We at Environmental Building News wish you the very best for the new year. We hope that momentum for green building will continue despite uncertainty about the economy and the threat of war in Iraq. Even if new construction is depressed in 2003, we hope that generally rising oil prices and continued volatility in those prices will spur interest... Read more

AstroPower Inc. released in November a new line of residential solar electric power systems featuring arrays that directly replace conventional roof tiles. The system, part of AstroPower’s SunChoice™ program, includes a power meter so that homeowners can easily monitor performance. More information is at www.astropower.com.

by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, with photographs by Timothy Hursley. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 2002. Paperback, 186 pages, $30

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) honored

Miller|Hull Partnership of Seattle in December with its highest honor—the AIA Architecture Firm Award. Miller|Hull is well known for allowing local landscape and climate to inform its designs, resulting in energy efficiency, use of local materials, and regionally appropriate styles. (... Read more

encouraging their employees to work at home. Using information such as employee’s commuting distance and the make, model, and year of his or her vehicle, Teletrips’ eCommute program calculates the amount of greenhouse... Read more

Architecture for Humanity (AFH) announced the winning entries in its competition to design a mobile clinic equipped to treat rural African patients infected with HIV or AIDS and to disseminate information about the disease and its prevention. AFH received a staggering 530 entries representing 1,300... Read more

Earth Pledge’s

Green Roofs Initiative, a program dedicated to greening the rooftops of New York City, recently convened representatives from 22 New York City, New York State, District of Columbia, and federal agencies to explain vegetated roofs’ potential for reducing energy consumption, urban heat island effect, and demand on the city’... Read more

Whole Foods, the world’s largest natural foods chain, plans to install a

108-kW photovoltaic system on 18,000 square feet (1,670 m2) of its Woodland Hills, California store. The array, which will provide 25% of the store’s power needs, will be Whole Foods’ second PV system, joining a successful array atop a Berkeley, California store.... Read more

The world’s

history of lead pollution is neatly recorded in a 450-foot (135-meter) ice core drilled in Greenland, representing almost 250 years of accumulation. According to a study to be published in an upcoming issue of

Geophysical Research Letters, lead emissions skyrocketed in 1870 and climbed 300% by 1890. After a drop... Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the winners of its inaugural

National Award for Smart Growth, in four categories:

•Built Projects: Town of Breckenridge, Colorado Planning Department for... Read more

Your feature on water heating in the October 2002 EBN (

Vol. 11, No. 10) included discussion of the GFX wastewater heat recovery unit. The article suggested that this device can reduce water heating energy by 12–15% and that installing one for $500 to $800 is cost-effective. Given small savings and high costs, I wonder if the GFX makes... Read more

In July and August, three solar energy systems, designed by Steven Strong of Solar... Read more

by Ianto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley. Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction, VT, 2002. Paperback, 346 pages, $35

Beginning this month, ecological design proponents will discuss their experiences in the interface of human well-being, building design, technology, and nature through an e-mail format. “

BioInspire” will feature the work of a different guest essayist each month; Judith Heerwagen, Senior Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory... Read more

In an effort to provide low-cost, locally appropriate housing while improving Cairo’s air quality, U.S.-based Horizon International is cooperating with the Arab Environment Association to

introduce straw bale building to Egypt. Over 90% of Egypt’s rice straw is currently burned in the fields, contributing to a recurring autumnal black... Read more

Johns Manville’s decision to

replace the conventional formaldehyde binder in their building insulation with an acrylic binder (see EBN

Vol. 11, No. 3) is already reaping benefits. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared Johns Manville plants exempt from the Clean Air Act hazardous air pollutant regulation generally... Read more

More than 750 million

Energy Star®-labeled products have been purchased to date, according to the 2001 annual report just released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Additionally, more than 1,600 builders around the country have constructed over 57,000 Energy Star-labeled homes, saving homeowners more than $15 million in... Read more

Voter turnout was moderate in the recent U.S. Green Building Council Board elections. With 666 ballots cast (about 28%), six members were returned to the Council Board—including EBN Executive Editor Alex Wilson and EBN Advisory Board member David Eisenberg—and four new members were added. The complete list of newly elected Board members and... Read more

“Evaluation of LEED™ Using Life Cycle Assessment Methods” by Chris W. Scheuer and Gregory A. Keoleian, Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan. Report prepared for Barbara Lippiatt, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Document #NIST GCR 02-836, 157 pages, 1.8 MB file available... Read more