When a regional astronomy club based in Springfield, Vermont raised opposition to a new state prison slated for the town, the state hired lighting engineer (and new

EBN Advisory Board member) Nancy Clanton to come up with a plan for reducing light pollution in the prison design. While her firm came up with an outdoor lighting plan for... Read more

Greenpeace has a new building products directory called the PVC Alternatives Database – Building the Future. The fully searchable international database lists over 236 (and counting) PVC-free products for the following building components: roofing, insulation, exterior cladding, windows and doors, flooring, wallcoverings, piping, and—often the... Read more

It’s never good to misquote a source, but it’s especially embarrassing when that source is one’s own research! In our “Buildings and the Environment: The Numbers” feature article (

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Vol. 10, No. 5) we listed the amounts of paved area in the U.S. in millions instead of thousands. The correct values are:

Collins Products LLC has received Green Cross certification from Scientific Certification Systems, Inc. that its particleboard is manufactured entirely from post-industrial waste fibers. While most particleboard manufactured today contains a high percentage of wood waste from other manufacturing processes, Collins has made an unusual commitment... Read more

On Monday, April 23, The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) announced the winners of the Top Ten Green Projects initiative at the Forum 2001 Conference in Washington, D.C. Winners were selected for their success in the integration of architecture, technology, and natural systems. Contact... Read more

At the 2001 Convention of The American Institute of Architects in Denver, AIA members reacted remarkably quickly to the Bush Administrations Energy Policy, which was released as the convention got under way. On May 19, 2001 delegates passed a resolution titled “

Design and Energy Efficiency Initiative-Committee on the Environment,”... Read more

recently reported on sulfurous emissions from painted drywall (

EBN feature

Vol. 9, No. 11), but the actual source of the problem was a mystery. We now have some answers. According to Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation, some painstaking investigation and very expensive chemical sampling has identified the problem:... Read more

Advances in wireless communication and Global Positioning System

(GPS) tracking are improving mass transit. A system created by NextBus sends users automated phone alerts when a designated bus is nearing their bus stop. The system has been extensively tested in San Francisco and was recently installed in Vail, Colorado. For information... Read more

by James Wines, edited by Philip Jodidio, 2000. Taschen; Köln, Germany. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99

Green Architecture argues that technological approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of buildings are, in themselves, not enough to head off... Read more

I read with great interest your recent article “Getting the ‘Right Stuff’: A Guide to Green Building Retailers” (

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Vol. 10, No. 4). Your newsletter has always been a source of valuable, and credible, information. I would like to tell you a bit about my company and point out a couple of differences of opinion I have with your... Read more

Scientists at NREL have achieved a

new efficiency record for cadmium telluride photovoltaic cells. The new record of 16.4% beat the previous mark of 15.8%, which had stood since 1992. Cadmium telluride is an increasingly attractive PV technology. First Solar’s new 100 MW CdTe plant in Toledo, Ohio began operation this spring (see

energy simulation software. For many years, DOE-2 has been the standard energy modeling tool for large buildings and the benchmark against which other simulation tools are tested. It has some weaknesses, however, including being notoriously... Read more

California gave a big boost to small power producers in the state by

increasing the cap on power-production systems that can feed power into the grid through

net metering provisions. The cap has been increased from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt. Net metering laws or regulations in more than 30 states allow power producers to “run... Read more

by Norbert Lechner, 2001. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Hardcover, 640 pages, $85

Heating, Cooling, Lighting is one of the most useful and important books on building design in the last ten years. The book is not inexpensive, but it’s worth every penny. Norbert Lechner, an architecture professor at Auburn... Read more

has accepted a position as Vice President of the U.S. Green Building Council, with primary responsibility for technical development and implementation of the LEED™ Green Building Rating System. Until November 2000, Howard was with the Building Research Establishment in the U.K., where he oversaw that organization’s influential... Read more

Most of us have a general understanding that buildings and the process of development have a pretty big impact on the environment. But what are those impacts and just how significant are they?

consolidate Energy Star brand awareness among consumers. In a recent letter to all partners, the manager of the... Read more

The architecture and engineering firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) was among the recipients of this year’s

Green Cross Award from Global Green USA and Green Cross International, the peace and environmental organization founded by Mikhail Gorbachev. Accepting the award for HOK from Mr. Gorbachev at the April 25, 2001 gala in New... Read more

EBN, and things not to change. It was particularly interesting to compare the current results with those from our first subscriber survey conducted... Read more