The distinction of being the first government body to officially adopt a straw-bale construction code goes to the Napa County (California) Board of Supervisors. The Board adopted the voluntary guidelines in California’s new law, based on Assembly Bill 1314. The guidelines still require an engineer’s stamp on all plans, however, as does every... Read more

by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., August 1995. Published by Western Wood Products Association, Yeon Building, 522 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR 97204-2122; 503/224-3930, 503/224-3934 (fax). Spiral bound, 28 pages (not including appendices), $125.

transpired solar collector, Solarwall has initially been targeted... Read more

A workshop on the linking and prioritizing of environmental criteria in building assessments was held this past November in Toronto. Workshop organizers had hoped that the participants would help figure out ways to prioritize environmental criteria so that practitioners in the building industry can focus the most energy and attention where they... Read more

On October 31st of last year, new fluorescent lamp standards took effect that eliminate some of the most widely used lamps in commercial buildings. Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the old standby T-12, cool-white, F40 lamp can no longer be manufactured or imported into the U.S. Lamps must now have a minimum color rendering index (CRI)—a... Read more

Your article “What’s New in Construction Waste Management” moved me to write—and to finally subscribe. I’ve been sharing a subscription with someone else, but now I feel I can’t wait for the

EBN to come my way. So be it if I’m being environmentally incorrect by ordering my own copy. Or is it? What is

EBN’s position on that?

Submissions are being accepted until February 15 for the 1996 Quality Building Conference Design Competition. New to this year’s competition is an Unbuilt Projects/Proposals category. Contact JoAnn Lawrence at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, Massachusetts 01301, 413/774-6051, 413/774-6053 (fax... Read more

Real Goods has decided that it will no longer sponsor the National Tour of Independent Homes and is looking for another organization to take over the event. During its first three years, the Tour has been a big success, with 25,000 people having visited hundreds of homes and seeing first-hand the potential of renewables. Organizations... Read more

If our goal is to reduce the overall environmental impact of our building projects, we must begin paying more attention to the role automobiles play in these projects. Even the most environmentally responsible house—for example, an energy-independent, passive-solar house, built of salvaged and recycled materials, with graywater separation—will... Read more

The company uses Norwegian manufacturing equipment to produce 4’ x 8’ (1200 mm x 2400 mm) panels in 1⁄4” (6 mm) and 1⁄8” (3 mm) thicknesses. Thicker, 1⁄2” (13 mm) panels were initially produced as well, but... Read more

AS debate heats up on a new Endangered Species Act, revisions to the Clean Water Act, and dozens of other pieces of legislation affecting the environment, it appears as if the primary endangered species is objective information. Congressional opponents of regulation, trade associations, corporations, and... Read more

The DuPont Benedictus Awards for Innovation in Architectural Laminated Glass may have a significant environmental flavor in 1996 with the inclusion of two prominent “green” architects on the jury. Bob Berkebile of BNIM Architects in Kansas City, Missouri and Randolph Croxton, Croxton Collaborative Architects, New York City, have both been... Read more

As you might imagine, information about new building products comes into the

EBN office all the time. When a new product strikes our fancy, we extract what information we can from manufacturers, we play with samples (often mutilating them in the process), we talk with any users we can track... Read more

Voluntary certification of product environmental claims is a useful option, but it does little to prevent bogus claims by other manufacturers. A 1990 California law attempts to address this problem by establishing legal definitions for the terms “ozone friendly,” “biodegradable,” “photodegradable,” “recyclable,” and “recycled.” Companies are... Read more

A few years ago, construction waste management and job-site source separation would have been considered nearly synonymous. It makes sense, after all, that if the materials have more value when separated by type, we should try to avoid mixing them together in the first place. While source separation still makes sense for many jobs and for... Read more

Choosing an environmentally friendly siding material has never been easy. Often the more “natural” products, such as wood clapboards, are associated with depletion of sensitive forest resources, while materials that are highly manufactured—such as vinyl—raise questions about chlorine and petrochemicals as... Read more

published by Thousand Words, P.O. Box 9034, Berkeley, CA 94709; 510/883-0433, otg@ontheground.com (e-mail). $32 per year for four issues. Length varies: 32-36 pages.

On the Ground is a large-format, quarterly journal on community, landscape design, and the environment that premiered in the Fall of... Read more

... Read more

Environmental Committee, Denver Chapter, AIA, and Colorado Chapter, ADPSR. 1995. Loose-leaf (without binder) or diskette (PC or Macintosh), $29.95. Order from: AIA Denver/SDRG, 1562 15th Street, Denver, CO, 80202; 303/446-2266, 303/446-0066 (fax).

Greatly improved from last year’s first edition, this... Read more

The Woodworker’s Alliance for Rainforest Protection (WARP), a leading promoter of lesser-known species and other lumber from environmentally preferable sources, is changing its name to the “Good Wood Alliance.” Reasons for the change included a recognition that the environmental issues addressed are not limited to rainforests and that not all... Read more