BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

March 1, 1996

100 pages; $5.00 covers postage & handling. Available from the American Forest & Paper Association, 1111 19th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036.

This new, publication provides useful—though somewhat limited—information on where to recycle wood products. Organized on a state-by-state basis, the directory includes about 600... Read more

News Analysis

March 1, 1996

In a move that would appear to reinforce the National Association of Home Builders’ anti-environmental policies, the Association’s Committee on Energy was voted out of existence at the January 29 Board of Directors’ meeting. Ironically, the decision was made just a day after the First Annual Energy Value Housing Awards were presented, with the... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996

Wood and paper recycling could be used to achieve 10-20% of the U.S. carbon reduction goal, according to scientists at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. Recycling wood and paper reduces net carbon emissions by reducing timber harvesting, which in turn increases the amount of carbon sequestered by living trees, and by... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996

Tree Talk, Inc., PO Box 426, Burlington, Vermont 05402; 802/863-6789, 802/863-4344 (fax), wow@together.net (e-mail). CD-ROM Pro version: $99; CD-ROM standard version: $29.95; Compact (floppy disk) version: $19.95.

When we first reviewed

Woods of the World (WoW) in July 1994, it had lots of useful information but also lots of gaps, and... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 1996

You’re on the cutting edge again! We’ve been grumbling for the last couple of years about “Eco” homes carved out of the forest whose residents are forced to drive cars every day. Yours is the first article I’ve seen in green building literature that tackles transportation. Congratulations.

Paul Horton

Energy Outreach Center

Olympia... Read more

News Analysis

March 1, 1996
On June 29, 1993 President Clinton signed Executive Order 12852, creating the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. An impressive cast of characters agreed to serve on the Council, representing business, environmental, and government interests. The 25 members divided into eight task groups, each drawing in many additional participants.... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996
EBN

is cosponsor of the upcoming conference Use of Recycled Wood and Paper in Building Applications, which will be held on September 9-11, 1996 in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference should be the best forum to date for the exchange of information relating to use of recycled wood and paper in building applications. For information, see the... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996
In an inspiring presentation at the U.S. Green Building Council’s meeting last summer, Ray Anderson, the Chairman and CEO of one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, laid out a remarkable plan to reshape the company’s operations.

Anderson has set the company on the path toward sustainability. Awakened only within the past two years to... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

A bill to create the National Institute for the Environment (see

EBN

Vol. 4, No. 5) has finally been introduced in the current Congress by Representative Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and twenty cosponsors. The Institute is widely supported by business leaders, scientists, and environmentalists.

News Brief

January 1, 1996

by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., August 1995. Published by Western Wood Products Association, Yeon Building, 522 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR 97204-2122; 503/224-3930, 503/224-3934 (fax). Spiral bound, 28 pages (not including appendices), $125.

The closer one looks at anything in nature, the more there is to look at. This fact may... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

A government program to promote high-performance commercial buildings in Canada now has three buildings under construction. In two of these cases, program administrators were surprised to discover that their stringent criteria are being met using only conventional technologies, with little or no increase in building costs. They credit this... Read more

Op-Ed

January 1, 1996

Thanks for your article on “Establishing Priorities.”

Under saving energy, the first item: “In buildings with skin dominated loads,” incorporate high R-values. What about buildings with greater internal loads? Does it follow to use less insulation? Make it less airtight? I have a high school where the general contractor is saying, “How come... Read more

Product Review

January 1, 1996
Many solar heating devices are handicapped by the high cost and maintenance of glazing systems. Solarwall® is a deceptively simple yet amazingly efficient system for preheating incoming air that doesn’t require glazing or any other high-maintenance parts. Generically termed a

transpired solar collector, Solarwall has initially been targeted... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

On October 31st of last year, new fluorescent lamp standards took effect that eliminate some of the most widely used lamps in commercial buildings. Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the old standby T-12, cool-white, F40 lamp can no longer be manufactured or imported into the U.S. Lamps must now have a minimum color rendering index (CRI)—a... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

Two small stands within a government-managed forestry operation in central British Columbia were certified in November 1995 by the Silva Forest Foundation. The 25- to 30-hectare (60- to 75-acre) stands in the Vernon Forest District are part of a larger area run by the Ministry of Forests Small Business Programme, which is collecting and sorting... Read more

Op-Ed

January 1, 1996

Tax cuts and tax reform are getting lots of attention as we enter this election year, but a proposal that really makes sense is being heard only on the fringes.

Researchers from the Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland, author Paul Hawken, and many others have been pointing out that if we are to move towards a more... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

Submissions are being accepted until February 15 for the 1996 Quality Building Conference Design Competition. New to this year’s competition is an Unbuilt Projects/Proposals category. Contact JoAnn Lawrence at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, Massachusetts 01301, 413/774-6051, 413/774-6053 (fax... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

Americus, Georgia-based Habitat for Humanity International is well-known for its coordination of locally based affordable housing projects. Working largely with donated materials and volunteer labor, Habitat (with its many local affiliates) is now one of the nation’s twenty largest homebuilders. Minimizing environmental impact has not... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

Real Goods has decided that it will no longer sponsor the National Tour of Independent Homes and is looking for another organization to take over the event. During its first three years, the Tour has been a big success, with 25,000 people having visited hundreds of homes and seeing first-hand the potential of renewables. Organizations... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan. Island Press, Washington, D.C., 1996. 200 pages; hardcover $40.00; paperback $19.95.

Coauthors Van der Ryn and Cowan define ecological design as design that “minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.” Ecology, they argue, should be the basis of design; it... Read more