In partnership with Forest Products Solutions, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has released “Designing and Building with FSC,” a guide designed to help building owners and green building professionals specify, build with, and account for the use of FSC-certified products. It includes background information, case studies, and sample... Read more

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Vol. 11, No. 5). MBDC aims to release... Read more

Kudos to

EBN for a superb article on the greening of healthcare [Vol. 14, No. 6]. You did an excellent job of describing how these projects are bringing health concerns into green building in ways that will have important implications for the rest of the building industry.

Members of project design teams who are interested in... Read more

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed a bill in June 2005 requiring retail electricity providers to meet all growth in demand through new renewable resources or renewable energy credits. The law affects growth through 2011. To read the bill, visit www.leg.state.vt.us (search bill S.52).

Each five-decibel increase in aircraft noise can delay a child’s reading ability by two months, according to a study of children living near airports in Europe, published in the June 4, 2005, issue of

The Lancet. “In practical terms, aircraft noise might have only a small effect on the development of reading, but the effect of long-term... Read more

Royal Philips Electronics and Novaled GmbH have reached a new record in the efficiency of high-brightness, white, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs, or light-emitting polymers). The companies have achieved 25 lumens per watt at a brightness of 1,000 candela per square meter. “This is an encouraging result that clearly demonstrates the... Read more

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order in June 2005 committing the state to reduce its greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010. While this short-term goal is only about half as aggressive as compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would be, the governor’s longer-term goals are ambitious. California will reduce its... Read more

Body & Soul Magazine, the awards honor books “that contribute significantly to conscious living... Read more

The nonprofit SustainLane has released the results of a study ranking 25 U.S. cities based on performance in 12 sustainability categories: transportation, air quality, tap-water quality, LEED® buildings, food and agriculture, zoning, land use, solid-waste diversion rate, land-use planning, city innovation, energy and climate, and knowledge base... Read more

Two dozen U.S. and European institutional investors managing more than $3.2 trillion have joined with the United Nations in calling on U.S. companies, Wall Street firms, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to analyze and disclose the financial risks posed by climate change. The investors also pledged to invest $1 billion in clean... Read more

In a June 13, 2005, decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals’ Seventh Circuit upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Construction General Permit (CGP). This permit streamlines the permitting process, allowing property owners and contractors to discharge stormwater runoff from their sites without obtaining individual permits or undergoing... Read more

The latest release of Energy-10™, the leading energy-modeling tool for small commercial buildings, provides improved integration with window data from the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) and includes the ability to model some additional HVAC system types. Developed primarily by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Energy... Read more

Fortified by a $375,000 grant from The Home Depot Foundation, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is preparing to launch a pilot test of the LEED® for Homes (LEED-H) rating system. Although the rating system itself is currently undergoing a technical review by USGBC committees, regional “Program Providers” have been selected, and the pilot... Read more

This issue represents Dan’s last as publisher of

EBN,as family matters are taking him away from Brattleboro. On paper choices and a myriad of other matters, Dan has been a fearless leader, and we’ll miss him. For the time being, publisher responsibilities will fall to Alex Wilson as executive editor. But responsibility for marketing... Read more

The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) has bid farewell to Alex Zimmerman, who had served as president of the nonprofit organization since August 2003. “I can’t say enough about Alex’s contributions to the CaGBC,” says Joe Van Belleghem, cofounder of the Council, noting that CaGBC now boasts more than 900 members and 140 registered projects... Read more

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has released a new Guideline 0-2005, “The Commissioning Process,” which describes how to verify that a facility and its systems meet the owner’s project requirements. The guideline will be used by the National Institute for Building Sciences (NIBS) as its... Read more

EBN

Vol. 12, No. 6), and Steelcase’s Think™ chair from 2004, several chairs were designed based on the Cradle-to-Cradle™ protocol... Read more

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has released “Towards a Climate-Friendly Built Environment,” a report examining the relationship between buildings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Written by a team from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the report notes that “simply bringing current building practices up to the level of best... Read more

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Forest Products Solutions (FPS) have announced a call for submissions for the first annual Designing and Building with FSC Award. Projects will be judged on the use of wood, inclusion of FSC-certified wood, efforts to progress certified forest products market transformation, overall wood design, and... Read more

Climate researchers have reported a weakening of the mechanism that keeps Great Britain temperate, the

Times of London reported on May 8, 2005. “They have found that one of the ‘engines’ driving the Gulf Stream—the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea—has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength,” the article... Read more