Few efficiency standards have generated as many jokes and complaints as the 1.6 gallons per flush (6 liter) toilet requirement. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 required manufacturers to reduce the quantity of water per flush to 1.6 by 1994. Some say the industry was caught off guard and was given insufficient time to... Read more

Interface flooring has obtained sole licensing rights to make flooring products with NatureWorks™, the new corn-based polylactide (PLA) polymer. Jointly developed by The Dow Chemical Company and Cargill Inc., NatureWorks is made using 30% to 40% less fossil fuel than the amount required for conventional... Read more

Ocean

surface waters near the equator are warming at an “alarming” rate, according to analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released on July 28. Between 1984 and 1996, water temperatures have risen approximately 0.1°F (0.056°C) per year, which the researchers say is far more than can be explained by... Read more

Hilliard House is also a distinctly green project. The $1.2 million... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council would like to thank

Environmental Building News for an excellent article in the June issue on the development and content of LEED™ Green Building Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). We are extremely excited by the market response we have seen and believe that LEED is, and... Read more

Ecowork by Studio eg

Champion Enterprises and the U.S. Department of Energy have partnered to produce

the first HUD-code (mobile) home made entirely of structural insulated panels (SIPs). The 1,384 ft2 (129 m2) home, built in Silverton, Oregon, uses SIPs in the walls, floors, and ceilings. Two SIP manufacturers, Premier Building Systems and Precision Panel... Read more

A British mortgage lender, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P), has teamed up with the environmental group Future Forests to make its green mortgage “climate neutral.” Homes must have a Standard Assessment Procedure rating of 80 or greater to qualify (80 out of 100 in an energy rating program similar to our HERS). N&P,... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council’s success with a green building rating system for commercial buildings has led to the formation of a task force to develop a residential LEED system. Approximately 40 experts in energy-efficiency, indoor air quality, materials, and sustainable land development recently met at the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread... Read more

BP Solarex, the subsidiary company formed when British Petroleum acquired Solarex Corporation, is now

BP Solar. This change is part of a new corporate look for BP (no longer BP Amoco), which includes a logo with interlocking green and yellow sunbursts and the catchwords “beyond petroleum.” According to a company press release, “The... Read more

A study commissioned by the City of Portland, Oregon attempts to quantify the impacts of applying the LEED Rating System to city buildings. Allen Lee and his associates at XENERGY, Inc. examined three relatively new buildings and found that they could have achieved 32 LEED points (the minimum number required in the LEED 2.0 ballot version) with... Read more

According to statistics from the American Public Transportation Association, reported in the July-August issue of New Urban News, public transportation ridership is up. In 1999, Americans took 9 billion trips on mass transit—a level not seen since 1960 and almost 40% above the low of 6.5 billion trips in 1973. The 1999 level is still far lower... Read more

by Sandra F. Mendler, AIA and William Odell, AIA. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000. Hardcover, 400 pages, $69.95

When we reviewed HOK’s Sustainable Design Guide in 1998 (EBN Vol. 7, No. 5), our only complaint was that it lacked a pretty cover. Now that it has been updated, expanded, and published by a mainstream publisher, The HOK... Read more

In response to ongoing environmental concerns with refrigerants such as HCFCs and HFCs, a naturally occurring fluid may be making a comeback:

carbon dioxide. Although CO2 is the principal greenhouse gas, compared to most other refrigerants on a per-molecule basis it is extremely benign. According to the July 14, 2000 issue of... Read more

I’ve been harboring this illusion that once the doubts were adequately addressed, the world would wake up and take real action to... Read more

On June 13, Senator Bob Smith (Republican–NH) introduced the Energy Efficient Buildings Incentives Act (S. 2718) to Congress. The bill would provide tax deductions for the following residential and commercial energy efficiency improvements: whole-building performance, PV systems, certified solar... Read more

The TranStar... Read more

On June 30, 2000 two dozen representatives of various design-related organizations (joined by deans from some of the nation’s leading architecture schools via video teleconference) met at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. to discuss

sustainability in architectural education. The event was organized by The American... Read more

I’d like to thank you for publishing such an excellent article on the LEED™ Rating System (EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6). Not only does it provide a helpful snapshot of the system’s content, but it also pointed out some of the history, challenges, and unresolved issues in the system. I need to provide a... Read more