The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council has announced the winners of its 2004 awards program. The jury included BuildingGreen’s Alex Wilson. More information is online at www.sbicouncil.org.

Best Sustainable Practice Awards were given to:

•The

Massachusetts Technology Collaborative for

Sustainable Policy and... Read more

Americans spent a total of 3.5 billion hours waiting in traffic during 2002—about 46 hours per peak traveler—according to the 2004 Urban Mobility Report, published by the Texas Transportation Institute. “Congestion has grown everywhere, in areas of all sizes,” according to the report. Collectively, we wasted 5.7 billion gallons (216 billion... Read more

The egg of a Forster’s tern, a fish-eating seabird common in the San Francisco Bay, has been found to have 63 parts per million (ppm) of toxic PBDE flame retardants (see

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 6), the highest concentration ever found in any animal, according to a September 10, 2004

Los Angeles Times article. According to... Read more

green tent design competition (see

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 7): “Thermal Wing,” designed by Thicket from London, U.K.; “Cocoon,” designed by Robert Schwermer and Dietmar Koering from Cologne, Germany; and “Endemic Synthetic,” designed by Strawn/Sierralta(2) from Chicago,... Read more

The FedEx Corporation and the city of Oakland have announced plans to build California’s largest corporate solar electric system atop the FedEx hub at Oakland International Airport. The 904 kilowatt system will be made up of nearly 6,000 photovoltaic modules comprised of more than 300,000 solar cells from the Sharp Electronics Corporation and... Read more

The attorneys general of ten states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have filed a lawsuit charging that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development relies too heavily on chemical pesticides in public housing developments. According to the Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, passed in 1996, federal agencies are required to use... Read more

The National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Department of Energy have opened project registration for the

2005 H2U Design Contest. Teams of graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit designs for hydrogen power parks. Team entries are due January 14, 2005. (For information on the 2004 winner, see

EBN

... Read more

® Platinum project—is widely featured as an icon of green building. Although the project isn’t perfect, on the whole it is a remarkable achievement, especially since most of the designers involved were new to green building. The success of the Merrill Center... Read more

The New York State Public Service Commission has adopted Governor Pataki’s proposal that 25% of the state’s electricity come from renewable energy sources by the end of 2013. “Our decision today is based on a detailed examination of the costs, benefits, and potential impacts on system reliability of implementing an efficient and forward-... Read more

Just two years after New York City scrapped its recycling plan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in September 2004 a 20-year contract with the Hugo Neu Corporation, one of the country’s leading recycling companies. Under the contract, Hugo Neu, which is based in Manhattan, will build a $25 million, state-of-the-art recycling facility on city-... Read more

EBN’s editorial advisory board, left the full-time employment of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) on July 1, 2004 to work with the John A. Clark Company on the development of Haymount. Haymount is a new town being developed outside of Washington, D.C. with an... Read more

Following endorsement by both houses of parliament, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Kyoto Protocol on November 4, 2004, allowing the 1997 agreement, which aims to limit greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change, to take effect for signatories around the world. In order to be set in motion, the agreement required ratification... Read more

EBN... Read more

The Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Chicago) has announced its first-ever Sustainable Design Awards as part of its annual Design Excellence Awards program, which honors the construction and renovation work of local architects. “Sustainable design represents a movement, not a trend,” said Susan King, chair of AIA... Read more

Rand® Corporation, based on information from Healthcare for Communities, a survey funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The survey analyzed health data for more than 8,600 adults living... Read more

Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) has initiated a boycott of all prison design, construction, and renovation in protest of the prison-industrial complex and its effects on society. ADPSR works for peace, environmental protection, ecological building, social justice, and the development of healthy communities. For... Read more

Environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) is often tagged as a solution to many technical shortcomings of LEED®. On September 29, 2004, with support from Wayne Trusty, President of the Athena™ Sustainable Materials Institute, USGBC convened a meeting of industry groups and LCA database and tool developers to establish a plan for incorporating... Read more