Championing the
Changemakers

A victim of a hepatitis E infection she picked up unknowingly in Brazil, Genevive Bjorn's liver rebelled against her one night in Hawaii. Her body almost shut down on her, but with help from the hospital, a battery of tests, her watchful boyfriend at her side, and a diet of nothing but rice porridge, she squeaked through.

This... Read more

BuildingGreen presents a FREE 1-Hour Webcast on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 2 p.m. EST

To help professionals make the best design and material choices for their specific projects (and budgets), BuildingGreen recently developed and released the Guide to Insulation Products and Practices.

The report emphasizes that there are no universal... Read more

Letting short-term payback analyses drive economic decisions about high-performance buildings is crazy.

If we let simple or even net-value payback analysis alone drive the economics of high-performance buildings, we might as well throw in the towel. It is truly crazy to apply just this approach to long-lived durable goods, such as... Read more

Dow's Powershingle BIPV is designed to blend in with asphalt shingles and provide power via CIGS PV cells. Can a building-integrated solar shingle compete with cheap crystalline? Focusing on aesthetics and installation is a great start.

Dow's Powerhouse photovoltaic (PV) roofing shingles are designed to integrate into a conventional asphalt... Read more

Eco-friendly bamboo options have gotten better, but the choice is still not simple.

If you want the "greenest" bamboo flooring out there what do you look for? We have talked a lot about bamboo over the years, starting in 1997. The options have gotten better, but the choice is still not simple. See BuildingGreen's product guide, Hardwood... Read more

DesignIntelligence has released its annual report on the top architecture schools, and 80% are campus-wide BuildingGreen subscribers. The top architecture schools for 2012, according to DesignIntelligence. Hey, don't we know you?

We're always curious to see the DesignIntelligence lists of top architecture and design programs in the U.S.... Read more

New ways to make and save energy, from university research

An environmentalist dies and reports to the pearly gates, but there is a mix-up and she is sent to the gates of hell. Once in hell, she is horrified by the air and water pollution, global warming, and habitat destruction. But she gets to work and soon the hellscape is covered... Read more

When it comes to green building, you can't always get what you what. So how do you get what you need? Whole-window R-value of 6.7. Not too shabby!

Note: some of the links below will only work for registered subscribers. See low-cost membership options.

BuildingGreen's recent field trip to a local Passive House under construction led to... Read more

Spray foam is only one of a number of building products and methods which increase the risk of catastrophic fire loss (and potential loss of life).

[Editor's note: After asking him to pen his series of 10 Riversong's Random Reflections on our blog earlier this year, we asked Vermont builder Robert Riversong back to discuss fire safety... Read more

Building to the Passive House standard is hard enough for the pros. We get a peek into what happens when you try to go it alone. Zip-taped and on piers. We were lucky enough to visit while seams and interior I beams were still visible.

The last BuildingGreen field trip we wrote about was at the Syracuse Center of Excellence. This week, we... Read more

Spray foam is only one of a number of building products and methods which increase the risk of catastrophic fire loss (and potential loss of life).

[Editor's note: After asking him to pen his series of 10 Riversong's Random Reflections on our blog earlier this year, we asked Vermont builder Robert Riversong back to discuss fire safety... Read more

Mem's NaturHemp insulation offers comparable R-values to other batt insulations and is made from rapidly renewable hemp. It is made in Canada, where industrial hemp can be grown legally. More new products from Greenbuild! This week we introduce you to some water-saving fixtures, recycled content products, a residential rainscreen system, and... Read more

By leveraging social media, a national campus competition helps students turn small commitments into large-scale change. Combining social media with intercollegiate competition provides two forms of motivation: it shows participants that even small individual commitments can be part of a larger whole and also gives them the extra incentive of... Read more

I recently caught up with where the rest of the world was in 2005 by watching the hit documentary "March of the Penguins." It's been on my list for a while but when evening arrives I'm much more prone to watching films about people--people like James Bond, for example. But my wife and I had a baby two weeks ago, and suddenly movies... Read more

Part 2 in our series, "What Type of Insulation Should You Use?" Even our savvy readers had some trouble with BuildingGreen's insulation quiz. Does it really have to be this hard to choose the best insulation for your project?

While paying yet another $3000 heating oil bill this fall, a friend of mine decided it was time to bite the bullet... Read more

Renovate, from Berkowitz, LLC. is a retrofit glazing that fits on the interior of single-pane commercial windows, improving the center of glass U-factor from 1.03 to 0.16. Finding the top Greenbuild products among 900 exhibitors is no easy task. This week we introduce you to our favorite windows from the show.

Greenbuild expo floors are... Read more

What do over a thousand protests around the world last weekend in support of Occupy Wall Street have to do with Green Building?

When NYC Mayor Bloomberg was speaking via video-link at Greenbuild, and while the Toronto Airport security strike delayed green building practitioners from returning home, a growing group of "occupiers... Read more

Part 1: The Basics Click to Read Part 2: Identifying Your Priorities Choosing the best insulation to maximize performance and minimize environmental impacts is one of the most complex decisions you can make for a building project.

Insulation is a critical component of any building--especially one designed and built to minimize environmental... Read more

The increased use of no-added-urea-formaldehyde (NAUF) wood products is great, but can occasionally cause unsightly "bleaching" of gorgeous veneers. What to do? Exotic veneers like this deliciously buttery English sycamore can be devastatingly discolored by some types of non-urea-formaldehyde boards. Woodworking experts have found some solutions... Read more

Are there any sustainable materials? What does that even mean?

Near the end of another exciting and exhausting Greenbuild, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with three other women deeply invested in sustainable material management: Lindsay James, InterfaceFlor; Gail Vittori, Center for Maximum Building Potential Building Systems, and... Read more