News Brief
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is urging businessmen to doff their suits this summer to save air-conditioning energy. “I, too, will go without jackets and ties,” said Koizumi, who called for setting thermostats no cooler than 82° F (28° C). Japan imports more than 80% of its energy, and has committed, through the Kyoto Protocol, to... Read more
News Brief
Product Review
News Brief
EBN
Vol. 14, No. 1).
News Brief
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring public utilities to purchase at least 5% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2008. Eligible technologies include wind, solar, geothermal, small hydropower, most biomass, and fuel cells using one of these fuel sources. The RPS... Read more
News Analysis
News Brief
News Brief
Ecotone Publishing has announced plans to publish
Who’s Green?, envisioned as “the preeminent resource book for locating firms, organizations, and institutions that are actively participating in the growth of the sustainable design and construction field,” according to Ecotone. It will include architecture, engineering, interior design... Read more
News Brief
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has revised its estimate of the size of the global market for FSC-certified products. Previously believed to fall somewhere between $3 billion and $5 billion (see
EBN
Vol. 13, No. 10), the market is now believed to be “in excess of $5 billion.” The revision is based on the results of a global... Read more
News Analysis
A bill being debated in the California legislature would ban both bisphenol-A and certain phthalate plasticizers in baby products. Bill AB 319, introduced in the California legislature in February 2005 by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan of Oakland, would ban, effective January 1, 2007, the manufacture, sale, or distribution in commerce of any product... Read more
News Brief
The organizers of the Rethinking Sustainable Construction 2006 (RSC06) conference, set for Sarasota, Florida, in September, are calling for “creative content” proposals, ranging from research papers to problem-solving workshops. The international conference is intended to “produce an agenda for the future of green buildings,” as described in... Read more
Feature
Greening the Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities
What we do to our environment, we do to ourselves, the saying goes. Nowhere is this principle played out more dramatically than in our hospitals, where doctors and nurses work the front lines against environmental illness, treating patients for cancers caused by exposure to toxic materials, asthma triggered by breathing dirty air, and heat... Read more
News Brief
A class-action lawsuit against DuPont was finalized in February 2005, resulting in a $108 million settlement (see
EBN
Vol. 13, No. 11 for more on the tentative settlement). DuPont was charged with polluting the drinking water of several Ohio and West Virginia communities with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8,... Read more
News Brief
News Analysis
News Brief
Feature
News Brief
Green Projects and one
Special Recognition from among more than 60 entries. This year’s jury included Bob Berkebile, FAIA, of Berkebile Nelson Immerschuh McDowell (BNIM) Architects; Daniel Nall, FAIA, of Flack & Kurtz, Inc.; Henry Siegel, FAIA, of Siegel & Strain... Read more
News Brief
U.S. net imports of petroleum reached a record level in 2004, coming in at 57.8% of all petroleum used, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Just over 19% of those imports came from the Persian Gulf countries. EIA is online at www.eia.doe.gov.
News Brief






