Light is one of our most important energy needs. Historically--before the advent of electric lighting--the need for illumination governed architecture. Buildings were designed to facilitate natural daylighting. My office is in one of the old Estey Organ buildings on... Read more

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Greenbuild 2008 included the first ever Green Homebuilder's Day, a conference within the much larger overall conference. Homebuilder's Day welcomed old hands and newcomers to the field of green building, and the sessions were full. BuildingGreen organized the event, which coincided with the announcement of our soon-to-be-available,... Read more

State legislation passed in June 2008 allows New York City building owners who install vegetation on at least half their buildings’ available rooftop space to offset $4.50 in property taxes for each square foot of green roof they install, for one year. The credit covers about a quarter of the cost of installation and is capped at $100,000.... Read more

Joining forces with the U.S. Green Building Council and the Center for American Progress, ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability is developing the STAR Community Index. STAR will be a rating system designed to measure communities’ performance in three areas: environment, economy, and society.

The Energy Conservation Code of Albuquerque, New Mexico, enacted in January 2008 with the unanimous support of its city council, seeks to increase energy-efficiency requirements for multifamily and commercial buildings by 30%. The code requires more insulation in single-family houses, outlaws electric water heaters, and imposes high efficiency... Read more

The National Science and Technology Council has released a report detailing research and development opportunities for the federal government in the area of net-zero-energy buildings.

The 31,000-ft2 (2,900-m2) building, designed by Ross Barney Architects and completed in February 2008, has now earned a Platinum rating from... Read more

Thirty percent of the veneer used by Steelcase, is FSC certified­—as was the case was... Read more

“Conservation doesn’t have to mean deprivation,” is how host Ali Ogden wraps up her seven-minute video tour of the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, which recently became the first hotel in the U.S. to earn LEED Platinum certification. (The video was created for National Geographic’s Intelligent Traveler blog and is available on... Read more

The first annual WaterSmart Innovations Conference in October 2008 brought 1,200 attendees to Las Vegas, the driest and one of the fastest growing major cities in America. The exhibition featured 120 companies showing off their water conservation products. We review ten of the most exciting here.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced at its Greenbuild conference in Boston in November 2008 that LEED 2009, a revision of the LEED Rating System first made available for comment in May 2008, has been approved by its 18,000 member organizations.

The revision is intended to create greater consistency among the several LEED... Read more

Founded in 2007, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has been working to develop a rating system for landscapes (see

EBN Vol. 16, No. 11). The group has now released a draft set of guidelines and benchmarks that includes options for prerequisites and credits for the new rating system.