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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

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

A spokesperson for San Francisco’s Department of Environment confirmed that chances were very good that legislation would be enacted to formalize recommendations put forth in a June 2007 report by the Mayor’s Task Force on Green Building. Following the proposed recommendations, large commercial and high-rise residential buildings, both new and... Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently drafting a new specification for home plans called Designed to Earn Energy Star. EPA expects to complete the specification by the end of 2007, after two rounds of comments from stakeholders. The current version of the specification requires home plans to be accompanied by information... 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

In a July 16, 2007 ruling for the LEED for Commercial Interiors Rating System, the U.S. Green Building Council endorsed the use of carbon-neutral products to achieve an innovation point. Both the original query, which was submitted in June of 2006, and the eventual ruling contain extensive qualifications and restrictions on this path to an... Read more

McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MDBC) has released a draft of the version two criteria for its Cradle to Cradle (C2C) product certification program. The most significant changes to C2C, which certifies an array of consumer and building products based on MBDC’s environmental philosophy, are a new “Basic” level of certification and... 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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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

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

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

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

The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative, started in February 2007, continues to grow. Created by five states—Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington—the alliance grew to include Utah and, recently, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba. The initiative requires the signatory states to work together to... Read more

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Those who remember the 1970s houses with two parallel exterior walls and an airspace between them circulating solar heat around the house may be doing... Read more

At its annual convention in Baltimore, Maryland, in June 2007, the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) announced its forthcoming GreenFormat product data-reporting tool. GreenFormat is a Web-based questionnaire and product listing service that manufacturers can use to report on environmental aspects of their products. BuildingGreen, Inc... Read more

The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) will undertake a global project to encourage retrofitting buildings with energy-efficient technologies, former President Bill Clinton announced in May 2007. The program brings together several energy service companies and banks to help initiate and finance retrofit programs in 15 cities around the world,... Read more