BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

April 5, 2007

Great Britain is the latest to join the growing portfolio of countries with their own green building councils. The U.K. Green Building Council (UKGBC), headed by Paul King, will be the official British affiliate of the World Green Building Council and will promote and represent green building throughout the country. UKGBC has officially adopted... Read more

Op-Ed

April 5, 2007

Thank you for your recent review of Cradle to Cradle certification (see

EBN

Vol. 16, No. 2), and the more general look at nascent attempts to understand and assess the thousands of materials we put in our buildings. As usual, the article was thorough, clear, and complete, and I salute both

EBN and all those about whom... Read more

Product Review

April 5, 2007
Lighting Science Group (LSG) has introduced a number of LED lamps and fixtures that will help to advance the rapidly evolving LED lighting field. (For more on light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, see EBN

Vol. 15, No. 7.) LSG’s line of LED lighting products (see table below) incorporates the company’s proprietary Optimized Digital Lighting (ODL)... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The American Institute of Architects College of Fellows awarded its 2007 Latrobe Prize to a research group studying New York City’s harbor. The $100,000 grant will support research of future development in the area, looking at urban ecology, parks, transportation infrastructure, as well as possible rising sea levels from global warming. The study... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The Bank of America (BOA) has announced significant additions to its environmental initiatives, unveiling $20 billion in loan programs, market encouragement, and consumer products. For its commercial customers, BOA will launch a carbon emissions trading system and offer favorable consideration to loans for companies focusing on environmentally... Read more

Op-Ed

April 5, 2007

Both major associations of interior designers, the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) and the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), have entered into collaborative agreements with BuildingGreen, publisher of

Environmental Building News, that make online access to

BuildingGreen Suite available at a special... Read more

Product Review

April 5, 2007
The AutoMotion Parking System creates a fully automated parking garage. Park your car at the door and swipe your credit card, and the machine transfers your car onto a lift on tracks that shuttles it into an available slot. AutoMotion touts the benefits of avoided human contact (reducing risk of damage or theft) and of increased parking capacity—... Read more

Feature

April 5, 2007
Indoor plumbing is closely associated with advanced western civilizations such as Rome as well as withmodern industrial economies. Bringing clean and reliable supplies of freshwater into homes and workplaces and safely transporting wastewater from buildings to treatment facilities have been credited with taming outbreaks of infectious disease that... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

New Resource Bank, a San Francisco bank founded by a group of green entrepreneurs, is offering financial incentives for green building projects. The bank will offer a higher loan-to-value ratio and a 1⁄8% discount on rates for loans to commercial or multiunit residential green projects. Open since November 2006, the bank has financed several... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has announced the creation of its first certification programs for ASHRAE members and other professionals. The four programs, to be launched between 2007 and 2008, will focus on healthcare facility mechanical systems, sustainability, commissioning and... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced its Honor Awards for 2007, recognizing 11 buildings for excellence in architecture, interior design, and urban design. Among the winners are several green buildings:

• The

World Birding Center Headquarters in Mission, Texas, designed by Lake Flato Architects, is an integral part of... Read more

News Analysis

April 5, 2007

CertainTeed Corporation has altered the formulation of its fiber-cement siding lines to add recycled flyash. CertainTeed WeatherBoards and ColorMax fiber-cement siding lines now include 30%–50% flyash in addition to wood fiber, portland cement, and other additives. Cement is energy intensive to produce, and the use of flyash, a waste product... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007
The Center for Heath and Healing at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon, is the first medical center to achieve a Platinum rating in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System. The 16-story, 400,000-ft2 (37,000-m2) building features a chilled beam and displacement ventilation system, a membrane bioreactor for... Read more

News Brief

April 5, 2007

The energy firm BP (formerly British Petroleum) has announced the creation of the Energy Biosciences Institute and has selected the University of California–Berkeley, the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to lead the effort. In addition to contributing $500 million over ten years, BP will also... Read more

Product Review

April 5, 2007
Anyone who has used a laptop computer has probably benefited from cold-cathode fluorescent lighting. Now the same technology that back-lights those computer screens is making its way into decorative and area lighting with the Micro-Brite line of cold-cathode compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) from Litetronics.

In conventional CFLs, a

hot... Read more

Product Review

With the durability of cement backerboards but with a carbon footprint closer to gypsum, Green E-Board panels are an intriguing new drywall option.

April 5, 2007

With the durability and moisture-resistance advantages of cement and a carbon footprint closer to that of gypsum, Green E-Board panels are an intriguing new option for tile backerboard, wallboard, and potentially even exterior sheathing. The panels are manufactured from magnesium oxide (MgO) cement (also known as oxychloride cement), which is... Read more

News Brief

March 6, 2007

In a strengthening of a previous commitment, DuPont has announced its intention to stop making or using the likely carcinogen perfluooctanoic acid, or PFOA, by 2015. Known as the “Teflon® chemical,” PFOA is used to manufacture a variety of fluoropolymer products, including components used in roofing, solar panels, and wiring (see

EBN... Read more

News Brief

March 6, 2007

A report released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests that power generation from enhanced geothermal systems (EGSs) could provide 100 gigawatts of electrical capacity within 50 years, or 10% of the current U.S. capacity. EGS uses forced water to fracture hot rock deep under the Earth’s surface, opening reservoirs that... Read more

News Analysis

March 6, 2007
On February 7, 2007, at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Florida, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) announced a partnership with the International Code Council (ICC) to create a new residential green building standard. The new standard, which will be based on NAHB’s Model Green Home Building Guidelines (see

EBN

... Read more

Feature

March 6, 2007
While most green design strategies work at the scale of individual buildings, some of the most exciting opportunities avail themselves only when we look at the larger scale. Building for mixed uses can reduce automobile dependence, for example, and compact development can be coupled with the permanent protection of open areas. We should add to... Read more