Most waterless urinals, including those from... Read more

Benefiting from the 30% federal tax credit for energy improvements

There are some great opportunities right now to upgrade your home energy performance with support from federal tax credits. These tax credits, created as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 greatly expanded tax credits that had been put in place... Read more

As of January 2010, new single-family homes in Hawaii must be equipped with solar thermal water heating in order to receive a building permit.

When this law was passed in 2008, roughly 25% of Hawaiians were using the sun to heat their domestic hot water (see EBN Aug. 2008). Tax credits of 35% and a $1,000 rebate were available while the... Read more

 We've promoted the Forest Stewardship Council's wood certification program in the pages of Environmental Building News since FSC was formed back in 1994. We've always looked for companies offering FSC-certified wood products to highlight in EBN and GreenSpec. Over the years, most of those products have been from small companies; larger more... Read more

One of the greatest challenges to energy improvements is the financing needed to make those improvements.... Read more

Here at BuildingGreen.com, we recently announced our picks for the Top-10 green building products of 2009. The list is a pretty cool selection of newer products that could come in handy on your 2010 green projects. But what were your picks? If you were a subscriber to BuildingGreen.com (which, I feel compelled to add, is a steal at our trial... Read more

How to build a stronger country and a cleaner planet

Last week's column took a quick look at the science of climate change and how scientific hypotheses have shifted over time based on new... Read more

Global warming deniers have garnered a lot of attention in recent years. From opinion columns and letters in our local newspaper to heated reporting on Fox News (whose trademarked slogan "Fair & Balanced" is often anything but), those who doubt the underlying science of global warming are receiving unprecedented access to the American... Read more

As green building takes hold, so too do concerns about litigation and the need for better contracting mechanisms (see

EBN Dec. 2009). Both The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and ConsensusDOCS have released new model contract addenda to address these concerns.

On December 9, 2009, the New York City Council passed a package of legislation, known as the “Greener, Greater Buildings Plan,” that it says will reduce the city’s carbon footprint by 5%—a figure that has been compared to the entire carbon footprint of Oakland, California.

In December 2009 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled the final version of the California Climate Adaptation Strategy, a project of the California Natural Resources Agency examining the likely impacts of climate change on the state and proposing a suite of adaptation measures.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released a study in November 2009 that confirms a link between Chinese-manufactured drywall and high levels of hydrogen sulfide in homes; the study also links the drywall to metal corrosion.

EBN Nov. 2006). After considering manufacturer claims about safety, energy efficiency, and total cost, NEMA concluded, as did

EBN in... Read more