News Brief
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 Analysis
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
News Brief
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 moreNews Analysis
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
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
Product Review
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
Op-Ed
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 moreFeature
If our goal is to reduce the overall environmental impact of our building projects, we must begin paying more attention to the role automobiles play in these projects. Even the most environmentally responsible house—for example, an energy-independent, passive-solar house, built of salvaged and recycled materials, with graywater separation—will... Read more
News Brief
Environmental Building Consultants, 312 A Jefferson Ave., Cheltenham, PA 19012-2021; 215/663-1611, 215/663-1637 (fax), ehouse@omni.voicenet.com (e-mail); $50 for PC or Macintosh diskette containing database and software to run it.
This initial release of an IAQ products database contains about 450 listings... Read more
News Brief
Building Industry Professionals for Environmental Responsibility (BIPER) is a new lobbying group founded to counter the frequently anti-environmental message governments receive from mainstream industry organizations. Annual membership is $35. Three levels of membership allow members to choose the frequency of contacts from the... Read more
Product Review
... Read more
News Analysis
With the Internet distribution this past August of a draft synthesis report by the three Working Groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suddenly global warming is back in the news. The report concludes that “the observed increase [in global temperature] over the last century (0.3°C–0.6°C... Read more
News Brief
The DuPont Benedictus Awards for Innovation in Architectural Laminated Glass may have a significant environmental flavor in 1996 with the inclusion of two prominent “green” architects on the jury. Bob Berkebile of BNIM Architects in Kansas City, Missouri and Randolph Croxton, Croxton Collaborative Architects, New York City, have both been... Read more
Product Review
For years polystyrene has been just about the only game in town for exterior foundation insulation. The problem is that
extruded polystyrene—the type of polystyrene most commonly used on foundations—is produced with HCFCs that deplete ozone, and
all polystyrene (both extruded and... Read more
News Analysis
How can we be confident that a particular manufacturer or company is committed to environmental improvements? There are certification systems for specific environmental claims, or for particular products, but as the best management practices and environmental goals evolve, how do we know that the... Read more
Op-Ed
I very much appreciate your recognition of the need for and efforts to identify priorities for “green building” (whatever that is). Such priorities can either be defined implicitly by the buildings a “green designer” creates or by some systematic process based on a hierarchy of environmental problems. Your... Read more
Explainer
now being manufactured in Perrytown, Texas, can be used in place of both framing and drywall in partition walls. At $19 each for 4’ by 8’ (1200 mm by 2400 mm) panels, they are very competitive with conventional stud framing within a reasonable shipping distance from the plant. The panels... Read more
News Brief
Voluntary certification of product environmental claims is a useful option, but it does little to prevent bogus claims by other manufacturers. A 1990 California law attempts to address this problem by establishing legal definitions for the terms “ozone friendly,” “biodegradable,” “photodegradable,” “recyclable,” and “recycled.” Companies are... Read more
News Brief
published by Thousand Words, P.O. Box 9034, Berkeley, CA 94709; 510/883-0433, otg@ontheground.com (e-mail). $32 per year for four issues. Length varies: 32-36 pages.
On the Ground is a large-format, quarterly journal on community, landscape design, and the environment that premiered in the Fall of... Read more
News Brief
Environmental Committee, Denver Chapter, AIA, and Colorado Chapter, ADPSR. 1995. Loose-leaf (without binder) or diskette (PC or Macintosh), $29.95. Order from: AIA Denver/SDRG, 1562 15th Street, Denver, CO, 80202; 303/446-2266, 303/446-0066 (fax).
Greatly improved from last year’s first edition, this... Read more


