Whether or not you believe that climate change is happening, implementing resilient design strategies will make you and your family safer—and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions Our completed house and restored barn — which provides a model of resilience.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

 

Using... Read more

Green Globes has a new leader and powerful industry backers. But is it truly “better, faster, cheaper”—or none of the above? We match it up point-by-point with LEED in this special members-only event.

LEED has 37 times more certified projects than Green Globes. LEED recently clocked three billion square feet of space while Green Globes... Read more

A new exterior plaster made in Switzerland with silica aerogel could replace spray-foam in tricky retrofit applications. Exterior insulation retrofits are always a challenge, particularly with stucco-clad masonry buildings. A new option, currently available only in Europe, promises to open up a significant new frontier: a lightweight plaster that... Read more

DOE aims to tighten energy standards for fluorescent lamps, claiming it will save $8 billion in electricity over the next 30 years. Lighting constitutes 20% of total electricity use in the U.S.—and while LEDs may be the future, the ubiquitous fluorescent tube is responsible for 42% of the nation’s lighting energy, according to a U.S. Department of... Read more

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is finding that soil vapors are bringing long-ago buried pollution into basements and houses.

A Minnesota state agency is currently reviewing 293 sites where it thinks vapor intrusion from soil might be putting people at risk—but its not radon they’re concerned about; it is industrial solvents dumped... Read more

100% of fiberglass batt installations surveyed in New Zealand included mistakes likely to compromise thermal performance. Of 58 New Zealand homes that installed fiberglass batts for insulation, none followed best practices for installation, according to an audit in New Zealand.

The audit, which was conducted for New Zealand’s Energy Efficiency... Read more

Using biobased content in building products in place of petrochemicals seems like a no-brainer, but in order for that content to have a positive environmental benefit, it has to come from a responsible source and function as well as or better than the material it replaces.

Most biobased coatings, such as milk paint, are generally not... Read more

A new guide from Legrand highlights how to maximize and monetize data from submeter dashboards. In a white paper sharing lessons learned in its own facilities, Legrand, a leading manufacturer of electrical equipment, reviews the benefits and challenges of utilizing submeters—small meters placed on electrical lines to monitor energy consumption of... Read more

Greenwash Action is in a campaign to defend LEED against what it is calling industry attacks.

Greenwash Action, a joint initiative of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, is gearing up to defend LEED and campaign for changes to Green Globes—the green building rating system that the organization claims has been complicit in a greenwashing scheme.... Read more

Two new resources explain the strengths and limitations of life-cycle assessments for practitioners and the general pubic.

Two free resources are now available to help demystify life-cycle assessment (LCA) for different audiences.

The “Athena Guide to Whole-Building LCA in Green Building Programs” is intended to help designers... Read more

The law forbids state building projects to pursue points for material transparency and optimization in LEED v4. Spurred by the chemical industry, the State of Ohio in February moved to effectively ban LEED v4 for state projects. This month, the State of South Carolina took a narrower path toward the same goal by banning a specific LEED v4 credit (... Read more

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has been busy churning out report after report. Rather than tuning out, we should be reading closely. Forty-four years after the first Earth Day in 1970 (when I was a teenager and the Earth Day Coordinator in my junior high school), a lot has been accomplished in the U.S.: cleaner water,... Read more

Canadian cities outrank U.S. in overall resilience, according to a Grosvenor report, but U.S. cities get high marks for adaptive capacity.

In the interest of analyzing the best cities for long-term real estate investment, the international property group Grosvenor recently ranked the resilience of 50 cities across the world. Toronto,... Read more

Two Wisconsin public housing projects achieved LEED on a budget, and one is the first completed project to achieve LEED Silver in Neighborhood Development.

The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee is celebrating LEED certification for two of its recent affordable housing projects—Westlawn Gardens, a neighborhood redevelopment project... Read more

An interactive platform from RTKL helps designers choose and implement sustainability strategies that will have the greatest impact on triple-bottom-line values.

The international architecture firm RTKL recently released a free online tool called the DART to help designers maximize the value of a project in terms of sustainability goals. The... Read more

These “smooth operators” and other behind-the-scenes superstars will be honored at a June awards ceremony in NYC.

Existing buildings represent our greatest opportunity to conserve energy and water, and the EBie awards, in their third year, aim to make that hard work just a little more glamorous. Urban Green Council has announced its... Read more

The International Well Building Institute (IWBI), creator of the WELL building standard, has announced a partnership with the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), the body that certifies LEED buildings and accredits LEED professionals. According to a joint press release, the collaboration will help streamline dual certification to... Read more

As a result of the severe drought in California, St. Helena City Council announced mandatory water rationing for its homes effective January 2014. It imposed a limit of 65 gallons per person per day—one-third of the average water consumption in the state—with a $374 charge for every 748 gallons above the limit to take effect in a few... Read more

The 2014 American Institute of Architects (AIA) COTE Top Ten Green Projects were selected in the most competitive program ever, with more than 80 submissions—not including those submitting for the “Top Ten Plus” award for ongoing high performance from a past Top Ten winner.

Among the big winners in this year’s awards is the U.S... Read more

No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.
— A.A. Milne

When water pressure goes wrong in a building, you’ll find out quickly: a pipe bursts, stuff gets wet, plumbing fixtures stop working.

On the other hand, air pressure inside and outside of buildings—and... Read more