• Cannon Beach Cottage, a 2,268 ft2... Read more

Environmental Health Perspectives. About 15% of that cost burden can be attributed to the emissions of coal-fired power plants, according to the study, which was performed by... Read more

The third-party certifier Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) confirmed in March 2005 that Owens Corning has increased the average recycled content of its fiberglass insulation from 30% to 35%. The insulation now includes 9% post-consumer and 26% post-industrial recycled content. (For more information about insulation, see

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Vol. 13, No. 3) is seeking presentation proposals for its upcoming conference, Building Materials Reuse and Recycling: Decon ’05. The conference will be held November 7 and 8, 2005, in Atlanta, just before the U.S. Green Building Council’... Read more

At press time, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire was expected within days to sign into law a bill passed on March 30, 2005, by the Washington State legislature requiring Silver-level certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating System for all major construction projects built with public funds. Executive orders and... Read more

The Marco Island City Council voted four to two in March 2005 to ban artificial turf, in response to a dispute between homeowner Ed Ehlen and his neighbors (see

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Vol. 14, No. 2). While Ehlen argued that his synthetic lawn’s water savings made it environmentally friendly, the city council countered that the lawn’s rubber... Read more

Green interiors expert Penny Bonda and BuildingGreen’s Nadav Malin have teamed up to offer the

Green Guru Tour of NeoCon. On this tour, a group of dedicated design professionals will join Bonda and Malin as they visit the showrooms of leading furniture and furnishing manufacturers. They will sit down for in-depth conversations with top... Read more

phantom load effect of external power supplies (also called adapters, chargers, transformers, and wall warts) is well known. As long as they’re plugged into wall outlets, those little voltage- and current-converting boxes on the power cords of small appliances—ranging from computer printers and cordless tools to baby monitors and electric... Read more

“Insulation: Thermal Performance is Just the Beginning” [

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Vol. 14, No. 1] was another very informative article. Some specific comments:

1) Regarding polysio insulation, if the conductivity of the hydrocarbon blowing agent is indeed lower than HCFC-141b, then the insulation performance should be better, not worse.

A bill being considered by the Oregon legislature could be the first in the U.S. to ban the deca form of the polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) class of flame retardants. If passed and signed into law, the ban of decaBDE would take place by 2008. The proposed law would also ban by 2006 the penta and octa forms of PBDE, two chemicals that have... Read more

BuildingGreen Suite. Case studies are published through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) High Performance Buildings Database. Selected projects in the database are also featured on:

•DOE High... Read more

A national renewable portfolio standard requiring that 20% of all energy used in the U.S. come from renewable sources by 2020 would dramatically improve the economy, according to a study released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The plan would create a net gain of more than 157,000 jobs while saving families and businesses $49... Read more