BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

September 1, 1996
Awards and Competitions

Among the first set of fifteen grants announced by the recently created North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation (NAFEC) is an award of CAN$94,000 for a project by the International Institute for Sustainable Development of Winnipeg, Manitoba, for the evaluation of sustainable development plans in three... Read more

News Analysis

September 1, 1996
Georgia Pacific Settles with EPA

The Georgia Pacific Corporation (G-P) agreed on 18 July to a costly settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency following a long wrangle with regulators and lawmakers. The company will pay a $6 million fine and spend at least $26 million on environmental improvements under the agreement, according... Read more

News Brief

September 1, 1996

Canada’s largest energy producers have formed a nonprofit alliance, the Greenhouse Emissions Management Consortium (GEMCo), to manage the companies’ carbon emission offset activities. GEMCo president Aldyen Donnelly was quoted in the 28 June issue of

Global Environmental Change Report that the formation of GEMCo highlights a growing... Read more

Product Review

September 1, 1996
Using Air to Build Earth Walls

Napa, California, builder David Easton has been building with earth for over two decades now. For much of that time his specialty was rammed-earth, but high labor costs have kept that technique a fringe style for high-end homes. To build more economically with earth, Easton borrowed gunnite equipment from the... Read more

News Brief

September 1, 1996
Newsbriefs

Stratospheric levels of chlorine should peak by the year 2000, according to the 14 June issue of

Global Environmental Change Report. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, have been measuring levels of various CFCs and HCFCs in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) since 1991 and... Read more

News Analysis

September 1, 1996
Recycling Access Floors

Access floors (also called

raised floors) are floor systems made of rigid panels supported by short pedestals that create an easily accessed cavity under an entire space. They are expensive and are typically made of materials such as aluminum, steel, high-strength concrete, and formaldehyde-based, medium-density... Read more

Case Study

September 1, 1996
Low-Impact Commercial Complex in a Small Town

The Sustainable Technology Center (STC) in Friday Harbor, Washington aims to prove that renewable energy and other sustainable systems can be used cost-effectively in small commercial buildings.

On-site photovoltaic panels supply much of the electricity, heating loads are met in part with... Read more

News Brief

September 1, 1996
Quarterly Notes from Down Under

Environment Design Guide, The Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Australian$126 for four quarterly installments (approximately US$100). Order from RAIA-Environment; The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, P.O. Box 3373, Manuka ACT 263, Australia; +61 6 273 1953 (fax). Full set of 24 previously... Read more

Op-Ed

July 1, 1996

With great interest, I read your well-researched article on cork flooring in the January/February issue (Vol. 5, No. 1). As you concluded in the article, the harvest of commercial cork from the cork oak (

Quercus suber) tree is a relatively benign extraction that is one of nature’s best examples of a renewable, non-timber forest resource... Read more

News Analysis

July 1, 1996

A newly formed organization is now developing standardized testing protocols for indoor air quality related products and materials. The Product Emissions Testing Lab (PETL) Network is bringing together representatives of academia, government, and industry to achieve consensus-based procedures and to certify laboratories to test products... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996
If this case is any indication, there is a lot that can be done to cost-effectively save energy in small retail buildings across the country.

When homebuilder Barbara Harwood stumbled across the quote for a new mechanical system for a grocery store owned by her husband, she knew that the loads were out of line. The quote called for a system... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996

In an exciting breakthrough for energy conservation measures in residential development, Roger Perry has announced that all homes in his Meadowmount development in Chapel Hill, North Carolina will be built to guidelines from the Alternative Energy Corporation (AEC). The project will contain 715 houses, and total of 1298 residential units. AEC’... Read more

Feature

July 1, 1996
Dru Meadows, manager of the Green Team at BSW International, a large management, real estate, design and construction company, evaluates and specifies many new and alternative building materials. Many green materials she sees don’t get specified, and it isn’t because the products aren’t good. Often it is because the novice manufacturer doesn’t... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996

Christine Hammer, editor.

To subscribe, send the message “subscribe” to greenclips@aol.com. No charge.

If you have an e-mail account and an interest in green building, you should subscribe to

Greenclips. Every two weeks, between six and ten one-paragraph summaries of articles, gleaned from over 60 different publications,... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996

The April 1996 issue of the well-regarded British publication

Green Building Digest reports that Malaysia—one of the world’s largest plywood exporters—now stamps all of its plywood with the label “Sustainable Timber” even though, according to the Malaysian government, the country will be a net timber importer by the end of the century... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1996. 445 pages, hardcover, $34.95.

A handful of individuals have played truly dramatic roles in improving the relationship between our built environment and the natural environment.

Near the top of that list is Ian McHarg, a Scottish war hero who went on to found the landscape architecture program... Read more

Product Review

July 1, 1996
Steel I-beams are designed on the basic principle that most of the stresses on a beam are at the top and the bottom. Open-web trusses and joists extend this principle much further, using only spaced diagonal members to connect the top and bottom chords. In between these two options are

castellated I-beams—essentially, regular I-beams with much... Read more

News Analysis

July 1, 1996

A primary weakness of light-gauge steel framing for houses has been its severely compromised thermal integrity. In general, the simplest way to get a steel-framed wall to perform like a 2x6 wood-stud wall is to use 2x4 steel studs and add 2” (50 mm) of insulating foam sheathing. Now, researchers at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) are seeking a... Read more

News Brief

July 1, 1996

A one-square-foot sample of low-e glazing, representing the one billionth square foot produced, was recently presented to Christine Ervin, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy by Mike Koenig of Andersen Windows and Jim Larsen of Cardinal IG. The presentation was in recognition of ongoing support provided by DOE of window... Read more

Op-Ed

July 1, 1996

Now that we at

EBN have finally the caught up with the trends and have created our own website, we can slow down long enough to ask: Why are we doing this, anyway? Didn’t we have enough to do just publishing on paper? At least the courts have struck down Internet censorship, so we don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for... Read more