Championing the
Changemakers

How can pesticides no one has used for decades be found in birds and fish in some of the most remote locations of the globe? These chemicals—along with many carpet treatments, flame retardants, and other additives still commonly found in building products—are persistent, bioaccumulative toxic chemicals (PBTs). While many toxic substances become... Read more

Back in the 1960s, the caretaker at a summer lodge that was in our family rigged a makeshift solar water heater: he laid a black sheet of plastic against the hillside next to the pool, hooked up a small pump, and attached a hose that directed the water down the plastic, where it was warmed by the summer sun before it flowed back to the... Read more

By Evan DickNew lightweight drywall products have become widely available in the U.S. and Canada in the last year as major drywall manufacturers have entered the market. These products weigh 1.2–1.4 pounds per inch for 1⁄2" panels—a 25%–30% weight reduction from standard drywall.

The weight reduction is a significant advance for drywall... Read more

By Evan DickA long-delayed Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report warns that rising sea levels and extreme weather caused by climate change may cause a 40%–45% increase within the next 90 years of U.S. land area vulnerable to flooding.

Expanding floodplains will endanger millions of existing properties not formerly vulnerable... Read more

I have been having a lot of fun feeding worms my garbage. We have something you could either call a "worm bin" or a "home vermicomposting system," and we throw our food scraps, banana peels, melon rinds, moldy bread--you name it--into that. There are a couple pounds of worms in the bin, and they gratefully accept the waste, eat it,... Read more

A statistician can have his head in an oven and his feet on ice and say that on average he feels just fine, the old chestnut tells us. Similarly, when we hear about climate change in terms of a 2°C temperature change or a one-meter sea-level rise, that might also sound just fine. Local conditions may give us greater fluctuations in... Read more

We have national efficiency ratings for cars, refrigerators, furnaces, and many other products—but despite the huge contribution of the building sector to energy use and global warming, we have no comparable rating system for entire buildings. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is trying to change that with a program it will start piloting in... Read more

We are already adding blankets to our beds here in Vermont, and it's still dark when my husband and I get up for our early-morning run. Looks like time to wean the kids off their late-to-bed/late-to-rise schedule and remember... Read more

Home unimprovement, noun. During renovation, the removal from a building of misguided features or home "improvements" added during previous renovations.

It's always satisfying to see a name given to a phenomenon that you already know well, and that is... Read more

The international Passive House Institute (PHI) has severed its ties with the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS), as PHI’s Wolfgang Feist accuses the U.S.... Read more

A lawsuit filed in October 2010 against the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and its LEED rating systems has been dismissed in a strongly worded ruling... Read more

In a major blow to U.S. solar innovation, Evergreen Solar, creator of low-cost ribbon technology for photovoltaic (PV) cells, has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Evergreen was the only company using the proprietary ribbon technology, which involves drawing a wire through molten silicon to pull out polycrystalline ribbons; the... Read more

Graced with four centuries’ worth of historic buildings, the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts may seem an unlikely place to look for cutting-edge sustainable design. In addition to its historic charm, though, Harvard has the highest number of LEED-certified buildings of any college or university—53 and counting, according... Read more

By Alex Wilson and Nadav MalinInspiring. Gracious. Inviting. Each time we met Ray Anderson and heard him speak, we were impressed again and again by how fully he manifested those qualities. The green building world lost one of its biggest heroes and certainly its evangelist yesterday with the loss of Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of carpet... Read more

As I was hosing down the dirt driveway in front of my house last week to keep the dust down with some guests due to arrive, I got to thinking about Chicken Dinner Road.

I once lived in Canyon County, Idaho and often passed a junction for Chicken Dinner Road. Some years ago, I was told, this road was a dusty dirt track traveling... Read more

I called Pete Samaras, Senior Electrical Estimator at DPR Construction, to ask him about job-site lighting practices for our product review on LED jobsite lighting  (see LED Systems Provide Huge Energy Savings for Jobsite Lighting, EBN Aug. 2011 and our GreenSpec listing of the Flex SLS system). To make sure he had the latest... Read more

Try this little perceptual experiment now: look at yourself in a mirror (or your computer or phone camera). Then look at your left eye, and then your right eye, and then back and forth several times. What do you see?

If someone else is around, ask them to look at you, and look back and forth between your eyes.

What... Read more

Responding to thousands of comments on the first draft, USGBC made major changes to LEED 2012, especially in materials. We walk you through the highlights.

Among the... Read more

After a long summer of too much rain followed by too much heat, I... Read more