At press time, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire was expected within days to sign into law a bill passed on March 30, 2005, by the Washington State legislature requiring Silver-level certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating System for all major construction projects built with public funds. Executive orders and... Read more

The Marco Island City Council voted four to two in March 2005 to ban artificial turf, in response to a dispute between homeowner Ed Ehlen and his neighbors (see

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Vol. 14, No. 2). While Ehlen argued that his synthetic lawn’s water savings made it environmentally friendly, the city council countered that the lawn’s rubber... Read more

With the March 2005 approval of Resolution 6644, Scottsdale, Arizona, became the first city in the nation to require that all new city-owned buildings achieve a LEED® Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The resolution applies to buildings of any size, as long as the green features have an anticipated payback period... Read more

•The Association... Read more

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Vol. 13, No. 1), the foundation has released new guidelines for the grant program. These new guidelines reflect the foundation’s two goals for the Initiative: to help nonprofit organizations without an explicitly green agenda meet their facility needs... Read more

The organization formerly known as the Used Building Materials Association (UBMA) has changed its name to the Building Materials Reuse Association (BMRA). The educational organization, “dedicated to supporting the recovery and reuse of building materials throughout the U.S. and Canada,” is now based in State College, Pennsylvania, and is online... Read more

Just one month after Arizona’s requirement that all new state-funded buildings use nonflushing urinals took effect on January 1, 2005, Governor Janet Napolitano signed an executive order in February requiring all new state buildings to derive at least 10% of their energy from renewable sources—defined as solar, wind, and biomass—and to meet a... Read more

Green interiors expert Penny Bonda and BuildingGreen’s Nadav Malin have teamed up to offer the

Green Guru Tour of NeoCon. On this tour, a group of dedicated design professionals will join Bonda and Malin as they visit the showrooms of leading furniture and furnishing manufacturers. They will sit down for in-depth conversations with top... Read more

“Insulation: Thermal Performance is Just the Beginning” [

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Vol. 14, No. 1] was another very informative article. Some specific comments:

1) Regarding polysio insulation, if the conductivity of the hydrocarbon blowing agent is indeed lower than HCFC-141b, then the insulation performance should be better, not worse.

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.

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

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