I wanted to tell you that my ease in passing the LEED® Accredited Professional test is in large part due to my loyal reading of your newsletter for the last several years. Thanks for your excellent coverage of green issues.

Sarah Nettleton, AIA

Sarah Nettleton Architects

Minneapolis, MN

Editors’ Response: Reading... Read more

Ten years ago, when the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) opened their doors in Oaxaca, Mexico,

Environmental Building News welcomed it as an organization with “the potential to become the global watchdog of forest management through an entirely voluntary process” (see

EBN

Vol. 3, No. 5). We also pointed out controversy... Read more

Turner Construction Company has released the results of an online survey of more than 700 building owners, developers, architects, engineers, and green building consultants. Conducted by Bayer Consulting, LLC, during July 2004, the survey revealed that 93% of executives already working on green projects expect their green business to increase... Read more

U.S. Green Building Council membership reached 5,000 on September 2, when Ro-Bar Technical Services, LLC of Boise, Idaho joined the organization. Membership had reached 4,000 in February 2004 (see EBN

Vol. 13, No. 3).

College Publishing of Glen Allen, Virginia has announced that the inaugural edition of the

Journal of Green Building will be published in Spring 2005. The peer-reviewed, technical journal will “provide a high-quality, interdisciplinary forum for advancing the state of knowledge about green building and high performance, sustainable... Read more

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has updated its Construction Waste Management Database, housed on the Whole Building Design Guide Web site, to help reduce the amount of construction and demolition waste going to incinerators and landfills. Waste haulers, processors, and recyclers are also encouraged to advertise on the Web site.... Read more

Environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) is often tagged as a solution to many technical shortcomings of LEED®. On September 29, 2004, with support from Wayne Trusty, President of the Athena™ Sustainable Materials Institute, USGBC convened a meeting of industry groups and LCA database and tool developers to establish a plan for incorporating... Read more

Following six years of development, MechoShade Systems, Inc., the shade screen industry leader, has introduced a new product aimed directly at the green market. Their PVC-free EcoVeil™—made of a new thermoplastic olefin (TPO) yarn called EarthTex™, developed by MechoShade’s textile partner, the Twitchell™ Corporation—is the first solar shade... Read more

Virtually all of the chemicals used in pressure-treated wood—CCA (chromated copper arsenate), ACQ (ammonium copper quaternary), copper azole, and even borates—are formulated to do one thing: kill organisms that decay or eat wood. It stands to reason that chemicals selected for their toxicity might also affect humans and ecosystems. Most uses of... Read more

Several regions of the country are experiencing a

shortage of portland cement, the key ingredient in concrete. According to the Portland Cement Association (PCA), among the chief causes for this shortage are increased demand in the residential sector and limited availability of ships to carry imported cement, which in turn is blamed... Read more

Ills caused by global climate change range from increased frequency of asthma and heat stroke to more intense storms and species extinction. While environmentalists go far past calling the phenomenon a “nuisance,” they are applauding eight states and one city for doing just that. The attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Iowa, New... Read more

, president of the nonprofit Trust for Sustainable Development and founder of the Villages of Loreto Bay in Baja California Sur, has been given the

Good Neighbor Award by the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit bilateral coalition of businesspeople working to promote trade, investment, and joint ventures on... Read more

Chicago Bungalow, constructed by the tens of thousands in the early 1900s to house the city’s working class. Bungalow owners can now take advantage of matching grants from the Chicago Department of Environment for up to $2,000 toward improvements in windows, doors, and insulation,... Read more

At the June 2004 American Institute of Architects (AIA) national convention in Chicago, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) rolled out a sustainability initiative, “Concrete Thinking for a Sustainable World.” Part of PCA’s Cement Manufacturing Sustainability Program, the initiative will help the industry develop sustainability guidelines,... Read more

The Natural Resources Defense Council

Robert Redford Building in Santa Monica, California has won a

Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). The building, designed by Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, simultaneously addresses green building and New Urbanist concerns (see

EBN

Vol... Read more

, warns an article in the July 2004 issue of the

Journal of Light Construction (JLC). According to Kevin Hansen, who recently investigated abandoned tannery sites in the Wilmington, Delaware region for Tetra Tech, Inc., the leather-making industry used to soak animal hides in a slurry of lime and arsenic... Read more