Championing the
Changemakers

Testing the limits of the air-source heat pump in our new house with this cold weather The interior unit of our Mitubishi air-source heat pump. Click photos to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

 

It’s been pretty chilly outside. A number of people have asked me how our air-source heat pump is making out in the cold... Read more

With a new group of online BAC courses starting this week, I’m reminded of the benefits of learning—and teaching—from home. San Francisco Bay Area traffic. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Getty Images

Truth be told, I was slow warming up to online instruction. Ten years ago, in early 2004, BuildingGreen was approached... Read more

Workers entering the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in 2006.Photo Credit: Isaac Breekken, AP

 

With nowhere on land to turn, we should look under the seabed for places to bury high-level nuclear waste

For more than 30 years the nuclear industry in the U.S. and nuclear regulators have been going down... Read more

Cold weather, when wood stoves are cranked up and portable electric space heaters are brought out of the basement and plugged in, is when most house fires occur Enjoying a wood stove on a cold winter day.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

The morning paper had yet another story about a destructive house fire—fortunately no... Read more

Six items on my policy wish-list for 2014 and beyond. Safe bicycle commuting and walking is high on my wish list for 2014.Photo Credit: Yuba Cargo Bikes

It's fun for me to dream about stuff—building products and materials—and how we can make that stuff greener. I recently wrote about 7 wish-list items for greener... Read more

A new way to report product ingredients, the Environmental and Health Statement, puts yet another spin on transparency. Resilient flooring manufacturer Tarkett and the German consulting company EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH (EPEA) have developed a new product ingredient disclosure format called an Environmental and Health Statement, or... Read more

Standard 90.4P for data centers will be performance-based and won’t require any modeling tools. Data centers have been running into roadblocks attempting to prove compliance to ASHRAE’s general energy standard, so ASHRAE is responding by developing Standard 90.4P—a separate standard for data centers that does not require modeling tools.

Until... Read more

Most U.S. states get an ‘F’ when it comes to protecting kids from this common but deadly carcinogen. Maybe it’s time for design teams to take the lead.

As awareness about air quality in schools has reached unprecedented levels in the U.S., one major indoor pollutant remains widely unaddressed: radon.

It might not be the most trendy... Read more

Flying in the face of convention, new research suggests pointing solar panels west may be more effective—at least during summer in Texas. A recent study conducted by the Pecan Street Research Institute found that installing west-facing photovoltaic (PV) panels at a trial site in Texas generated more energy and more effectively reduced peak demand... Read more

LEED v4 was just launched, but a commercial interiors project and an existing building are already gleaming with Gold and Silver through the beta program.

Just days after the official launch of LEED v4 at Greenbuild 2013, two projects have already achieved certification: the Haworth Organic Showroom in Beijing (certified Gold under LEED for... Read more

Researchers are finding even if toxic chemicals don’t persist, their effects on DNA function might—for up to five generations. A growing body of research from Washington State University finds that exposing rats to toxic substances predisposes their offspring even five generations later to serious diseases. But the substances studied are not... Read more

Maximizing mixed use and transportation connections helped this Philadelphia project score the most points since LEED for Neighborhood Development’s creation.

A transit-oriented complex in Philadelphia for low- and moderate- income residents has become the country’s first neighborhood certified LEED Platinum.

The Asociación... Read more

The largest release of energy data from LEED-certified buildings shows good energy results but leaves room for improvement in data collection and sharing. A snippet of LEED in Motion

The data was reported during USGBC’s Greenbuild conference in November 2013 as part of its report LEED in Motion: Impacts and Innovation. Drawing from LEED... Read more

Behind Obama’s executive order to nearly triple renewables used by federal agencies also lie new requirements for energy metering and disclosure. A recent executive order issued by President Obama directs every federal agency to source 20% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and institute new energy-metering and reporting practices... Read more

Seeking lessons from New York City benchmarking data, researchers question everything we thought we knew about energy metrics.

In the beginning, there was Energy Star.

Supported by the online Portfolio Manager infrastructure and statistical models from the periodic Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), the U.S.... Read more

The usage fee for grid-tied residential solar systems has both utilities and environmental groups watching the impact on installations. In what could become a trend, an Arizona utility will soon begin charging a monthly fee to homeowners with net-metered solar systems—solar photovoltaic systems that feed electricity back into the grid.

Arizona’... Read more

A $1 million fine against Duke Energy reveals that none of the wind utilities have a federal permit to cover protected-bird fatalities. For the first time, a wind energy facility has been prosecuted for killing protected birds. Having reached a settlement agreement, Duke Energy Renewables is to pay $1 million in fines for 14 golden eagles and 149... Read more

A study suggests plastic debris in the sea slows the rate at which lugworms can process sediment, which could affect marine diversity. A study published in the journal Current Biology found that microscopic pieces of plastic litter prevalent in the ocean can slow digestion in an important species of marine worms.

Researchers exposed Arenicola... Read more

Labor unions are beginning to seek sustainability education for a “competitive edge,” and Urban Green Council is happy to comply. New York’s Urban Green Council has joined forces with a national labor union to provide training in sustainable practices to thousands of plumbers, pipe fitters, sprinkler fitters, and HVAC technicians.

Members of... Read more

The EMerge Alliance is in the beginning stages of creating a direct-current power standard to help homeowners save energy.

EMerge Alliance has expanded its efforts to advance direct-current (DC) power distribution by launching a new initiative to develop a residential standard.

As the solar market expands and more electronics fill our... Read more