A new car-sharing program was launched last November in San Francisco. Joining similar programs in Portland and Seattle,

City CarShare began with 30 members, a handful of vehicles, and 12 parking spaces set aside at four city-owned parking garages. Members pay a one-time refundable fee of $300 to join, a $10 monthly administrative fee,... Read more

Perspective:

Hospice Ecology

Reading dozens of environmental publications and hundreds of e-mailed news stories each month gives one a pretty tough skin. There’s a lot of depressing stuff going on—from mushrooming sprawl, to increasing incidence of asthma in children, to almost-daily new evidence of global warming. Somehow I manage... Read more

Temple-Inland’s Green Drywall

For the first time, builders and architects can specify gypsum wallboard with a certified recycled content of 99%. Temple-Inland—with distribution to most areas of the Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest—earned Scientific Certification System’s green cross and globe emblem for wallboard products being manufactured in... Read more

The City of Portland, Oregon’s new Office of Sustainable Development has formulated a series of initiatives aimed at greening both municipal and private-sector buildings. The new office was created in September 2000 by combining the City’s Energy Office with the Solid Waste and Recycling Division and adding a Green Building Division. The City’s... Read more

In January 2000 (

Vol. 9, No. 1), we reported on the just-released

National Resources Inventory (NRI) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, which tracks land uses every five years. The 1997 USDA figures, it turns out, were incorrect due to a software error. The reported rate at which open... Read more

The

National Conference on Building Commissioning is now accepting nominations for the third annual Benner Award, a prize for excellence in efforts to make commissioning business as usual. Nominations are due March 1, 2001. Criteria and instructions are available at:

www.peci.org/ncbc/2001/benner.html.

On January 15, 2001 Maharaj Muthoo took over as the new Executive Director of the

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Dr. Muthoo has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and has devoted the past 30 years to issues of social and economic development and environmental management. For 15 years, he was the Director of Forestry Operations... Read more

Newsbriefs

Berkebile Nelson Immenschuh McDowell Architects (BNIM), a leader in the sustainable design movement, has moved its downtown Kansas City headquarters to the landmark Power & Light Building. BNIM will occupy the first three stories of the building. With its renovation of the space and signing of a ten-year lease, the firm hopes to... Read more

Awards & Competitions

The Van Geet residence in Idaho Springs, Colorado received a first place Technology Award from the

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) at its 2001 Winter Meeting in Atlanta. Total cost of heating and powering the home during 1999 was $100, thanks to passive and... Read more

Product Brief

Paint recycler

Amazon Environmental, Inc. has teamed up with paint manufacturer and distributor

Dunn-Edwards Corp. to offer recycled latex paint in six states: California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. This significantly expands the reach of Amazon Environmental and will result in a doubling of... Read more

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) has established the

New Jersey Green Homes office. Residing within the Division of Housing and Community Resources, the office’s mission is “to fundamentally improve the environmental performance, energy efficiency, quality, and affordability of housing in New Jersey.” The Green Homes... Read more

The Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, California covers 12 acres (4.9 ha) with carefully restored wetlands, oak-savanna habitat, organic gardens, and edible landscaping. Where once there were flash-flood-prone gullies almost devoid of soil, today visitors to the demonstration center can listen to songbirds as they walk along the paths or... Read more

David E. Brown, Mindy Fox, and Mary Rickel Pelletier, editors. Earth Pledge Foundation, 149 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016, 212/573-6968,

www.earthpledge.org. Available through Chelsea Green Publishing Co. Paperback, 324 pages, $17.

This small, elegantly produced handbook provides a great panorama of the theory and practice of... Read more

iiSBE Isn’t Out to Compete

I appreciated the good coverage you provided on the SB2000 conference and the GBC process (

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 1). You also quoted David Gottfried as expressing a concern that iiSBE’s organizers were “...actively undermining his efforts to promote the World Green Building Council. “ I think a little... Read more

Recycled-content EPS Insulation from Polar Industries

Polar Insulation Foam Panel Products

Polar Industries of Prospect, Connecticut, manufactures a line of rigid foam insulation building products using recycled expanded polystyrene (EPS). EPS scrap from Polar building product and packaging plant operations, as well as waste... Read more

Industry-wide Takeback Program for Carpet

One of the most dramatic transformations in the world of building products appears to be under way in the carpet industry. On January 18, the Midwestern Workgroup on Carpet Recycling announced that all stakeholders have agreed on a national carpet takeback program. Under this plan, manufacturers would... Read more

A ballot initiative that passed in Oregon on November 7, 2000 is worrying both environmentalists and fiscal conservatives.

Measure 7, approved by a margin of 54% to 46%, amends the Oregon constitution to require state and local governments to reimburse private property owners when regulations reduce the value of their property. It... Read more

The call for entries for the

Sustainable Design Award Program sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects/AIA and AIA New York is available on the BSA Web site (www.architects.

org), by e-mail at bsa@architects.org, or by phone at 617/951-1433 x221. The Sustainable Design Award is open to any project of any type anywhere in the... Read more

The 32,000 ft

2 (3,000 m

2)

Philip Merrill Environmental Center that serves as Headquarters for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland, is the first building to achieve the highest Platinum rating under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System. As noted in

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 4, this... Read more

Newsbriefs

The Energy Efficient Building Association (EEBA) is now the

Energy and Environmental Building Association. Serving the residential building and building science community since 1982, EEBA has extended its focus beyond energy efficiency to resource efficiency for a number of years. EEBA’s new and forward-thinking Executive... Read more