Los Angeles City Council agreed in April to commit to sustainable building techniques by adopting LEED™ certification standards for all new public works projects of 7,500 ft2 (700 m2) or larger. Council members hope the initiative will not only improve environmental performance of the city’s buildings, but also benefit taxpayers—largely... Read more

A new online tool, produced jointly by the Earth Day Network and Redefining Progress, allows individuals in 58 countries to

calculate their impact on the planet. After completing the 15-question survey, participants learn the size of their ecological footprints in global acres (or hectares), each of which corresponds to one acre (or... Read more

Pritzker Architecture Prize will be bestowed upon Australian architect

Glenn Murcutt, who is highly regarded for his ability to integrate the spare beauty of modernism at its best with great sensitivity to site, climate, and culture. Although he travels widely to teach and lecture, he has never accepted a commission... Read more

by F. Kaid Benfield, Jutka Terris and Nancy Vorsanger; foreword by Maryland Governor Parris Glendening. Natural Resources Defense Council, New York, 2001. Paperback, 212 pages, $20.00.

Thank you for your comparison article on non-water using urinals (“Falcon Waterfree Urinals Compete with Waterless,”

EBN

Vol. 11, No. 2). It is great to see you bringing this very viable technology to your readers. I would like to respond with some additional facts your readers may be interested in.

tradable renewable energy certificates (TRCs), allowing consumers... Read more

Atrazine, America’s most common herbicide,

disrupts hormones in frogs, according to findings published in the April 16 issue of

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The University of California–Berkeley team found lowered testosterone levels and hermaphroditism (possessing both male and female sex organs) in frogs... Read more

On Earth Day, The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) announced this year’s Top Ten Green Projects. The winning projects represent a wide range of function and location, and employ an array of environmental strategies. This year’s awards program was juried, for the first time, by invited jurors from... Read more

Edited by Joseph F. Kennedy, Michael G. Smith, and Catharine Wanek. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, 2002. Paperback, 288 pages, $26.95.

The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources. Nor is it obsolete, argue editors Joseph F. Kennedy, Michael G.... Read more