BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

November 24, 2008

Founded in 2007, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has been working to develop a rating system for landscapes (see

EBN Vol. 16, No. 11). The group has now released a draft set of guidelines and benchmarks that includes options for prerequisites and credits for the new rating system.

Public comment on the draft will be accepted until... Read more

News Brief

November 24, 2008

State legislation passed in June 2008 allows New York City building owners who install vegetation on at least half their buildings’ available rooftop space to offset $4.50 in property taxes for each square foot of green roof they install, for one year. The credit covers about a quarter of the cost of installation and is capped at $100,000.... Read more

Product Review

November 24, 2008

ThermaRock, a new wallboard from Serious Materials, offers superior insulating value with no added thickness. The product incorporates Aspen Aerogels’ Spaceloft blanket insulation bonded to gypsum or magnesium oxide to provide an insulating value of up to R-4.1. The product carries a steep price but offers up to eight times the R-0.5 insulation... Read more

Explainer

November 24, 2008

Thousands of companies have sought an environmental marketing edge by advertising the recycled content of their products. Those claims come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which first published definitions for common environmental terms in its Green Guides in 1992. The LEED Rating System offers credit for recycled-... Read more

Op-Ed

Indoor plants have many benefits, but may confuse birds, causing them to fly into windows.

November 24, 2008

I read with interest your thoroughly researched lead article, “Bringing Nature Indoors”. I would argue, along with others in the bird advocacy world, that plants may do more harm than good inside buildings if they are placed next to transparent glass façades. In the U.S. each year between 100 million and a billion birds are killed by glass.... Read more

Product Review

November 24, 2008

BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of Environmental Building News (EBN) and the GreenSpec Directory, announced its seventh annual Top-10 Green Building Products during the 2008 Greenbuild Expo in Boston. The list recognizes the most exciting products added to GreenSpec or covered in EBN in the last year; a detailed announcement and full product... Read more

Blog Post

November 23, 2008
There were quite a few of these placards in booths on the expo hall floor at Greenbuild. They were nice-looking signs, and seemed to give some green cred. But... no. As it says on GreenFormat's website, " GreenFormat is open to any manufacturer that wants to list a product." Now, I don't want to dis GreenFormat — BuildingGreen is actually working... Read more

Blog Post

November 23, 2008
(A Project Frog zero-energy classroom is in the background.)

Blog Post

November 22, 2008
Preston Koerner, over at Jetson Green, posted his "Top 10 Tidbits from Greenbuild 2008." Check out numbers 2, 4, 6, and 7: 2. The LEED AP Program undergoes major overhaul and the GBCI talks about LEED Green Associates, Legacy LEED APs, LEED AP Fellows, and the other family of LEED APs (ID+C, BD+C, Homes, O+M, and ND). This item links to a post... Read more

Blog Post

November 21, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. I ran into Michelle Moore, senior vp of policy & public affairs for the USGBC, yesterday. I asked her if she had any new thoughts on the "year of greenwash" prediction that she made during her visit to our offices last May — if the market and movement will survive the growing onslaught of confusion, misinformation... Read more

Blog Post

November 21, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. This announcement was actually made a couple weeks ago, but it flew pretty much under the radar. Martin Holladay of Energy Design Update (a publication with similarities to Environmental Building News) has joined the BuildingGreen team. This is a really. big. deal. He's working on the GreenBuildingAdvisor.com project... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted from Greenbuild '08. As my colleague Nadav Malin has written, attempts to achieve LEED credits, particularly in the materials and resources category, sometimes involve "magical," that is, wishful, thinking. At a session this morning on green blogging, a guy popped out of the audience who wields a much more interesting and perhaps even... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. I mentioned Armstrong Ceiling Systems' booth earlier, and the fact that they don't use any wood that's not FSC, and that they don't have any added formaldehyde in any of their products. I didn't mention that all their ceiling tiles are Class A fire rated, because it started to feel I was cheerleading. There's one... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. This morning we had our annual breakfast at Greenbuild with invited participants from the top green firms in the industry — taking their pulse, getting their take. Architects were in force, but engineers and builders were also represented. Much of the discussion revolved around the 2030 Challenge — who has signed... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted from Greenbuild '08. A month ago, EBN was the first to report the news that the ASHRAE Standard 189-P committee, which has been developing the nation's first code-level national green building standard for commercial buildings, had been unexpectedly disbanded by ASHRAE. At a special Greenbuild update today, Mark MacCracken, a USGBC... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
7/1/09 Update: If you're looking to keep up to date on LEED 2009, I recommend checking out our own LEEDuser.com, which was recently launched Posted from Greenbuild '08. Update posted 11/24/08, below: Do existing LEED APs need to retake the exam? If you thought the proliferation of various different types of LEED rating systems was confusing,... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. This has been long in coming, and judging by the response of the audience this afternoon, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Yes, I work for the guy, but I'm no sycophant. He's one of the most focused, dedicated, knowledgeable people I've ever known. A press release sent out from the USGBC today said this: Executive... Read more

Blog Post

November 20, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. Here's another little scoop for you. The press conference announcing this doesn't start for another 15 minutes... but since I'm the co-editor of GreenSpec, I'm going to take this liberty. BOSTON, MA, November 20, 2008 — BuildingGreen, LLC, publisher of the GreenSpec® Directory and Environmental Building News™, today... Read more

Blog Post

November 19, 2008

Blog Post

November 19, 2008
Posted live from Greenbuild. There are a couple booths that warrant special mention. This year, the Armstrong Ceiling Systems booth is a metal greenhouse frame (below banners reading "Come see what's growing") that, after the show, will be donated to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Nice. Most of the companies at these trade shows,... Read more