Since 2004, Correct Building Products (CBP) has manufactured CorrectDeck CX, a composite decking made of polypropylene mixed with wood fiber; a special manufacturing process creates a hard polypropylene shell. The shell offers a performance improvement over conventional composite decking by protecting it from stains, mold, and fading. The... Read more

The Carbon Trust, a government-funded private company focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the U.K., has released an interim report on the potential carbon and cost savings offered by micro-combined-heat-and-power (CHP) systems for small commercial and residential buildings. The study, which has measured the performance of 87 micro-... Read more

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has announced that Daniel Tishman, a green building pioneer, has been selected as the chairman of the organization’s board of trustees. A fourth-generation owner of Tishman Realty and Construction, based in New York City, Tishman is the chairman and CEO of the company’s construction arm, Tishman... Read more

They are not perfectly controlled and calibrated laboratory experiments, but that’s not the point when firms deploy green building practices in their own offices. They need firsthand evidence something works or doesn’t work, especially when many of those practices are relatively new to most in the architecture, engineering, and construction... Read more

Many observers want to know where the green building market is heading, but if anyone is studying it in a truly scientific way, they’re keeping the results to themselves. Online surveys are a common way of gathering data on the cheap, and results from three such surveys were released at Greenbuild 2007 in Chicago in November. Despite small... Read more

The Kresge Foundation, which has promoted the integrated design process for green buildings since 2003, has expanded its grants program. Previously, projects involving renovation, historic preservation, LEED certification, or net-zero energy design were eligible for the grants. Now, buildings designed to meet the criteria of the Living Building... Read more

The Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) has provided guidance for the design, construction, and operations of healthcare facilities since it was developed in 2003. From the beginning, GGHC was designed to be a voluntary, self-certifying best practices toolkit. After a two-year pilot period that included 115 projects, GGHC version 2.2 was... Read more

Since January 2007, government agency Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has been offering EcoEnergy retrofit grants to owners of single-family homes, including detached, semidetached, and low-rise multifamily buildings. As of October 2007, the program had performed 37,000 energy evaluations and awarded 2,200 grants to homeowners, covering... Read more

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 4). Most of the core options use 100% pre-consumer recycled content and... Read more

According to a study performed by the Freedonia Group, a market research firm, ground-source and air-source heat pumps are gaining market share relative to warm-air furnaces. In terms of value, heat pumps accounted for the largest share of heating equipment shipments in 2006, representing 43% of shipments; when measured by volume, however, the... Read more

by YearSource: The American Institute of Architects

The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) has announced several large partnerships in support of its Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program, announced in May 2007 (see

EBN Vol. 16, No. 7). Working with 40 cities throughout the world, CCI has created a purchasing consortium to leverage buying power for lower prices on energy-saving... Read more

As recently as 20 years ago, HVAC, plumbing, and lighting systems were unsophisticated, consisting of moving parts rather than solid-state components, and not networked. Comparatively low energy costs provided little incentive to specify energy-saving HVAC systems that may also be complex and expensive. Cost and ease of maintenance... Read more

The Vento, an urban infill mixed-use project in Calgary, Alberta, designed by Perkins + Will for Windmill Development Group, earned a Platinum rating in the Canada Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System, making it the first multifamily residential project to do so. Twenty two-story townhouse suites are situated above ground-floor retail... Read more

It’s no surprise that light-colored, reflective surfaces heat up less in the sun. That translates into less solar-generated cooling loads for buildings with white, reflective roofs. It can also mean lower ambient temperatures outside those buildings, because dark roofs and pavement heat the outdoor air, contributing to the “urban heat island”... Read more