Collins Products LLC has received Green Cross certification from Scientific Certification Systems, Inc. that its particleboard is manufactured entirely from post-industrial waste fibers. While most particleboard manufactured today contains a high percentage of wood waste from other manufacturing processes, Collins has made an unusual commitment... Read more

What used to be a trickle of finished wood products from Asia to the United States is now a flood. Furniture imports from China alone have risen from approximately $21 million in 1989 to nearly $1 billion in 1999. For environmental groups such as the Rainforest Action Network, the trend may be a golden opportunity to alter forestry practices in... Read more

Entering the U.S. market with autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) has not been easy. North American Cellular Concrete made a go of it in 1992 (see

EBN

Vol. 1, No. 2) but got no further than a pilot plant. In 1996, the German Hebel Group built a manufacturing plant in Adel, Georgia through its subsidiary Hebel USA (see

EBN... Read more

In addition to the two honorees for whom we had advance notice, Gail Lindsey and Mike Nicklas, two other champions of sustainable design were designated “Fellows” of The American Institute of Architects at a May 18, 2001 ceremony in Denver. They are Gregg Ander of Southern California Edison, and Marsha Maytum of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects in... Read more

I read with great interest your recent article “Getting the ‘Right Stuff’: A Guide to Green Building Retailers” (

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 4). Your newsletter has always been a source of valuable, and credible, information. I would like to tell you a bit about my company and point out a couple of differences of opinion I have with your... Read more

On Monday, April 23, The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) announced the winners of the Top Ten Green Projects initiative at the Forum 2001 Conference in Washington, D.C. Winners were selected for their success in the integration of architecture, technology, and natural systems. Contact... Read more

At the 2001 Convention of The American Institute of Architects in Denver, AIA members reacted remarkably quickly to the Bush Administrations Energy Policy, which was released as the convention got under way. On May 19, 2001 delegates passed a resolution titled “

Design and Energy Efficiency Initiative-Committee on the Environment,”... Read more

Advances in wireless communication and Global Positioning System

(GPS) tracking are improving mass transit. A system created by NextBus sends users automated phone alerts when a designated bus is nearing their bus stop. The system has been extensively tested in San Francisco and was recently installed in Vail, Colorado. For information... Read more

by James Wines, edited by Philip Jodidio, 2000. Taschen; Köln, Germany. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99

Green Architecture argues that technological approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of buildings are, in themselves, not enough to head off... Read more

Scientists at NREL have achieved a

new efficiency record for cadmium telluride photovoltaic cells. The new record of 16.4% beat the previous mark of 15.8%, which had stood since 1992. Cadmium telluride is an increasingly attractive PV technology. First Solar’s new 100 MW CdTe plant in Toledo, Ohio began operation this spring (see

energy simulation software. For many years, DOE-2 has been the standard energy modeling tool for large buildings and the benchmark against which other simulation tools are tested. It has some weaknesses, however, including being notoriously... Read more

California gave a big boost to small power producers in the state by

increasing the cap on power-production systems that can feed power into the grid through

net metering provisions. The cap has been increased from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt. Net metering laws or regulations in more than 30 states allow power producers to “run... Read more

EBN, and things not to change. It was particularly interesting to compare the current results with those from our first subscriber survey conducted... Read more

Atlas Roofing Corporation, which in 1998 became the first polyisocyanurate insulation manufacturer to introduce an ozone-safe product (see

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Vol. 7, No. 5), is still the only manufacturer to offer such a product. While most polyiso today is made with HCFC-141b, Atlas’s AC Ultra™ technology uses a mixture of hydrocarbons as the... Read more

by Norbert Lechner, 2001. John Wiley & Sons, New York. Hardcover, 640 pages, $85

Heating, Cooling, Lighting is one of the most useful and important books on building design in the last ten years. The book is not inexpensive, but it’s worth every penny. Norbert Lechner, an architecture professor at Auburn... Read more

has accepted a position as Vice President of the U.S. Green Building Council, with primary responsibility for technical development and implementation of the LEED™ Green Building Rating System. Until November 2000, Howard was with the Building Research Establishment in the U.K., where he oversaw that organization’s influential... Read more

(who is married to Alex) helped to launch

EBN and build our readership in the early ’90s. Now she has returned as Outreach Director and will be working on new ways to familiarize the building community with

EBN and our other products.

Among other tasks, she is contacting workshop presenters and conference... Read more

consolidate Energy Star brand awareness among consumers. In a recent letter to all partners, the manager of the... Read more

The architecture and engineering firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) was among the recipients of this year’s

Green Cross Award from Global Green USA and Green Cross International, the peace and environmental organization founded by Mikhail Gorbachev. Accepting the award for HOK from Mr. Gorbachev at the April 25, 2001 gala in New... Read more