The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) doesn’t write building codes, but some of the group’s standards carry as much weight as codes. That is the case with ASHRAE Standard 62 on ventilation for acceptable indoor air quality. This standard is recognized in legal circles as the “standard-of-care”... Read more

A new report by the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy quantifies the potential for energy savings in residential lighting. By replacing those incandescent lights that are used four hours per day or more with compact fluorescent lights, total annual savings in the U.S. would be 31.7 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh),... Read more

by The American Institute of Architects (AIA), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Produced by the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) and View By View, Inc., San Francisco. Available from the AIA for $24.95 ($17.45 to members) plus $5 S&... Read more

Redwood lumber that has been independently certified as coming from “well-managed” forests is now available. The family-owned Big Creek Lumber Company in Davenport, California, which completed certification of its forestry operations this past April (see

EBN

Vol. 5, No. 4), has now completed “chain-of-custody” certification of... Read more

The environmental labeling organization Green Seal is calling for comments on its proposed standards for environmentally preferable chillers. Among the criteria in the standard are choice of refrigerant, measures to limit refrigerant releases, and energy efficiency. Copies are available by calling Green Seal at 202/331-7337; the deadline for... Read more

Interior Concerns Environmental Resources, Inc., 131 W. Blithedale Avenue, Mill Valley, California 94941; 415/389-8049, vschomer@interiorconcerns.org (e-mail). 40 pages, paperback, $10 postpaid.

is pleased to announce the addition of architect Chris Liddle to our staff. Chris has experience in passive solar and sustainable design, as well as accessible design. His initial responsibilities at

EBN will focus on increasing circulation.

Willamette Industries has discontinued the use of “urban wood waste” at its Eugene, Oregon medium-density fiberboard (MDF) plant. The company had pioneered the use of recycled wood from municipal solid waste collection sites starting in 1993 (see EBN Vol. 5, No. 2), when wood fiber prices were extremely high. Urban wood use at the plant peaked... Read more

Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character by Randall Arendt. Planners Press, American Planning Association, Chicago, IL, 1994. Hardcover, 460 pages, $86.

This hefty volume is a detailed and comprehensive guide to land-use planning in rural America. In clear language with excellent examples and... Read more

With recent restrictions on logging in some publicly owned forests in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., the pressure on forests in Canada’s British Columbia (B.C.) is increasing. A broad array of environmental groups is increasingly vocal about the fate of B.C.’s temperate rainforests, and coalitions... Read more

The Austin, Texas, 5th Annual Green Builder Conference will host the award ceremony of the Green Built Birdhouse Competition. The grand prize is two round-trip airline tickets to Europe. The contest is sponsored by the Conference, Austin’s AIA chapter, and Dynamic Reprographics. Conference attendance is required for entry into the contest (see... Read more

The United States took a surprisingly strong position on cutting greenhouse gas emissions this summer at the Second Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP2) in Geneva. On 17 July, Undersecretary of State Timothy Wirth announced that the U.S. will seek an amendment to the existing treaty to create “binding”... Read more

Amoco Foam Products, makers of the only extruded polystyrene insulation with significant recycled content, is being purchased by Tenneco Packaging, a division of Tenneco, Inc. of Greenwich, Connecticut. Even before the purchase, through a $310 million stock acquisition, Tenneco was the largest producer of... Read more

You Are

Well, sort of. At least we know more about the demographics and interests of the 13% of

EBN subscribers who made it through our first-ever Reader Survey. Thanks again to those of you who took the time and returned the survey. We’ll try to keep it shorter next time. As promised, here are some highlights... Read more

The new Georgia Institute of Technology Aquatic Center has 2,800 solar modules generating 344.5 peak kilowatts (kW) of electricity. One section of the array, with an output of 4.5 kW, is comprised of Solarex’s new 240-watt alternating-current (AC)... Read more

First prize in the Van Alen Institute’s competition for a design for reuse of New York Harbor’s Governors Island was awarded to University of Pennsylvania graduate student Peter Hau for his plan to transform the Island into a regenerative garden. Entitled: “Open Narratives: Reconfiguring the Air, Land and Waters,” Hau’s proposal includes plants... Read more

The Georgia Pacific Corporation (G-P) agreed on 18 July to a costly settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency following a long wrangle with regulators and lawmakers. The company will pay a $6 million fine and spend at least $26 million on environmental improvements under the agreement, according... Read more