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

® landscape timbers, fencing, and pavers made from 100% post-consumer plastics, closed its doors in February. The Stamford, Connecticut company survived perennial capital shortages over its 15 years until an accident last April left owner Celeste Johnson unable to maintain sales streams, which plummeted more... 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.

11 liters) of diesel fuel each year, emitting over 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Facing a predicted 25% increase in these numbers by 2012, EPA launched a new program in February focused on making America’s... Read more

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

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

Please explain what makes “polyester yarn … impregnated with an acrylic-based material” fire resistant, as claimed in the article “PVC-Free Interior Shade Screening from Nysan” (

Vol. 12, No. 12). As far as we know, polyester and acrylics are both flammable.

Tim Burns, President

The Vinyl Institute

Arlington,... 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

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

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 11), plans to build its newest manufacturing facility, in Chandler, Arizona, according to LEED

® standards. Charlie Popeck, cohost of the PBS show

Build It Green!, is acting as green building consultant on the 108,000 ft

2 (... 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

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

In its Beyond 2000 Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) set a goal of reducing nonmunicipal solid waste by 88% by 2010. In order to reach that goal, the SWMP has proposed banning the disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) waste at both private and municipally owned landfills... 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

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

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

“Renewable energy sources could provide the equivalent to today’s production of both thermal and nuclear power combined.” While such a claim might be expected from environmentalists, this conclusion came from the

Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition, a unique alliance of Canadian corporations (including energy producers Shell Canada, BP... Read more