BuildingGreen Report

Product Review

March 1, 2008
To say that there is a lot of hype about insulating paints and radiant barrier coatings is an understatement. The Internet is rife with claims of paints that dramatically reduce heat transfer—usually based on some technological magic spun off from NASA. While these products may have some relevance in the extreme conditions of outer space,... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2008

After his 2007 term as president of The American Institute of Architects (AIA), RK Stewart, FAIA, has joined the San Francisco office of Perkins+Will as an associate partner. Before his post at AIA, Stewart was a principal at San Francisco-based Gensler, where he worked for 20 years. While at AIA, Stewart emphasized green building, leading the... Read more

News Analysis

March 1, 2008
At the 2008 International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Florida, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) officially launched its National Green Building Program, allowing builders to have homes certified according to the point system set out in the Model Green Home Building Guidelines. The program also includes an educational component and a... Read more

Product Review

March 1, 2008
A new ceiling panel system offers the decorative look of molded plaster with a smaller environmental footprint. Chicago Metallic, a ceiling products manufacturer, recently introduced the Monarch GE system, which includes 70% recycled content and is 100% recyclable. Made from gypsum and tiny, lightweight glass beads, it comes in several classic... Read more

Op-Ed

Sustainable Forestry Initiative president Kathy Abusow discusses the merits of her organization’s forest certification program, and argues that the certification community should focus on the 90% of the world's forests that aren’t certified sustainably managed.

March 1, 2008

Your article “Behind the Logos: Understanding Green Product Certifications” [see EBN Vol. 17, No. 1] does a good job cataloguing the certifications available for green building. However, I would like to clarify a few points related to forest certification and specifically the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program.

In addition to... Read more

Blog Post

February 27, 2008
7/1/09 Update: If you're looking to keep up to date on LEED 2009 and related issues, I want to recommend checking out our own LEEDuser.com, which was recently launched. For firms or individuals contemplating the new LEED AP CMP system, I particularly recommend this article!

I was glad that my employer, BuildingGreen, picked up the cost of my... Read more

Blog Post

February 26, 2008

The braking mechanism on a large wind turbine failed in high winds (the second such occurrence in Denmark last week), leading to the spectacular failure in this video clip. There has been a rash of reported breakdowns in the last two months of turbines manufactured by Vestas, which has a 28% market share and 33,500 units deployed worldwide,... Read more

Blog Post

February 26, 2008

The title of this post is taken from a question we received about the source of recycled rubber used for a parking-bumper and speed-bump manufacturer. It motivated me to do some digging to get a better understanding of the scrap tire industry. As it turns out, it's actually kind of fascinating. The following is unverified single-pass research,... Read more

Blog Post

February 22, 2008

Jerelyn Wilson — who has the inadequate title of "Outreach Director" for BuildingGreen — came down the hall and into my office a few minutes ago, bright-eyed and holding the current issue of YES! magazine in front of her, folded open. "Have you seen this?!" she asked, holding it out for me:

Powerful image — even more powerful in the... Read more

Blog Post

February 21, 2008

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Read the current bulletin

Blog Post

February 19, 2008

I tagged along with Tristan Korthals Altes, top-notch managing editor of Environmental Building News, on an interview with a global distributor of carbon nanotubes who just happens to be located in our little Vermont town. Tristan's working on a feature story on nano technology for the newsletter, and it's shaping up to be quite something to... Read more

Blog Post

February 19, 2008
It's not a new idea, but this book is less than a year old. From the blurb for Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto, by David Tracey: "In the case of guerrilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty. Once an environmentalist's nonviolent direct action... Read more

Blog Post

February 19, 2008

The tech folks here at BuildingGreen just rolled out some great website improvements. A few are invisible ones of the sort that quietly improve the experience... but very visibly and most significantly (in my opinion), the News page — which is available by clicking the "News" button near the upper right of each page on the site — has been... Read more

Blog Post

February 11, 2008
Always a big supporter of the BuildingEnergy conference, BuildingGreen will have an even bigger presence than usual this year — in addition to our booth on the trade show floor, we have people chairing sessions, leading a full-day building science workshop, and even giving the opening plenary. The BuildingEnergy conference and trade show for... Read more

Blog Post

February 11, 2008

As a follow-on to the previous post, representatives from BuildingGreen are scheduled to attend the following conferences this year: Better Buildings by Design Burlington, VT

February 13-14, 2008 International Builders Show Orlando

February 13-16, 2008 Building Energy 08 Boston

March 12-13, 2008 Living Future 08 ... Read more

Blog Post

February 8, 2008

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Read the current bulletin

Blog Post

February 8, 2008
EBN has long been printed on recycled paper, and for the last two-plus years, since January 2006, we have noted in our newsletter that our paper is certified 100% post-consumer recycled content according to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) (as seen in this image at the bottom of the page). We have often written about FSC, and... Read more

Blog Post

February 7, 2008

The GreenSpec review team has been debating the relative environmental merits of steel cabinets as compared to other alternatives. (GreenSpec is reserved for the very top green products — and within that top few percent, those products that rise above the rest.) Generally speaking, the up-side is that steel cabinets don't support mold; are low... Read more

Blog Post

February 6, 2008

In November 2007, the Research Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released A National Green Building Research Agenda, in which it set priorities for green building research and called for funding of this research. (BuildingGreen's Alex Wilson is a member of this committee.) The agenda outlined four major areas of research:... Read more

Blog Post

February 4, 2008
I had the great pleasure to speak on a panel last week as part of the nationwide Focus the Nation series. Billed as the largest campus teach-in in U.S. history with events at over 1,000 colleges and universities, it was timed to inject climate change into local, state, and national political debates in the thick of the presidential primary season... Read more