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.

Energy Outreach Center

Olympia... Read more

Motorists in Germany can now save on their auto insurance rates if they use public transportation. As reported in the February 23rd issue of

Global Environmental Change Report the German insurance company Rheinland (Neuss) has begun offering a 10% discount for policyowners who hold annual passes for the national railway system or for a... Read more

The January 22nd issue of

Newsweek—with a cover story suggesting that global warming might be responsible for the season’s intense blizzards—arrived about the same time as a letter from my father-in-law. “So much for global warming,” he noted with a jab, in response to the harsh weather we were enduring.

It was discovered in 1914 in Sweden that adding aluminum powder to cement, lime, water, and finely ground sand caused the mixture to expand dramatically. The Swedes allowed this “foamed” concrete to harden in a mold, and then they cured it in a pressurized steam chamber—an

autoclave.

Joseph Demkin, editor. The American Institute of Architects. Published annually by John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Three-ring-bound. $150 + $2.50 for handling. Call 800/225-5945 to order.

Environmental Resource Guide (ERG) uses an effective combination of text and graphics to convey the environmental implications of building... Read more

The Natural Step held the first of many planned one-day workshops this February in Denver, Colorado and in Marion, Massachusetts to acquaint business leaders with this innovative movement that is quickly gaining steam in Europe. The... Read more

Willammette Industries, Inc. has just retooled a particleboard mill in Eugene, Oregon to produce a higher-quality medium-density fiberboard (MDF) using at least 50% recycled wood. The mill will use wood waste from construction sites, pallets, and packing crates.

At a workshop sponsored by Environment Canada’s Winnipeg, Manitoba office, participants decided to establish the Used Building Materials Association as a networking forum and common voice for the salvage and reuse industry. With a core group of twelve American and Canadian nonprofit and for-profit salvage and reuse organizations, the... Read more

The distinction of being the first government body to officially adopt a straw-bale construction code goes to the Napa County (California) Board of Supervisors. The Board adopted the voluntary guidelines in California’s new law, based on Assembly Bill 1314. The guidelines still require an engineer’s stamp on all plans, however, as does every... Read more

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.

The San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) has just announced a new Master’s Degree program in Ecological Design. A professional certificate is also available, and the program is not limited to students of architecture. Enrollment is open for the Spring 1996 semester, which begins February 26. Contact the SFIA Information Office, Box... Read more

A workshop on the linking and prioritizing of environmental criteria in building assessments was held this past November in Toronto. Workshop organizers had hoped that the participants would help figure out ways to prioritize environmental criteria so that practitioners in the building industry can focus the most energy and attention where they... Read more

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.

Cork has been used as a flooring material for more than one hundred years. Cork flooring is durable, it provides acoustical and thermal insulation, it cushions the foot, it is resistant to moisture damage and decay, it is fairly easy to clean, and it is harvested from trees in a sustainable manner. Though imported and thus energy-intensive to... Read more

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.

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

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

Your article “What’s New in Construction Waste Management” moved me to write—and to finally subscribe. I’ve been sharing a subscription with someone else, but now I feel I can’t wait for the

EBN to come my way. So be it if I’m being environmentally incorrect by ordering my own copy. Or is it? What is

EBN’s position on that?

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

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