Op-Ed
The January 22nd issue of
Newsweek—with a cover story suggesting that global warming might be responsible for the season’s intense blizzards—arrived about the same time as a letter from my father-in-law. “So much for global warming,” he noted with a jab, in response to the harsh weather we were enduring.
If you look hard enough, you... Read moreNews Analysis
The Natural Step held the first of many planned one-day workshops this February in Denver, Colorado and in Marion, Massachusetts to acquaint business leaders with this innovative movement that is quickly gaining steam in Europe. The... Read more
News Brief
Tree Talk, Inc., PO Box 426, Burlington, Vermont 05402; 802/863-6789, 802/863-4344 (fax), wow@together.net (e-mail). CD-ROM Pro version: $99; CD-ROM standard version: $29.95; Compact (floppy disk) version: $19.95.
When we first reviewedWoods of the World (WoW) in July 1994, it had lots of useful information but also lots of gaps, and... Read more
News Brief
is cosponsor of the upcoming conference Use of Recycled Wood and Paper in Building Applications, which will be held on September 9-11, 1996 in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference should be the best forum to date for the exchange of information relating to use of recycled wood and paper in building applications. For information, see the... Read more
News Analysis
Northampton County, Virginia lies on the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Eastern Shore (between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean). The tiny, rural county extends roughly 30 miles in length and averages just three miles wide. Dependent largely on agriculture, the county is struggling economically and its population of 13,000—... Read more
News Brief
William McDonough Architects, of Charlottesville, Virginia was awarded a contract for design of a new environmental studies building at Oberlin College with extensive green design goals.
Product Review
transpired solar collector, Solarwall has initially been targeted... Read more
Op-Ed
Tax cuts and tax reform are getting lots of attention as we enter this election year, but a proposal that really makes sense is being heard only on the fringes.
Researchers from the Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland, author Paul Hawken, and many others have been pointing out that if we are to move towards a more... Read moreNews Brief
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
News Analysis
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
News Brief
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
News Brief
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
News Brief
by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan. Island Press, Washington, D.C., 1996. 200 pages; hardcover $40.00; paperback $19.95.
Coauthors Van der Ryn and Cowan define ecological design as design that “minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.” Ecology, they argue, should be the basis of design; it... Read moreNews Analysis
Anderson has set the company on the path toward sustainability. Awakened only within the past two years to... Read more
News Brief
A campus for the new Dreamworks Studio at Playa Vista, formed last year by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, will soon be under construction. Environmental consultant John Picard of E Squared is responsible for bringing an ecological design awareness to the project and coordinating design of the communications systems for... Read more
Op-Ed
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?
... Read moreNews Brief
Real Goods’ new “Solar Living Center” in Hopland, California will demonstrate the philosophies of energy independence and living in harmony with nature that the company preaches. Real Goods hired Sym Van der Ryn’s... Read more
News Analysis
A government program to promote high-performance commercial buildings in Canada now has three buildings under construction. In two of these cases, program administrators were surprised to discover that their stringent criteria are being met using only conventional technologies, with little or no increase in building costs. They credit this... Read more
Product Review
Cork has been used as a flooring material for more than one hundred years. Cork flooring is durable, it provides acoustical and thermal insulation, it cushions the foot, it is resistant to moisture damage and decay, it is fairly easy to clean, and it is harvested from trees in a sustainable manner. Though imported and thus energy-intensive to... Read more
News Brief
At a workshop sponsored by Environment Canada’s Winnipeg, Manitoba office, participants decided to establish the Used Building Materials Association as a networking forum and common voice for the salvage and reuse industry. With a core group of twelve American and Canadian nonprofit and for-profit salvage and reuse organizations, the... Read more




