BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

April 1, 2003
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) announced the winners of its 2003 green building competition during its annual Building Energy Conference, held in Boston last month. Through this award program, NESEA strives to recognize projects that advance the aesthetics of green buildings.

Clearview Elementary School in Hanover,... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003
The Paulien Strijland and Eric Joustra residence and the Jasper Ridge Field Station have been recognized among the greenest in California. Sustainable San Mateo County, County of San Mateo RecycleWorks, and the local chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected these projects as winners in their first

San Mateo County Green... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 2003
It might not seem that managing subscriptions for a monthly newsletter would be all that complicated, but, as with so many things, the devil is in the details. That’s why we’ve been so lucky to have Charlotte Snyder as our circulation manager for the past half-decade. As some of you no-doubt have learned firsthand, she is a master at figuring out... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2003
Dedicated employees at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Research Center have spent a lot of time in makeshift bathrooms recently, subjecting commercially available toilets to a series of challenges. The NAHB Research Center tested 49 models in all, including not only conventional gravity-flush toilets, but also pressurized and... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean water regulations, demanding that construction sites larger than one acre (0.4 ha) obtain a

National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, became effective March 10. (The rule has applied to sites larger than 5 acres/2 ha since 1990.) The regulations were not enacted... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

Both the number and the severity of droughts and storms are on the rise, according to a new report by the World Water Council. These and other manifestations of global climate change have contributed to a

tenfold increase in economic losses from weather-related catastrophes over the past five decades. The 1990s saw more significant... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

The

Southface Energy Institute has announced that it will work with architectural consultant

Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates (TVS) in the design and construction of a new commercial addition to their Energy and Environmental Resource Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The new facility, which will include indoor and... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 2003
BuildingGreen has updated our

Environmental Building News

Archives. This seventh-edition CD-ROM includes more than ten years of EBN—from the first issue in mid-1992 through the end of 2002. Packed with more than 1,500 pages of green building information, the

Archives are fully searchable and provide instant access to every... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

Smithfield Foods, Inc.—America’s largest producer of hogs and leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and processed meats—plans to build a $20 million

facility to convert swine waste into biodiesel fuel as part of the BEST BioFuel partnership. The facility will convert manure into biomethanol, which can be used to produce biodiesel... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

Meanwhile, American Bio-Fuels, LLC, is doing their part to revolutionize biodiesel production. Bio-Fuels is constructing the

first continuous-flow biodiesel facility in the country. At peak production, the Bakersfield, California plant is expected to produce 35 million gallons (132.5 million liters) of biodiesel per year, making it the... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 2003

I was just looking at the February issue of

Environmental Building News (

Vol. 12, No. 2) and couldn’t help but notice the article about paints made from vegetable oil (“American Pride – Paint Made from Vegetable Oil”). I have to say that someone appears to have pulled the wool over someone’s eyes. Making paints from vegetable... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2003

BP Solar is directing a new marketing campaign toward California homeowners. To encourage demand for residential photovoltaic systems, BP Solar offers financing options; access to California Energy Commission rebates; a full planning, installation, and commissioning service; and an indoor display screen allowing customers to monitor energy... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

Two leaders in the St. Louis green-design community have joined forces to start their own firm,

Hellmuth & Bicknese Architects, LLC, specializing in sustainable design. The firm is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, and principals Dan Hellmuth, AIA, and Ralph Bicknese, AIA, are among the founders of USGBC’s St. Louis... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2003

American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment. This guide is available free of charge as a series of Web pages and downloadable PDF files. Visit

www.aia.org/cote_rfps.

AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) has put together a brief but beneficial guide to greening requests for proposals and qualifications (... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 2003

EBN mourns the death of Jeffrey Cook, Regents Professor of Architecture at Arizona State University in Tempe and a pioneer in low-energy, passive solar design, who died of colon cancer on March 27. He chaired several early Passive Solar Conferences, was the founding editor in 1980 of the

Passive Solar Journal, and was a founder of the... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2003

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Document 220/K-02-001, Sandra Mendler, HOK, principal author. Available at no charge from: US EPA, Office of Administration and Resources Mgmt., MD-C-604-05, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711; or as a PDF file from:

www.epa.gov/rtp/new-bldg/environmental/environmental.htm. Paperback, 75 pages

The... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2003

Edited by David Gissen. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, and National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., 2002. Hardcover, 192 pages, $40

Princeton Architectural Press and the National Building Museum have jointly published

Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century, a bound version of the museum... Read more

News Analysis

March 1, 2003

DuPont Antron® is the first carpet fiber to be independently certified as an “environmentally preferable product.” Antron was certified by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) of Oakland, California, based on an environmentally preferable product (EPP) specification for carpet fiber that SCS developed. The specification includes factors such... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2003

Report from Buildings magazine and Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute, 2002, 46 pages. Order at

www.squarefootage.net or by calling 800-452-4480, $495 + $7.50 s+h

Measuring the Success of Greenis a report documenting the results from an online survey of a broad range of building professionals conducted in the 3rd... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 2003

In Volume 11, No. 12, EBN included Kalwall® R-20 (RSI-3.1) with Nanogel in its list of ten best new green building products. Certainly the first commercial use of aerogel is a remarkable milestone. It is very worthy of an EBN award.

However, what is not worthy of the award is the R-20 claim. The R-20 claim is almost certainly only for the... Read more