In June 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors enacted the nation’s first ban on some products containing bisphenol-A (BPA), used to make the hard plastic polycarbonate as well as most epoxies. BPA, an endocrine disrupter, has been linked to a range of health effects—most recently prostate cancer (see

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Vol. 15, No. 7).... Read more

Ten years ago,

EBN reported on the growing popularity of low-emissivity (low-e) glazing, which allows visible light to enter buildings while reducing unwanted heat gain and heat loss. Introduced in the early 1980s, with the energy crisis still fresh in America’s mind, low-e glazing gained market share quickly, and by July 1996 the... Read more

E Source, a subscription-based information provider focusing on energy efficiency and utility demand-side management, has been purchased from the McGraw-Hill Companies by a group of E Source managers, including Michael Shepard, one of the original founders. E Source Companies, LLC, with about 45 employees, remains located in Boulder, Colorado.... Read more

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A panel of the National Academies of Science (NAS) has concluded that low doses of dioxin might not be as carcinogenic as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed in a 2003 draft risk assessment. When EPA first published an assessment of dioxin, in 1985, it labeled the chemical a “probable human carcinogen.” EPA upgraded the... Read more

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Vol. 15, No. 7), in July 2006 SierraPine, Ltd., added a new medium-density fiberboard (MDF) to its no-added-formaldehyde MDF product family. Arreis™ (“Sierra” backwards), like Medex® and Medite® II,... Read more

Building materials giant USG Corporation has joined the Alliance for Sustainable Built Environments, a group launched in 2003 to educate the marketplace and top management on the benefits of reducing the impact of facilities on the environment and building occupants. “By joining the Alliance, USG can work with like-minded companies to help... Read more

My Office is Killing Me!: The Sick Building Survival Guideby Jeffrey C. May. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006. Paperback, 317 pages, $18.95.

Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner in Stuttgart, Germany, under the leadership of Stefan Behnisch, is now Behnisch Architekten. The firm’s Venice, California, office, led by Stefan Behnisch and Christof Jantzen, AIA, has also changed its name, to Behnisch Architects. Founded in 1989, the firm has long been recognized as a leader in architectural... Read more

If a proposed regulation from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is adopted as planned on September 28, 2006, the U.S. market for particleboard and similar interior-grade panel products will change dramatically. The proposed regulation drastically reduces the allowable levels of urea-formaldehyde (UF) emissions from composite wood... Read more

In May 2006, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dirk Kempthorne to succeed Gale Norton as head of the Department of the Interior, which manages 20% of all land in the U.S. Kempthorne, who has served in the U.S. Senate and as governor of Idaho, has worked to open national lands to logging, mining, and drilling; the League of Conservation Voters (LCV)... Read more

Smart Environments Awards. Co-sponsored by

Metropolis magazine, the awards were intended to recognize the most environmentally and socially responsible, beautiful, and functional interior designs of the past five years. The winners are:... Read more

Two projects under development, one in Boston, Massachusetts, and one in Cabinda, Angola, were among the projects recognized in June at the fourteenth Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) in Providence, Rhode Island. CNU’s 2006 Charter Awards recognize work that demonstrates an understanding of urbanism and the principles embodied in the CNU... Read more

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents the 1,183 U.S. cities with populations of 30,000 or more, has called for all new buildings and major renovation projects to be climate neutral by 2030. The Conference unanimously adopted Resolution 50, “Adopting the ‘2030 Challenge’ for All Buildings,” during its 74th annual meeting, in June 2006... Read more