magazine seeks entries for its first Green House Contest. The magazine will feature one new home and one renovation in the magazine. Each winner will also receive a $1,000 gift certificate from Designtex. The deadline for entries is March 31. More information and entry forms are online at www.organicstyle.com.

A bill being considered by the Oregon legislature could be the first in the U.S. to ban the deca form of the polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) class of flame retardants. If passed and signed into law, the ban of decaBDE would take place by 2008. The proposed law would also ban by 2006 the penta and octa forms of PBDE, two chemicals that have... Read more

Pollution Prevention software from the U.S. EPA, www.pbtprofiler.netMany are unaware that only a small fraction of the roughly 85,000 industrial chemicals currently in use in the United States—everything from flame retardants to adhesives—has undergone toxicity testing. Only two categories of chemicals require specific testing prior to... Read more

A national renewable portfolio standard requiring that 20% of all energy used in the U.S. come from renewable sources by 2020 would dramatically improve the economy, according to a study released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The plan would create a net gain of more than 157,000 jobs while saving families and businesses $49... Read more

BuildingGreen Suite. Case studies are published through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) High Performance Buildings Database. Selected projects in the database are also featured on:

•DOE High... Read more

America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. A family supported by one full-time minimum-wage earner cannot afford rent for the average two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Enterprise Foundation, which supports local organizations building affordable housing around the country. In many parts of the... Read more

Lighting for Tomorrow, organized by the American Lighting Association, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, has officially launched its 2005 Design and Technology Competition. The competition is designed “to stimulate the market for high-efficiency residential lighting fixtures” and “to increase market... Read more

Electric-ignition, gas-fired demand, or tankless, water heaters were well represented at the 2005 International Builders’ Show in Orlando. The leading Japanese manufacturers, Rinnai Corporation, Takagi Industrial Company, Ltd., and Noritz Corporation, had active booths at the huge trade show, and Rheem

® USA rolled out its new Pronto™... Read more

In December 2004, the nonprofit Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability approved version 2.0 of the Unified Sustainable Textile Standard, designed “to provide a market-based definition for sustainable textile, establish performance requirements for public health and environment, and address the triple bottom line (economic,... Read more

® USA acquired the Australian company Solahart Industries, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar water-heating systems. Solahart began manufacturing solar water heaters in 1953 and operates in more than 70 countries worldwide; the product has been available in the U.S. since 1978. The best-known Solarhart systems are... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council has announced a call for session proposals for the next Greenbuild conference, set for Atlanta in November 2005. Outside reviewers will rate all proposals using a 100-point scale designed around the theme of stewardship. Proposals must be submitted electronically by February 11, 2005. Details are online at www.... Read more

BuildingGreen, Inc. is excited to announce that we’re partnering with the

Boston Architectural Center (BAC) in the online delivery of its Sustainable Design Certificate Program. BAC has a long history as a leading provider of architectural-degree and continuing-education programs. Like BAC’s onsite program, all of its online courses are... Read more

announced the winners of the

C2C Housing Design and Construction Competition (see

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 4) at the Art Museum of Western Virginia in January 2005. The competition to design innovative affordable housing was inspired by the principles laid out in... Read more

The Forest Stewardship Council’s new Chain-of-Custody Standard, FSC-STD-40-004, substantially revises the organization’s labeling and certification rules. In place of what has been known as “partial-content certification” of composite wood products (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6), FSC has now introduced three new labels: “FSC Pure,” “... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the winners of its 11th annual EnergyValue Housing Awards at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Florida, in January 2005. Funded through DOE’s Building America Program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with support from several private sponsors, including BuildingGreen, Inc.,... Read more

When Ed Ehlen paid $19,000 to purchase and install artificial turf at his new home in Florida’s upscale Marco Island community, he thought he was doing an environmental service. “We have such a water problem in Southwest Florida,” Ehlen told the

News-Press. And with artificial turf, he said, “you don’t have to water. You don’t have to... Read more