A recent design team solicitation from the Architect of the Capitol placed a whopping

25% of its selection criteria on the teams’ green design capabilities. “We believe this level of emphasis is a new high-water mark for the federal government,” said Terrel Emmons, FAIA, director of Planning and Programming. The project, being procured... Read more

The Apollo Alliance, a unique coalition of labor, environmental, civil rights, business, and political leaders, has announced its vision of achieving energy independence in ten years. According to a study released by the Apollo Alliance in January, a $300 billion federal investment in renewable energy and green buildings over ten years would... Read more

™ vapor retarder, which changes permeability according to relative humidity, has been awarded an Innovative Housing Technology Award in the energy category from the NAHB Research Center and EH Publishing. CertainTeed is online at www.certainteed.com. See

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 11 for a review of MemBrain.

A new program is making it easier for Puget Sound residents to make their homes more efficient. Through a partnership with Efficiency Services Group (a division of Portland General Electric), HomeStreet Bank has started the

Mortgage Options for Resource Efficiency (MORE™) program. Participants in the program receive custom home energy... Read more

At the beginning of March 2004, the U.S. Green Building Council released a draft of the LEED

® for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) Rating System for review by Council members during a 30-day comment period. LEED-EB is designed to certify the ongoing operations and maintenance of facilities, including upgrades to building systems. It is not... Read more

Civano, in southeast Tucson, Arizona, was named Best New Community in

Sunset Magazine’s annual Best Places to Live story. The 818-acre (330 ha), mixed-use community was designed around New Urbanist ideals, with a strong sense of community and place (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 7). The homes use 50% less energy... Read more

The

Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, which recently trademarked the name Built Green

® for its residential green building program (the largest in the nation), has issued a cease and desist request against Vermont’s

Building for Social Responsibility (BSR) over its use of the name Vermont Built Green for its own... Read more

The

Hayward Corporation, which produces FSC-certified wood products and other green building materials (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6 and

Vol. 10, No. 4), has achieved a LEED

® v2 Gold rating for its Hayward Building Systems plant in Santa Maria, California. The 55,000 ft

2 (5,100 m

2) facility... Read more

Interface Flooring has sold more than a million square yards (840,000 m

2) of climate-neutral

Cool Carpet™ since its introduction in August 2003 (see

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 10). Through the Cool Carpet initiative, customers are funding greenhouse-gas reduction projects to offset the emissions resulting from the carpet... Read more

The Boston Society of Architects has approved the Institution Recycling Network (IRN) to offer American Institute of Architects

Learning Units in construction waste management. IRN, based in Concord, New Hampshire, is a cooperative organization that works to improve the financial and operating performance of recycling programs at... Read more

The California Division of the State Architect (DSA) has issued an “Acceptance Criteria Document” for zero-water consumption urinal fixtures that is helping to clear the way for nonflushing urinals in California schools and state-owned buildings. With this document, “DSA addresses those sections of the code that were controversial, and says... Read more

Global climate change will prompt

widespread extinction within decades, according to an international group of 19 scientists. The group studied more than 1,000 species representing roughly 20% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and found that, if current warming trends continue, 15–37% of them will be “committed to extinction” by 2050.... Read more

EBN... Read more

David L. Grumman, editor. American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., 2004, paperback, 170 pages, $99 ($79 for ASHRAE members). Contact ASHRAE Customer Service at 1-800-527-4723 or 404-636-8400, or visit the ASHRAE.org Bookstore.

Engineers can be a literal bunch. A chapter in the

ASHRAE... Read more

Traces of fluoxetine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in the drug

Prozac, have been found in fish in central Texas, according to a Baylor University study led by toxicologist Dr. Bryan Brooks. “Maybe it makes you a happy fish and you’re kind of hanging out,” said Brooks, but he questions the drug’s effect on the ability of fish to... Read more

Last October’s issue of

EBN (

Vol. 12, No. 10) was another great one. My non-expert two cents on the filtration issue is that the best way to do HVAC in buildings (at least buildings other than single-family homes) is to separate space conditioning, which is an intermittent load, from ventilation, which is always present during... Read more

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City has rejected a Bush Administration plan to lower energy-efficiency standards for air-conditioners. The lawsuit,

Natural Resources Defense Council v. Abraham, was brought by NRDC, consumer groups, and attorneys general from ten states. Clinton Administration standards, which mandate... Read more

Governor James E. McGreevey of New Jersey announced the adoption of

new stormwater-control regulations in January that are being hailed as the most comprehensive in the nation. The new rules establish a 300-foot (90 m) buffer around more than 6,000 stream miles (9,650 km) along high-quality waterways. They also establish a goal of... Read more