Championing the
Changemakers

Flashing tapes are critical to many if not most wall assemblies that are currently being built. Therefore the durability of these pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes is critical to the durability of those assemblies. So it may come as a surprise that no one really knows how long they last.

That’s why we’ve been field-testing tapes... Read more

Before there was LEED, there was BREEAM.

While the LEED rating systems might have more buzz, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology is the world’s oldest and most widely used green building rating system. Created in 1990 by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the U... Read more

The Living Building Challenge (LBC) has a strict ban on greenfield development, with one exception. It allows for buildings in previously undeveloped—even ecologically sensitive—locations when they are there to help people learn about the place. As a facility that’s all about caring for and teaching people about nature, the Chesapeake Bay... Read more

We all want to eat right, but we also need to watch our budgets. Most of us want to buy healthful, responsibly produced food but can’t always find or afford the most sustainable option.

Enter the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen. These lists from Environmental Working Group (EWG) identify 12 types of produce with the greatest pesticide... Read more

We commonly talk about “vinyl” flooring, wallcoverings, and upholstery. But these materials, while mostly made of PVC, also contain a relatively high percentage of plasticizer—up to 40% or 50%, depending on the product. Plasticizers are added to the rigid PVC to make it flexible. Conventional plasticizers are almost universally a type of... Read more

LED lighting is now ubiquitous—a good thing for energy efficiency, but it poses a challenge. With so many products and manufacturers to choose from, how do you know which products will last? Which ones will perform as expected or even exceed expectations?

The Next Generation Luminaires (NGL) Design Competition strives to answer these... Read more

Copper, chlorinated PVC (CPVC), and cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) all have advantages for potable water piping, but each also comes with environmental life-cycle tradeoffs.

Rigid polypropylene products are an attractive alternative because of their lower impact and cleaner chemistry. Now there’s a promising flexible alternative as... Read more

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) has announced the first two building products certified under the requirements of its Living Product Challenge (LPC). The products—fiberglass insulation and a rammed earth system—each earned Living Product Imperative Certification at ILFI’s May 2016 Living Future conference in Seattle.

... Read more

In the next 15 years, we have a choice: to lock our world into another century of building inefficiency, or to blaze another path. By 2030, an area equal to roughly 60% of the world’s current total building stock will be built or rebuilt in urban areas, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), and those buildings will define our cities... Read more

Rarely is anything in the built environment made of a single product. “So why do we approach materials research and selection at the product level?” a new study conducted by Re:Vision Architecture asks.

Report authors Christopher Lee, project manager, and Nicole Campion, sustainability researcher for Re:Vision, present an alternative,... Read more

A Portuguese architect was recently hired to design a hotel. He made all the right decisions to get the quickest payback in energy savings for a building located in Portugal.

The problem? This hotel was located on the coast of Senegal. The “imported” design specified double-glazed windows—standard for southern Europe but a questionable... Read more

Continuous air and water barriers are labor-intensive to install and vulnerable to human error during construction. Installations are subject to all kinds of problems, starting with poor design and culminating in every imaginable installation error. With its DensElement Barrier System, Georgia-Pacific Gypsum is the latest... Read more

A design team can enable real progress by setting aside a day or longer for a focused workshop. Or it could just waste a lot of high-priced time.

You can break down barriers and build a functioning team if you bring together people in different roles who don’t usually get to talk with one another. Or... Read more

The oak flooring you specified took habitat from the endangered Amur tiger. That maple cabinet veneer was stolen from a U.S. National Park. And the cedar decking you just installed was felled in a protected rainforest.

Or was it?

If you don’t know whether those scenarios could... Read more

Editor’s note December 3, 2019: Aquion is currently emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which has caused an interruption in its ability to manufacture the product and provide tech support. See the company’s FAQ for more.

For the last 50 years, saltwater batteries have been the stuff of middle school... Read more

Existing building projects can now prove compliance with a good chunk of LEED credits by earning a certain score through the LEED Dynamic Plaque.

The alternative compliance path, which is being piloted for the LEED v4 Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) Rating System, allows teams to use... Read more

Could imitating nature help us survive climate change?

That was the question asked by Biomimicry 2016: The Road to Resiliency, a March 2016 conference held in Irwindale, California and organized by Verdical... Read more

A Declare label now counts under LEED v4, along with a number of other new options.

The product disclosure program managed by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is one of a handful of ingredient transparency tools that comply with the “disclosure” option of the material ingredients credit (... Read more

The American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top Ten projects for 2016 show an impressive move toward higher performing buildings, with four of ten projects showing predicted or actual net-zero or net-positive energy use.

The winning projects were mostly designed when the... Read more

Throughout the eight years I spent as founding chair of LEED’s Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR TAG), no single issue consumed as much of our time and attention as... Read more