BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

March 1, 1996

Wood and paper recycling could be used to achieve 10-20% of the U.S. carbon reduction goal, according to scientists at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. Recycling wood and paper reduces net carbon emissions by reducing timber harvesting, which in turn increases the amount of carbon sequestered by living trees, and by... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 1996

Thank you for the review you gave WWPA’s

Eco-Profile of Lumber Produced in the Western United States: Life Cycle Inventory of WWPA Western Lumber. Your comments on the study were both thorough and fair.

There are two issues addressed in the review which I feel deserve further comment. The first regards the possible error contained in... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996

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 reviewed

Woods of the World (WoW) in July 1994, it had lots of useful information but also lots of gaps, and... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996
EBN

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

Op-Ed

March 1, 1996

I read your lead article “Transportation Planning” in the January/February 1996 issue with great interest. A couple of years ago I and seven others entered and won the Grand Prize for a competition entitled “The Electric Vehicle and the American Community.” The programme was to imagine life in some date in the future when electric vehicles... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1996

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.

Op-Ed

January 1, 1996

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 more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

The San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA) has just announced a new Master’s Degree program in Ecological Design. A professional certificate is also available, and the program is not limited to students of architecture. Enrollment is open for the Spring 1996 semester, which begins February 26. Contact the SFIA Information Office, Box... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

Americus, Georgia-based Habitat for Humanity International is well-known for its coordination of locally based affordable housing projects. Working largely with donated materials and volunteer labor, Habitat (with its many local affiliates) is now one of the nation’s twenty largest homebuilders. Minimizing environmental impact has not... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

A bill to create the National Institute for the Environment (see

EBN

Vol. 4, No. 5) has finally been introduced in the current Congress by Representative Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and twenty cosponsors. The Institute is widely supported by business leaders, scientists, and environmentalists.

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

The distinction of being the first government body to officially adopt a straw-bale construction code goes to the Napa County (California) Board of Supervisors. The Board adopted the voluntary guidelines in California’s new law, based on Assembly Bill 1314. The guidelines still require an engineer’s stamp on all plans, however, as does every... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

by Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., August 1995. Published by Western Wood Products Association, Yeon Building, 522 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, OR 97204-2122; 503/224-3930, 503/224-3934 (fax). Spiral bound, 28 pages (not including appendices), $125.

The closer one looks at anything in nature, the more there is to look at. This fact may... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1996

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

Product Review

January 1, 1996
Many solar heating devices are handicapped by the high cost and maintenance of glazing systems. Solarwall® is a deceptively simple yet amazingly efficient system for preheating incoming air that doesn’t require glazing or any other high-maintenance parts. Generically termed a

transpired solar collector, Solarwall has initially been targeted... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

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

Op-Ed

January 1, 1996

Thanks for your article on “Establishing Priorities.”

Under saving energy, the first item: “In buildings with skin dominated loads,” incorporate high R-values. What about buildings with greater internal loads? Does it follow to use less insulation? Make it less airtight? I have a high school where the general contractor is saying, “How come... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

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

Op-Ed

January 1, 1996

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 more

News Brief

January 1, 1996

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 Analysis

January 1, 1996
In an inspiring presentation at the U.S. Green Building Council’s meeting last summer, Ray Anderson, the Chairman and CEO of one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, laid out a remarkable plan to reshape the company’s operations.

Anderson has set the company on the path toward sustainability. Awakened only within the past two years to... Read more