Championing the
Changemakers

Advisory Board member

Sandra Mendler, AIA, received the

First Annual Sustainable Design Leadership Award for a design professional at a June 18 event in Dalton, Georgia. This award recognizes commitment to environmental issues through design, educational outreach, or other efforts. Mendler is Vice President and Director of... Read more

edited by Alex Wilson. U.S. Department of Energy, May 2001. Paperback and/or downloadable PDF file, 200 pages, free. Order from

www.eren.doe.gov/femp/ordermaterials.html or by calling 800/363-3732; or download from

www.eren.doe.gov/femp/techassist/green_fed_facilities.html.

On June 11, Governor George Pataki signed an executive order that has the potential to make New York State facilities among the greenest in the country over the next decade. Executive Order No. 111, “Green and Clean State Buildings and Vehicles,” affects buildings owned, leased, or operated by state agencies. Its requirements include reducing... Read more

a survey to assess the regulatory barriers to more sustainable building and development.... Read more

The fifth Annual

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Environmental Awards ceremony took place in Washington, D.C. on April 19, 2001. Among the 14 winning projects and initiatives were:

According to the most recent EPA estimates, there are about 60 million gas-powered lawn mowers in operation in the U.S.—40 million push mowers and 20 million riding tractors. These small spark-ignition engines generate 2.5% of total national summertime hydrocarbon and nitrous oxide pollution. Is there a reasonable alternative?

To our great disappointment, senior editor Peter Yost, who joined our company in April of last year, has decided that spending his days ferreting out information and writing articles for

EBN is not the life for him. He wants to be working more directly with companies and builder programs that are leading the charge with green building... Read more

At the recent Affordable Comfort Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) indoor air quality presentation delivered some surprising new information on building material emissions, ventilation rates, and the impacts of occupant activities. While quite a bit of information has been gathered on building... Read more

The

Architecture + Energy: Building Excellence in Sustainable Design 2001 Awards were announced in July. This year the program was open to projects from outside the Pacific Northwest for the first time, and jurors noted that the entries were the best they had seen in a competition. The four winners were:

Whenever the term “plastics” is used, a whole generation of Americans immediately thinks of Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 movie classic,

The Graduate. Hoffman portrays Ben, a promising but largely directionless college graduate, whom one family friend cannot help but enlighten with the following advice: “Plastics.”

Indeed, the... Read more

A report requested by the Bush administration on global climate change was released by a committee of the National Academies’ National Research Council on June 6, 2001. The report summed up science’s current understanding of climate change by confirming that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere and causing surface... Read more

Our Newsbrief on page 5 of

EBN

Vol. 10, No. 4 about the Maine Hospital Association incorrectly identified the Natural Resources Council of Maine as the Natural Resources

Defense Council of Maine. Our apologies.

... Read more

Entering the U.S. market with autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) has not been easy. North American Cellular Concrete made a go of it in 1992 (see

EBN

Vol. 1, No. 2) but got no further than a pilot plant. In 1996, the German Hebel Group built a manufacturing plant in Adel, Georgia through its subsidiary Hebel USA (see

EBN... Read more

Greenpeace has a new building products directory called the PVC Alternatives Database – Building the Future. The fully searchable international database lists over 236 (and counting) PVC-free products for the following building components: roofing, insulation, exterior cladding, windows and doors, flooring, wallcoverings, piping, and—often the... Read more

The

American Tree Farm System has engaged PriceWaterhouseCoopers to review its certification and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in relation to the American Forest & Paper Association’s (AF&PA) Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The Tree Farm System is a program of the American Forest Foundation, providing technical... Read more

W. R. Grace & Company is the latest casualty in asbestos-related lawsuits. The company, which has received over 325,000 personal injury claims related to asbestos and paid out $1.9 billion to resolve suits to date, has filed for Chapter 11 protection. W. R. Grace joins Owens Corning, Armstrong Industries, and more than 20 other companies in... Read more

Solar electric buildings researcher, designer, and advocate Steven Strong was the recipient of this year’s prestigious Charles Greeley Abbot Award from the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). The award is given for significant contributions to the Society or to the field of solar energy. Strong is principal of Solar Design Associates in... Read more

The American Lung Association reports that in a nationwide random sample of office workers, 24% felt that there were air quality problems in their work environment and 20% believed that poor air quality affected their work performance. Sources of indoor air pollution include biological agents, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, radon, secondhand... Read more