With thousands of safe and economical photoluminescent (PL) exit sign installations in buildings throughout North America, we at Active Safety initially wanted to tar and feather Alex Wilson for the inaccuracies and misconceptions in his feature article “The Evolution of Exit Signs (and Why the Latest is a Bad Idea),”

Vol. 15, No. 11.... Read more

After a court-issued remand, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced new emissions limits for mercury and total hydrocarbons for cement kilns built after December 2005. The new regulations will not apply to kilns built before that date, which are only required to meet standard industry practices for reducing emissions. EPA... Read more

Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper unveiled a new Chemicals Management Plan in December 2006, in which the government would put CA$300 million towards the assessment of about 4,000 substances over four years. As part of its plan, the government has launched a new website where citizens can learn about the chemicals and track the assessment... Read more

A solar photovoltaic cell has achieved the highest efficiency level yet recorded, converting 40.7% of the sun’s energy into electricity, according to the Boeing Company, owner of Spectrolab, Inc., which made the cell. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory verified the milestone, which has been called the solar... Read more

Heifer international is a nonprofit organization that addresses global problems with an approach founded in sustainability. It gives livestock such as goats, cows, and chickens to families in need as a lasting source of food and income. In 2000, during a period of strong growth and with its 200-plus staff spread across five locations in Little... Read more

This was the first program I’ve seen in which you can tell that someone approached the building with sustainability in mind,” says Scott Shell, of EHDD Architecture, in reference to the client’s concept document for the Department of Global Ecology, a new arm of the Washington, D.C. –based Carnegie Institution. Located alongside the venerable... Read more

It’s a common saying in the green building movement that “the greenest building is the one that isn’t built.” This ideal may be great, but with growing demand in many parts of the U.S.—and the world—for buildings, it’s often ignored. Meanwhile, millions of buildings already exist but are not being used to their full potential, despite... Read more

Green CommunitiesTM, a partnership between Enterprise Community Partners and the Natural Resources Defense Council (see

EBN

Vol. 14, No. 3), is now offering grants of up to $5,000 for affordable housing developers who wish to incorporate green planning charrettes into their design processes. The grants, designed to pay for... Read more

EBN

Vol. 14, No. 10) as an alternate path to achieve a credit for low-emitting carpets in the LEED® Rating System. As originally written, credit EQ 4.3, “Low-Emitting Materials: Carpet Systems,”... Read more

The Paint Product Stewardship Initiative of the Product Stewardship Institute—a consortium of paint manufacturers and recyclers, governmental representatives, and other interested parties—partnered with the environmental certification standards organization Green Seal to develop a recycled-content latex paint standard addressing product quality... Read more

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) has announced the opening of its 2007 Top Ten Green Projects design competition. Online registration for the competition began November 10, 2006 and continues through the January 17, 2007 submission deadline. The deadline to take advantage of early... Read more

Building Design + Construction magazine, published in a white paper entitled “Green Buildings and the Bottom Line” (November 2006), reveal that green building activities are growing (no surprise there) but that expectations of future activity are much higher that actual activity. The online survey of 872 industry... Read more

A committee led by Bill Reed, AIA, and John Boecker, AIA, under the auspices of the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS), has released a draft Whole Systems Integrative Process (WSIP) Standard Guide for public comment and ballot. Originally termed a standard on integrated design process, the document has been renamed to... Read more

In 1996,

Environmental Building News (EBN) looked at residential building science developments emerging from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) fledgling

Building America program. Started in 1994, the program consisted of four research teams working with several private-sector builder partners to build and test houses in... Read more

The economic growth of China, India, and other emerging economies threatens serious long-term implications for Earth’s climate, concluded a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC, the world’s largest professional services firm. “The World in 2050” presents six possible approaches to growth but focuses on two: business as usual and “... Read more

EBN

Vol. 13, No. 7) and then discontinued in 2005 (see

EBN

Vol. 14, No. 10) is back, and from more than one company. This product uses a booster compressor that makes it viable as an air-source heat pump even in very cold weather. David Shaw, designer... Read more

A team from Yale University’s Program on Forest Policy and Governance in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, in collaboration with Greg Norris of Sylvatica, Inc., has been hired by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). This team will provide research and outreach support to the LEED® Materials and Resources Technical Advisory... Read more