At the beginning of March 2004, the U.S. Green Building Council released a draft of the LEED

® for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) Rating System for review by Council members during a 30-day comment period. LEED-EB is designed to certify the ongoing operations and maintenance of facilities, including upgrades to building systems. It is not... Read more

The community of

Civano, in southeast Tucson, Arizona, was named Best New Community in

Sunset Magazine’s annual Best Places to Live story. The 818-acre (330 ha), mixed-use community was designed around New Urbanist ideals, with a strong sense of community and place (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 7). The homes use 50% less energy... Read more

The

Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, which recently trademarked the name Built Green

® for its residential green building program (the largest in the nation), has issued a cease and desist request against Vermont’s

Building for Social Responsibility (BSR) over its use of the name Vermont Built Green for its own... Read more

Interface Flooring has sold more than a million square yards (840,000 m

2) of climate-neutral

Cool Carpet™ since its introduction in August 2003 (see

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 10). Through the Cool Carpet initiative, customers are funding greenhouse-gas reduction projects to offset the emissions resulting from the carpet... Read more

The

Hayward Corporation, which produces FSC-certified wood products and other green building materials (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6 and

Vol. 10, No. 4), has achieved a LEED

® v2 Gold rating for its Hayward Building Systems plant in Santa Maria, California. The 55,000 ft

2 (5,100 m

2) facility... Read more

Please explain what makes “polyester yarn … impregnated with an acrylic-based material” fire resistant, as claimed in the article “PVC-Free Interior Shade Screening from Nysan” (

Vol. 12, No. 12). As far as we know, polyester and acrylics are both flammable.

Tim Burns, President

The Vinyl Institute

Arlington,... Read more

The architecture firm KMD (

Kaplan, McLaughlin and Diaz), based in San Francisco, has been awarded the prestigious MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Award for the design of the Jie Fang Daily News and Media Group headquarters in Shanghai, China. The project employs numerous green systems, relying heavily on natural ventilation and... Read more

Obex, Inc., manufacturer of NovaWood

® landscape timbers, fencing, and pavers made from 100% post-consumer plastics, closed its doors in February. The Stamford, Connecticut company survived perennial capital shortages over its 15 years until an accident last April left owner Celeste Johnson unable to maintain sales streams, which plummeted more... Read more

The

Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) was launched in December 2003, initiated by Meeting Strategies Worldwide, of Portland, Oregon. Recognizing that over a million meetings and events, and over 12,000 tradeshows, are held each year, GMIC is committed to “balancing economic, environmental, and community objectives as they relate to... Read more

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), freight trucks and locomotives use 35 billion gallons (1.5x10

11 liters) of diesel fuel each year, emitting over 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Facing a predicted 25% increase in these numbers by 2012, EPA launched a new program in February focused on making America’s... Read more

Interface Flooring has won a 2003 Product Prize from the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). Interface was recognized for its leadership in the sustainability movement. “Ray Anderson’s passion and role as a spokesperson for the movement has been infectious,” noted the ASID awards jury. ASID is online at www.asid.org. Interface is at... Read more

Many of us living and working in parts of the country without access to inexpensive natural gas rely on fuel oil for heating. In the Northeast, for example, 36% of homes and 38% of commercial buildings are heated with oil. The Upper Midwest also uses a lot of fuel oil, while Alaska relies on both heating oil and kerosene. It was in Alaska in mid-... Read more

The December 31, 2003 deadline to end most sales of chromated copper arsenate (CCA) preservative came and went with little fanfare. As of January 1, 2004, wood-treating companies can no longer buy CCA for treating dimension lumber and other wood products covered in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreement for phaseout (see

EBN... Read more

David L. Grumman, editor. American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., 2004, paperback, 170 pages, $99 ($79 for ASHRAE members). Contact ASHRAE Customer Service at 1-800-527-4723 or 404-636-8400, or visit the ASHRAE.org Bookstore.

Engineers can be a literal bunch. A chapter in the

ASHRAE... Read more

Traces of fluoxetine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in the drug

Prozac, have been found in fish in central Texas, according to a Baylor University study led by toxicologist Dr. Bryan Brooks. “Maybe it makes you a happy fish and you’re kind of hanging out,” said Brooks, but he questions the drug’s effect on the ability of fish to... Read more

Last October’s issue of

EBN (

Vol. 12, No. 10) was another great one. My non-expert two cents on the filtration issue is that the best way to do HVAC in buildings (at least buildings other than single-family homes) is to separate space conditioning, which is an intermittent load, from ventilation, which is always present during... Read more

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City has rejected a Bush Administration plan to lower energy-efficiency standards for air-conditioners. The lawsuit,

Natural Resources Defense Council v. Abraham, was brought by NRDC, consumer groups, and attorneys general from ten states. Clinton Administration standards, which mandate... Read more

Governor James E. McGreevey of New Jersey announced the adoption of

new stormwater-control regulations in January that are being hailed as the most comprehensive in the nation. The new rules establish a 300-foot (90 m) buffer around more than 6,000 stream miles (9,650 km) along high-quality waterways. They also establish a goal of... Read more

“Renewable energy sources could provide the equivalent to today’s production of both thermal and nuclear power combined.” While such a claim might be expected from environmentalists, this conclusion came from the

Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition, a unique alliance of Canadian corporations (including energy producers Shell Canada, BP... Read more

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing 155,000 Inuit people in Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, is planning a human-rights legal case against Arctic states—particularly the United States—for their

complicity in global climate change. “What is at stake here is the cultural survival of Inuit as a people,” said ICC... Read more