In response to your article “Chemistry for Designers: Understanding Hazards in Building Products,” (see EBN Mar. 2010) the American Chemistry Council (ACC) would like to emphasize that architects, designers, builders, and consumers deserve to have confidence that the products they choose, when used for their intended purposes, are safe. Because... Read more

Our April EBN feature article--"Passive House Arrives in North America: Could it Revolutionize the Way We Build?"--went online today. This was a fun article to research and write, because it put me in touch with my low-energy building roots. Until digging into the history of Wolfgang Feist's German Passivhaus standard, I hadn't realized that... Read more

Permaculture—a compound of the words “permanent” and “agriculture”—is a design approach that integrates human communities and agricultural systems by mimicking complex ecological relationships. Permaculture focuses on the interrelation and placement of plants, animals, buildings, and infrastructure in the landscape, emphasizing food production... Read more

After a year-long development process, the International Code Council (ICC) released its International Green Construction Code (IGCC) on March 15, 2010. Developed in partnership with The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and ASTM International, IGCC (see EBN Aug. 2009) had been anticipated to provide competition to Standard 189—the code-... Read more

The last several weeks I've written about common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green, that green building is mostly about materials, that green products don't work as well as conventional products, and that it's hard to find green products. This week I'll cover the myth that adding solar panels is the best way to... Read more

InPro Corporation was founded in 1979 as Institutional Products Corporation (IPC). Originally a distributor of high-impact door and wall-protection products for the healthcare industry, IPC began its own manufacturing in 1986, changed its name to InPro Corporation in 1995 (cleverly retaining IPC), and today is one of the leading producers of a... Read more

Connecticut lawmakers have proposed a bill that would dedicate $6 million to fund a green jobs loan forgiveness program.

The program would provide incentive for Connecticut residents looking for work in fields like renewable energy, alternative fuels, or hazard-free product design, awarding as much as $2,500 annually (for up to four... Read more

The last few weeks I've written about common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green, that green building is mostly about materials, and that green products don't work as well as conventional products. This week I'll cover the myth that green building products are hard to find.

When I first started writing about... Read more

The latest draft of LEED’s proposed new Forest Certification credit includes a significant change from the previous version—and stakeholders on all sides are sounding alarms.

While the previous public comment draft—the second version—took an all-or-nothing approach to endorsing certification programs, the current (third) draft now... Read more

As you may know, USGBC responded to the longstanding call for regionalization of LEED by establishing Regional Priority Credit 1 (RPc1) in its LEED 2009 family of rating systems (NC, CS, CI, Schools, EBOM).

Regional priority credits are identified by USGBC... Read more

A lot of people still point to products like early water-... Read more

Ever since the premier of USGBC's two-day REGREEN workshop in Phoenix, AZ at Greenbuild last November, Annette, Rob, and I have been gearing up for a slew of green remodeling workshops across the country -- the REGREEN Roadshow. The REGREEN workshops are a lot of fun to teach (and take) for two reasons: one, the blend of builder/remodeler with... Read more

The following is a video that we recorded at our booth at the 2009 Greenbuild conference, when we transformed BuildingGreen's booth into the "Ask LEEDuser" experience, including talks on specific credits from LEEDuser's "guest experts"--the top LEED minds on specific LEED credits.

Here, Joshua Radoff of YRG sustainability reviews some... Read more

By Charles Linn, FAIA
With the southern winds gusting across the prairie at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour, and the temperature well below zero Fahrenheit on a recent January afternoon, it challenged the imagination to accept that all of the toasty warmth of Manitoba Hydro Place was being generated by renewable sources—the sun and... Read more

Last week I wrote about one of the common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green. This week, I'll tackle another myth: that green building is mostly about materials.

This isn't quite as significant a misconception as it was a few years ago, but there are still a lot of people who think green building is largely... Read more