, one of five core businesses of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, has acquired that portion of the old

Siemens Solar Industries that they did not already own. In March 2001, Siemens AG sold a portion of their photovoltaic (PV) subsidiary, entering into a joint venture comprised of Siemens, E.ON Energie AG, and Shell. Each of... Read more

globally (with records going back to 1880), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Only 1998 was warmer. Temperatures in the United States were the sixth warmest since records were first kept in 1895. NOAA believes that conditions are ripe for 2002 to become a record-... Read more

Although the Solenium “resilient textile flooring” product introduced by Interface Flooring in 1999 (see

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Vol. 8, No. 5) is still technically available, the company stopped promoting the product in the Fall of 2001. “We have gone back to change some things with the product,” noted Rhonda Mitchell, Director of Marketing... Read more

The 70,000 ft2 (6,500 m2) Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center for Ecotrust, a nonprofit organization promoting a conservation economy along North America’s rainforest coast, has achieved a LEED™ Gold rating. It is the first historic renovation project to earn LEED 2.0 certification. Tenants in the facility include Patagonia, the Certified Forest... Read more

Agreement has been reached on the innovative

industry-wide carpet takeback program (see

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Vol. 10, No. 2), and the formal “Memorandum of Understanding for Carpet Stewardship” is scheduled to be signed on January 8, 2002 in Atlanta. Participants in the voluntary agreement include carpet and fiber manufacturers, the... Read more

Entries are due by March 1, 2002 for the

Northeast Green Building Awards, sponsored by the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust and organized by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). The competition is open to buildings—either new construction or renovations—completed after January 1, 1998 in the northeastern United... Read more

, a developer who pursued visionary environmental solutions for projects as mundane as shopping malls, died unexpectedly on November 30, 2001 at age 46, after suffering a heart attack while playing basketball. O’Connor was chairman of Gravestar Inc., the company that financed the environmental renovation of Porter Square in... Read more

The Pennsylvania chiropractic center illustrated in our November feature article (

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Vol. 10, No. 11) on “Green Roofs” was designed by Van der Ryn Architects in Sausalito, California. Dave Deppen served as the project architect. We apologize for omitting this information.

A number of green roof case studies will be... Read more

CD-ROM by Rocky Mountain Institute, 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, CO 81654, developed in cooperation with and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Kettering Family Foundation. Order online at

www.rmi.org for $20.00 (plus $2.00 for shipping & handling).

As an avid follower of your publication since its inception, I always look forward to the valuable information that comes with each issue. However, the article about Centex Homes (Newsbriefs,

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Vol. 10, No. 11) is highly misleading. We are intimately aware of how Centex does business from dealing with them on a project they... Read more

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is inviting building product manufacturers to submit data about their manufacturing processes for the forthcoming version of the BEES life-cycle assessment (LCA) software. The new “BEES Please” program aims to include product-specific LCA results alongside the more generic, industry-... Read more

in Lake Oswego, Oregon brings to three the total number of buildings certified to date under the LEED™ 2.0 Rating System. The other two are the Cambria Office Building in Edensburg, Pennsylvania (see

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Vol. 10, No. 4) and the PNC Firstside Center in Pittsburgh (see

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Henri Fennell, of Foam-Tech, in North Thetford, Vermont (which

EBN first covered in 1993 as the first company to offer non-ozone-depleting rigid polyurethane foam insulation), continues to push for greener products. Using a $10,000 grant from the State of Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, the company recently

... Read more

Its new XLerator hand dryer gets hands... Read more

Receive an award from His Majesty the King of Sweden if your project is a winner in the

Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities competition! Projects contributing to sustainability in any of 12 categories can be submitted via a Web-based form for the competition, and all valid submissions will be viewable online at

www.... Read more

You’ll notice a new look to

EBN. We’re pleased to be printing on Badger Envirographic 100, a

100% post-consumer recycled-content paper that is processed without using chlorine for bleaching. It’s better for our environment and, because it’s whiter, will mean sharper photos as well. We’ve jazzed up the covers with more color and... Read more

I was so impressed with a pre-publication copy that I... Read more

The letter criticizing vinyl in

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Vol. 10, No. 11 (“PVC Toxicity and Sustainable Materials”) was highly biased and misleading. The writer implied that burning vinyl presents a unique threat to homeowners, firefighters, and the environment. In fact, almost anything burning emits numerous toxic materials, especially carbon... Read more

last summer. Predictions were dire going into the summer months—of widespread blackouts as electricity supply was unable to keep up with demand. But cooler than normal weather, the lack of any major power plant shutdowns, and widespread energy conservation were able to stave off problems. Almost a... Read more

I would like to clarify some misinformation contained in a letter published in

Vol. 10, No. 11. The letter’s writer asserts that while lead paint has been banned, it has been replaced “with lead from vinyl siding.”