BuildingGreen Report

News Analysis

December 4, 2007

With its dominant position defining green building in the North American market, the LEED Rating System is a popular target for critics with a wide range of axes to grind, some justified, others less so. One of the more valid concerns is that LEED’s promises of energy savings (and therefore carbon reductions) are just that—promises. With the... Read more

Blog Post

December 3, 2007
"Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost." —James Thurber

We talk a lot about energy efficiency here at Environmental Building News. If we follow Thurber's lead and add environmental humor to our concerns, what do we get? The green building light bulb... Read more

Blog Post

November 30, 2007
Frank and I are going to tag-team on this post. We attended a presentation at Keene State College in New Hampshire yesterday about solar-hydronic radiant space heating, given by Jack Mann of Nobis. It was arranged by BuildingGreen's pal Joseph Cincotta of LineSync Architecture as part of the "Sustainable Design and Building Science" course he... Read more

Blog Post

November 30, 2007
I'd like to call your attention to the "Editorial Radar" box on the right-hand navigation column—that brown stripe next to these posts. You may have to scroll down (or up) a little. The editors of Environmental Building News use del.icio.us social bookmarking to share links to interesting articles and other information on the internet with each... Read more

Blog Post

November 27, 2007
Over lunch today I was reading the current issue of one of my favorite publications: The Owner Builder—"The Australasian Home Builders Magazine." You can get a taste of the magazine (which is much better looking than its website) from their Sample Articles page. In publication since 1982, the first 25 issues have just been released on CD. I'll be... Read more

Blog Post

November 21, 2007
As the editor who collects all of the press releases, rumors, news tidbits, and blog posts for the editorial team to consider for the EBN news section, I tend to have a broad picture of what's going on in the green building world. In the last several months, green schools have been everywhere. I'm not entirely sure why schools are the latest... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2007
It's not all about magnets. Two other nonchemical water treatment systems that have exhibited at Greenbuild for at least the last couple years are worth noting... for one reason or another. During the '06 show in Denver, I spent some time learning about the VRTX—say it "vortex"—sidestream "hydrodynamic cavitation" and filtration system. The... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2007
So, this is it. The shoe has dropped. The Fourth (and final) Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is out, and people seem to be paying attention. It got prominant coverage in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and a zillion other places—would have had even more impact if it were not on a Saturday, but... Read more

Blog Post

November 19, 2007

Update: it has come to our attention that the U.S. Department of Energy is no longer supporting this Google Earth layer. We've created a Google Documents link where you can download the KMZ file for use in Google Earth.

I want to show off something that we have been working on that I'm really excited about. Working with the Department of... Read more

Blog Post

November 15, 2007
Sometimes it's hard to suspend disbelief enough to make an unbiased judgement about a product, particularly when it's from an industry with a history of charlatanry, if not outright chicanery. For instance, chemical-free water treatment—which most people associate with sticking a speaker magnet on a pipe under the kitchen sink. The systems I'm... Read more

Blog Post

November 15, 2007

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here—it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

New listings in the BuildingGreen GreenSpec Product Directory are online. Browse green product listings.... Read more

Blog Post

November 14, 2007
One of the posts at the gb.07 Journal (written by USGBC staffers Lauren Kuritz and Doug Smeath) is about the ASID / USGBC collaboration, ReGreen, "a collection of tools to help you focus your renovation projects toward sustainability, durability, comfort and style." Peter Yost, Jennifer Atlee (best researcher I know), Alex Wilson, Amie Walter,... Read more

Blog Post

November 13, 2007
A very interesting lunchtime presentation at Build Boston by Robert Murray, Vice President, Economic Affairs at McGraw-Hill. Some notes of interest related to the sustainable building, green building, and building trends/predictions in general: Green building as a part of construction trends is starting to effect the macroeconomic picture. This... Read more

Blog Post

November 13, 2007

I had an interesting conversation while waiting for Robert Murray's presentation on the construction outlook. A senior associate from one of the leading architectural firms pointed out that the concept of integrating sustainable design into a plan has, until now, been initiated largely by the designer/architect. One client of theirs, a box... Read more

Blog Post

November 13, 2007
Mark posted earlier about David Eisenberg and his organization, DCAT, getting USGBC's Organization Excellence Leadership Award at Greenbuild 2007. David has certainly been a great friend and mentor to many of us here at BuildingGreen. Personally, I have to say that no one has had more impact on my career in green building than Gail Lindsey (... Read more

Blog Post

November 12, 2007
I'm still clinging to the notion that the Integrated Project Delivery paper from the AIA is worth a look-see. (You may also see desperate beads of sweat on my forehead if you look closely.) I always believe everything Nadav says (almost), but having additionally spoken with a couple handfuls of other exceptionally well-informed smarties about it... Read more

Blog Post

November 12, 2007

In a brilliantly cruel stroke of scheduling irony, the morning after our party with the GreenSource folks at the Funky Buddha, we held a breakfast for our BuildingGreen Suite firm-wide subscribers: organizations that have an account for every person in their operation. It was some heady company to be in, with movers and shakers from the likes... Read more

Blog Post

November 9, 2007

Though Greenbuild '07 wraps up soon (and checkout time at my hotel is at noon), I've still got a number of things to report. There will be additional Greenbuild-related posts in the coming days about products, happenings, and a probably a slight meander about social and professional hierarchies. It will be nice to have a little more time to... Read more

Blog Post

November 9, 2007
To follow up on another reader comment, apparent fetishist Matthew suggested that "a fun report might be documenting the types of shoes people are wearing"—so I spent a little time shoe-gazing last night at the Leadership Awards celebration in the Merchandise Mart. Shiny black shoes were The Thing for both sexes. Some of the women had pointy-... Read more

Blog Post

November 9, 2007

I haven't yet posted from Greenbuild, mostly because this was my first time at the conference, and it took most of my mental energy just to sort through the experience of 22,000 people and all of the information I was taking in. Not posting, however, has given me some space to start thinking about some of the big-picture themes of the... Read more