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

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

W. R. Grace & Company is the latest casualty in asbestos-related lawsuits. The company, which has received over 325,000 personal injury claims related to asbestos and paid out $1.9 billion to resolve suits to date, has filed for Chapter 11 protection. W. R. Grace joins Owens Corning, Armstrong Industries, and more than 20 other companies in... 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

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

EBN

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

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

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

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

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

While efforts by American industry to clean up its act have been well publicized in recent years, toxic releases appear to be on the increase. The quantity of

toxic chemicals emitted by U.S. industry grew by 5% in 1999, according to the annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A total of 7.7... Read more

in severity in many parts of the United States. In the Southeast and Northwest, drought conditions range from moderate to extreme, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In pockets of West Texas, the Central Appalachians, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Iowa, and eastern Tennessee, drought conditions... Read more

A

novel energy conservation plan in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah promises significant electricity savings. The 20-20 Program gives PacifiCorp customers at least 20% off their electricity bills this summer if they use 20% less electricity than they did last summer. While not yet approved by regulators, the program would apply to... 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

The East Lake Commons community in Dekalb County, Georgia, has received a

National AIA-HUD Housing and Community Design Award for 2001 for excellence in community design that incorporates mixed use and mixed income. East Lake Commons was designed by Village Habitat Design, LLC, with Greg Ramsey, principal-in-charge. Southface Energy... Read more

The future looks bright for brownfield sites. On April 25, the U.S. Senate passed the

Brownfields Revitalization and Environmental Restoration Act of 2001 (S.350) in a unanimous 99-0 vote. The bill, if approved by the House and signed into law by President Bush, would provide liability protection for innocent landowners and significant... Read more

(who is married to Alex) helped to launch

EBN and build our readership in the early ’90s. Now she has returned as Outreach Director and will be working on new ways to familiarize the building community with

EBN and our other products.

Among other tasks, she is contacting workshop presenters and conference... 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