LEDs are a digital technology: they rely on semiconductors to emit light, the same tiny computer chips that are used to light many smart phones. But our use of this lighting platform to realize health benefits in interior design hasn’t been very smart.

By adding tunability of color temperature to the... Read more

Even before expectant mothers find themselves being told to “take deep breaths” to get through labor pains, plasticizers present in their blood could cause their baby to grow up gasping for air. Childhood asthma rates, according to a new study, are strongly correlated with prenatal exposure to two types of phthalates—BBzP, used... Read more

There are two ways of looking at older buildings.

For any designer who’s worked on a gut renovation, these aren’t two sides of the same coin so... Read more

Fresh air: good. VOCs: bad.

That much is clear—but very little about the health impacts of building design and building materials is as self-evident. Even the perennially recognized benefits of daylight, plants, and exercise—not to mention best practices for integrating them into building projects—are... Read more

ON-DEMAND WEBCAST

Brent Ehrlich, Products Editor — BuildingGreen, Inc.
Susan Walter, Senior Project Architect — Wilmot/Sanz
Sarah Nettleton, AIA — Sarah Nettleton Architects
Sarah Lott, Researcher — Healthy Building Network
Mikhail Davis, Director of Restorative Enterprise — Interface

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If... Read more

The International Well Building Institute (IWBI) officially launched the WELL Building Standard at its inaugural WELL Building Symposium in New Orleans. Billed as “the world’s first building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment,” Version 1.0 of the standard was released... Read more

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recognized six Gulf Coast homes through its Resilience Star pilot program. The designation is based on compliance with various Fortified Home standards developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), with the pilot focusing on the Fortified Home–... Read more

If you think of the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) at all, you probably think of it as the organization that administers your LEED credential and reviews your LEED project for certification. What is it doing acquiring the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), a system that scores real estate... Read more

After years of work—and controversy—the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released a final rule clarifying which green building rating systems federal agencies may use. DOE only names criteria, not specific rating systems, but based on these criteria—including one for performance verification—LEED comes out ahead of Green... Read more

Readers of EBN are well aware of our concerns with extruded polystyrene (XPS). The green building community has three concerns about XPS: first is the HFC (hydrofluorocarbon) blowing agent, which is a highly potent greenhouse gas; second is the brominated flame retardant HBCD, which is now on the Stockholm Convention list of... Read more

BuildingGreen, publisher of EBN, has announced the winners of its annual Top-10 Green Building Products awards. The 13th annual awards recognize green building products that make fundamental transformations to “business as usual” in the design and construction industry.

This year’s picks include... Read more

Most lighting professionals went to school so they could learn to design lighting systems—not so they could learn how to pay for them. Yet economic analysis has become part of their job, with clients expecting designers to explain things like return on investment and when their LEDs are going to “pay for themselves.”

Contrary to an earlier study on consumer behavior suggesting that sustainability certifications do not increase booking revenues, a second Cornell report identifies the opposite trend by directly analyzing financial performance and narrowing its study sample to LEED-certified hotels.

“The Impact of LEED... Read more

What would happen if we replaced all concrete, steel, and brick with wood products in new construction? A whole lot of good, suggests a new study from researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

The analysis, “Carbon, Fossil Fuel, and Biodiversity Mitigation With Wood and... Read more

It’s not exactly Color by Numbers, but Prosoco’s fluid-applied air barrier is close to being that simple. That’s saying a lot in a field where some alternatives are more like origami.

“The whole class of liquid-applied water-resistive barriers and liquid-applied flashings has been one of the major... Read more

Plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyester, polypropylene, polycarbonate, and polystyrene have long been common in our building products. The environmental movement has pushed manufacturers to tout durability and recycled content in their products, but a more sophisticated trend is to tout some plastics as being “... Read more

There are the clients that we dream about—with signature push-the-envelope green projects and a flexible budget to suit—and then there are the clients that architects like Z Smith, AIA, principal at Eskew+Dumez+Ripple (EDR), see in real life.

Smith says that when it comes to sustainability, his projects... Read more

Linear fluorescents make up about 75% of commercial lighting, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), with billions of T8 tubes in use. Popular because of their low cost and energy efficiency, linear fluorescents also have some significant problems: they have poor color quality, they flicker, they emit small amounts... Read more

Is it time to start talking about “walked-in” neighborhoods rather than walkable ones?

Ongoing research in Mueller, a mixed-income planned community in Austin, Texas, suggests that people who move to a pedestrian- and bike-friendly neighborhood report more physical activity, more social engagement, and... Read more

New evidence suggests the office plant can help cut through the boredom and distractedness that settles over many workspaces.

A study published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology in July 2014 compiles three separate field experiments in which researchers controlled office workers’ visual access to... Read more