With the support of EPA, the New York City nonprofit Earth Pledge has launched a new Web project to support the greening of local rooftops. GreeningGotham.org “envisions the rooftops of New York City transformed from a barren landscape into a living network of meadows and gardens.” Visit the Web site to see what that might look like! In coming... Read more

Voters in 16 states said yes to 64 conservation-related ballot measures in November, approving $1.2 billion in new public money for parks and open space. This represents an 83% success rate, despite the fact that most of the measures represented property-tax increases or general obligation bonds. More information on the votes, including a... Read more

A new report from Oceana, “Toxic Burden: PCBs in Marine Life,” compiles information from 40 studies relating to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in humans and marine animals. Over 1.5 billion pounds (680 million kg) of PCBs were produced in the U.S. for industrial and commercial applications, most notably in electrical, heat-transfer, and... Read more

Kevin Hydes, president of Keen Engineering and USGBC board member, is moving from the West Coast to Montreal, Quebec, where Keen is opening a new office this month. While operating from Keen’s new Montreal office, Hydes plans to further his involvement in the Canadian government’s greenhouse action plan as Canada moves to meet its Kyoto... Read more

The National Energy Affordability and Accessibility Project (NEAAP) has developed a Web site that explains the impacts of energy restructuring and market changes on households with low and moderate incomes. It features state-by-state overviews on the status of restructuring, news and analysis on consumer-related restructuring activity, consumer... Read more

California’s former Governor Davis signed the bill AB 1685 in October, extending the California Public Utilities Commission’s Self-Generation Incentive Program for an additional four years. The bill allocates roughly $500 million through 2008 for businesses and local governments to install distributed electricity-generation systems. Over the... Read more

The Council also announced a new fellowship at Greenbuild, named in honor of Mark Ginsberg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Building Technologies State and Community Programs. In recognition of Ginsberg’s lifetime contribution to green building, the fellowship will allow one intern to work at USGBC in... Read more

EPA announced in early November that it will drop investigations into 50 power plants accused of violating the Clean Air Act. Under the new policy, EPA will pursue only those investigations in which the plants are accused of violating new, more lenient standards set to take effect in December (see EBN Vol. 12, No. 10). The change could also... Read more

FPL Energy, LLC recently dedicated two new wind farms in the western U.S. The New Mexico Wind Energy Center, near Fort Sumner, is the world’s third-largest wind farm, producing 204 MW of electricity—enough to power 94,000 homes. The High Winds Energy Center, located along the Montezuma Hills in Solano County, California, is the largest wind... Read more

BuildingGreen is honored to be among the winners of the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) Best Practice Sustainability Awards, announced at Greenbuild:

• Special Achievement in Communications: BuildingGreen, Inc.;

•  Innovative Daylighting System: Solar Components Corporation and  Kalwall Corporation;

•  ... Read more

In the run-up to the Greenbuild conference, USGBC and The Pittsburgh Project, a Christian community-development organization that operates after-school and summer programs for Pittsburgh children, collaborated on a straw-bale construction clinic. Led by David Eisenberg, author of The Straw Bale House Book and executive director of the... Read more

The Boston City Council unanimously passed a resolution in October establishing city purchasing guidelines that favor materials that do not produce dioxin, a potent human carcinogen and endocrine disrupter. Dioxin is released when chlorinated products, including chlorine-bleached paper and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), are manufactured and... Read more

The Sustainable Industries Journal, a monthly publication focusing on economic gain through environmental innovation in the Pacific Northwest, has recognized its top-ranked businesses in a number of sustainable industries. Among the winners are:

• Forest Stewardship Council-Certified Forest: Collins Lakeview Forest in Lakeview, Oregon... Read more

EPA unveiled at Greenbuild a plan for greening landscaping by using biobased, recycled-content, and otherwise environmentally preferable products, and named USGBC as a Charter Ally in the initiative. The GreenScapes Alliance aims to combine the influence of government and industry to green large-scale landscaping efforts, such as roadside... Read more

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) announced at Greenbuild the proposed allowance of up to 5% ground limestone in the portland cement standard ASTM C150, a change that would bring U.S. standards in line with those in Europe and Canada, where limestone has been used successfully for decades. If approved, the standards will allow a reduction... Read more

One closely watched election disappointed smart-growth advocates across the country. Loudoun County, Virginia, a national model of environmentally friendly urban planning (see EBN Vol. 9, No. 3, p. 5), voted in November to replace six of its eight left-leaning county board members with Republicans. The newly elected board members have vocally... Read more

The world’s largest photovoltaic acoustic highway barrier was inaugurated in October in Munich, Germany. Stretching over one kilometer (0.6 miles) along the A92 freeway, the barrier produces 500 peak kW of solar electricity while protecting the nearby Freisinger commercial zone from traffic noise.

In presenting their second annual Leadership Awards during Greenbuild, the U.S. Green Building Council recognized five companies and individuals “who signify the vision, leadership, and commitment to the evolution of green building design and construction”:

• Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. received the Green Building Business Award for... Read more

The Calgary, Alberta company Nysan introduced a PVC-free interior shade-screen product line at the Pittsburgh Greenbuild conference.

Until this product introduction, there were about eight manufacturers of shade-screen systems for commercial buildings, including Nysan, all of which used PVC-coated screening—usually either woven... Read more

The request for proposals (RFP) for a new municipal building lands on your desk. It includes a requirement that you specify environmentally preferable products (EPP) without compromising performance or increasing costs. You’ve used green materials in buildings before, so this requirement shouldn’t be a problem—you just have to find out how the... Read more