Although the number of

local green building programs is still relatively small—there are fewer than 20 nationwide—forces are growing. In June of this year, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (Greater Seattle) released their Built Green™ program. Partners for the home builder-based program include King and... Read more

On August 8, after lengthy consultation with a number of environmental groups,

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. released a progressive statement on its wood purchasing policies. Among other measures, the policy aims to identify ancient forests and eliminate wood purchases from them, and to discourage conversion of native forests to... Read more

On August 1, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation merged its GreenStone cellulose insulation division with the U.S. Fiber division of Casella Waste Systems, Inc. to form U.S. GreenFiber, LLC. With the creation of this 50:50 joint venture, both U.S. Fiber and GreenStone have ceased to exist. The new company will... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council would like to thank

Environmental Building News for an excellent article in the June issue on the development and content of LEED™ Green Building Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). We are extremely excited by the market response we have seen and believe that LEED is, and... Read more

Ocean

surface waters near the equator are warming at an “alarming” rate, according to analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released on July 28. Between 1984 and 1996, water temperatures have risen approximately 0.1°F (0.056°C) per year, which the researchers say is far more than can be explained by... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council’s success with a green building rating system for commercial buildings has led to the formation of a task force to develop a residential LEED system. Approximately 40 experts in energy-efficiency, indoor air quality, materials, and sustainable land development recently met at the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread... Read more

by Sandra F. Mendler, AIA and William Odell, AIA. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000. Hardcover, 400 pages, $69.95

When we reviewed HOK’s Sustainable Design Guide in 1998 (EBN Vol. 7, No. 5), our only complaint was that it lacked a pretty cover. Now that it has been updated, expanded, and published by a mainstream publisher, The HOK... Read more

BP Solarex, the subsidiary company formed when British Petroleum acquired Solarex Corporation, is now

BP Solar. This change is part of a new corporate look for BP (no longer BP Amoco), which includes a logo with interlocking green and yellow sunbursts and the catchwords “beyond petroleum.” According to a company press release, “The... Read more

A study commissioned by the City of Portland, Oregon attempts to quantify the impacts of applying the LEED Rating System to city buildings. Allen Lee and his associates at XENERGY, Inc. examined three relatively new buildings and found that they could have achieved 32 LEED points (the minimum number required in the LEED 2.0 ballot version) with... Read more

According to statistics from the American Public Transportation Association, reported in the July-August issue of New Urban News, public transportation ridership is up. In 1999, Americans took 9 billion trips on mass transit—a level not seen since 1960 and almost 40% above the low of 6.5 billion trips in 1973. The 1999 level is still far lower... Read more

A British mortgage lender, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P), has teamed up with the environmental group Future Forests to make its green mortgage “climate neutral.” Homes must have a Standard Assessment Procedure rating of 80 or greater to qualify (80 out of 100 in an energy rating program similar to our HERS). N&P,... Read more

I’d like to thank you for publishing such an excellent article on the LEED™ Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). Not only does it provide a helpful snapshot of the system’s content, but it also pointed out some of the history, challenges, and unresolved issues in the system. I need to provide a... Read more

On June 30, 2000 two dozen representatives of various design-related organizations (joined by deans from some of the nation’s leading architecture schools via video teleconference) met at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. to discuss

sustainability in architectural education. The event was organized by The American... Read more

The next-generation daylight-driven fiber-optic fixture is not yet on the market, but it is already garnering honors, including a “Groundbreaking Technology” award fromBuilder magazine. Similar in function to the Himawari (see

EBN

Vol. 8, No. 10), this new device is designed to be much more... Read more

The TranStar... Read more

by Ken Yeang, 1999. Prestel Verlag, Munich. Paperback, 304 pages, $29.95

The Green Skyscraper start right with the cover shot—an arresting model of the Tokyo Nara Building revealing several floors of skyscraper devoted to gardens and a soft, sculptured form—and... Read more

In the early 1990s, Greenpeace International head Paul Gilding participated with environmental consulting... Read more