With the holiday season upon us (yet no snow on the ground here in Vermont since the freak October storm that knocked out power across the Northeast) and the Durban climate deal still largely symbolic, I thought some... Read more

People living off the grid using photovoltaics (PV) or other renewable energy to generate power typically depend on maintaining banks of lead-acid batteries and carefully managing the amount of energy they store and use as... Read more

During my six-week bike ride last spring, I covered nearly 2,000 miles, most of it over land that hadn't seen a drop of rain since the previous fall; some of those areas--mostly in Texas--still haven't gotten significant precipitation. Farmers in... Read more

After presenting this webcast this week to a full house, Alex Wilson is bringing it back next week with an encore performance!

To help professionals make the best design and material choices for their specific projects (and... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced on December 7, 2011 that, for the first time in its history, the cumulative square footage of buildings certified under its LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) program is greater than LEED-certified new construction. LEED-EBOM certification has risen... Read more

The Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) will no longer give its blessing to projects incorporating spray polyurethane foam insulation (SPF) that uses blowing agents with high contribution to global warming, according to executive director Katrin Klingenberg.

“It does not make any sense at all to use them if one of the major... Read more

Low-flow faucets and other water-saving fixtures have become a standard water-saving feature in public bathrooms. Unfortunately, it turns out that drying your hands uses a lot more water than washing them--anywhere from 18 to 70... Read more

Back in March I reported that I would be taking leave from this blog as I embarked on an eight-month sabbatical. With support from the Hanley Award I received last year, I was able to take an unpaid leave from BuildingGreen, Inc., for some rejuvenation, reflection, research... Read more

How many apps does it take to change a light bulb?

Apps can't actually do that yet: you still have to climb on a chair and balance precariously while holding a handful of glass. However, the winner of best overall app in the... Read more

We invite you to test your knowledge with this quiz that we came up with covering key questions around when our building products are green, and when they're being greenwashed.

Stumped? We work... Read more

A victim of a hepatitis E infection she picked up unknowingly in Brazil, Genevive Bjorn's liver rebelled against her one night in Hawaii. Her body almost shut down on her, but with help from the hospital, a battery of tests, her watchful boyfriend at her side, and a diet of nothing but rice porridge, she squeaked through.

This... Read more

Preliminary data from a number of sources suggests a correlation between heavy traffic and cognitive and behavioral health, according to a report in the

Wall Street Journal titled “The Hidden Toll of Traffic Jams.”

The Powerhouse shingle is designed to be installed by roofers... Read more

As global industries begin to measure and report their water use, they should keep in mind all the water they consume, says the Netherlands nonprofit Water Footprint Network, which has developed a new metric for calculating water footprint.

Typical reporting only measures

blue water, the amount of fresh surface and groundwater... Read more

The greenest building is the one you don’t build, and the cleanest, cheapest energy is the energy you don’t burn. These refrains are commonly heard in the green building community, and now, in a new report, “A Profitable and Resource Efficient Future,” the World Economic Forum (WEF) has put them on a broader stage and added a third... Read more

A new certification system combining the Passive House standard with the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Index will issue its first certificates in January 2012, according to Katrin Klingenberg, cofounder and executive director of Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS). Called PHIUS+, the certification is separate from international Passive... Read more

NSF International and the Green Chemistry Institute have developed a new standard for reporting the effects of chemical manufacturing.

NSF/GCI 355 Greener Chemicals Products and Processes Information Standard is designed to streamline chemical reporting and allow product manufacturers to compare chemicals’ environmental sustainability... Read more

Laundering clothes gradually makes them threadbare, but most of us don’t think much about where the missing threads end up. New research suggests that tiny synthetic fibers from washing machine wastewater may be polluting oceans and affecting marine life.

In a paper published in Environmental Science & Technology, marine biologists... Read more

Though some LED lighting still suffers from many of the problems that plagued early fluorescents, including poor color rendering, inconsistent dimming, questionable quality, and high first costs, the technology has been advancing rapidly. In some applications, LED lighting now provides better energy performance, has a longer lifespan,... Read more

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a municipal wastewater treatment plant as a source of antibiotic resistance genes found in the Duluth-Superior Harbor.

Although the plant boasts an advanced treatment step that removes large quantities of bacteria, the researchers typically found quantities of three different... Read more