A study published in

Forest Products Journal in June 2007 found that wood treated with copper azole or alkaline copper quaternary compound (ACQ) to both above-ground and ground-contact levels is prone to damage from brown-rot fungi. Both chemicals were introduced to replace chromated copper arsenate for residential use several years ago... Read more

One of the largest waste collection and recycling companies operating in the U.S., Waste Management, Inc., has acquired an existing business, LampTracker, which offers a mail-back recycling program for fluorescent lamps. The company sells special containers for collecting and shipping fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lamps, and other... Read more

The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and the Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada (BOMA Canada) have discontinued negotiations towards a cooperative relationship. According to Nancy Grenier, manager of communications for CaGBC, the two organizations had been pursuing a relationship in which they would promote each others’... Read more

Until recently, builders using structural insulated panels (SIPs) had to work with an architect or engineer to prove the technique was equivalent structurally to those spelled out in the International Residential Code. In May 2007, the International Code Council (ICC) adopted prescriptive specifications and installation details for SIPs into... Read more

Thank you for your recent article on light bulb bans [see

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Vol. 16, No. 4]. It was well documented and had good points about the value of improving incandescent lamps rather than banning them. Incandescent lamps still have their place in some situations, and it would make no sense to replace every incandescent bulb with a... Read more

Six organizations have joined forces to create a design guide focused on indoor air quality (IAQ) in nonresidential buildings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initially decided to fund a design guide and reached a cooperative agreement with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. A memorandum of... Read more

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Vol. 13, No. 8] with new data, Lisa Fay Matthiessen and Peter Morris of Davis Langdon still come to the same conclusion. There are so many huge cost factors in construction that it is not possible to detect any statistically significant difference between... Read more

Fear of infection is hardly a new phenomenon, but it seems to have risen to a fever pitch in recent years. Modern medicine appeared to have all but conquered infectious disease decades ago—but in the last three decades our society’s confidence in that victory has unraveled. Diseases like AIDS, anthrax, “mad cow disease,” severe acute... Read more

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The International Code Council (ICC) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) have agreed to create a green building educational manual for code... Read more

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Underfloor air distribution (UFAD) is an approach to ventilation in commercial and institutional buildings in which conditioned air is distributed... Read more

In passing the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, Congress required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to test pesticides for disruption of the human endocrine system, which produces and regulates hormones. After years of delays, EPA announced in June 2007 that it would test 73 pesticides that people commonly encounter in homes and... Read more

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Recycling old carpet into new is a major focus of the carpet industry, but most post-consumer recycled carpet currently enters new carpet through carpet... Read more

I read with interest your article on photoactive titanium dioxide (TiO2) in concrete [see

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Vol. 16, No. 5]. I have been following the product launch for several years, have published articles on the technology, and have spoken about the material at an American Concrete Institute’s nanotechnology conference. My research has... Read more

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Buildings with large expanses of glazing can suffer dramatic cooling energy requirements and create glare problems for occupants. Façade shading systems... Read more

On May 4, 2007, the U.S. Green Building Council expanded a previous ruling regarding Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification (see

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Vol. 16, No. 5) by endorsing a LEED innovation point proposal from two related certification programs: the SMART Building Product Standard and the California Gold Carpet Standard. As with C2C, these... Read more

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The Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH), a program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has... Read more

For the second time, the Holcim Awards, sponsored by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, are open to entries (see

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Vol. 15, No. 8). The awards recognize projects that meet housing and infrastructure needs without harming future generations. Projects are eligible for the competition if construction had not... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced in June 2007 its intention to commit $1 million to green building research, including areas such as human health and productivity, climate change mitigation, the business case for green building, and passive survivability. The structure and schedule for funding by USGBC have not been determined... Read more