From the category archives:

USGBC

Al Gore Speaks About Green Building

November 17, 2009

Recently, former American Vice-President, Presidential hopeful, and more recent environmentalist speaker and author Al Gore delivered a keynote address to the USGBC Greenbuild Conference. Items he touched upon included green building mandates, the effectiveness of USGBC leadership, calling out greenwashing, and the folly of unsustainable dependency on fossil fuels as a means of stabilizing our economies and ways of life all over the world. Ultimately though, Gore’s perspective is that with innovation and technology, the future need not be the dystopian nightmare that, perhaps, his book and film An Inconvenient Truth may suggest to many people.

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LEED 2009: Significant Changes

January 21, 2009

I think it was the Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan who said: “The only way to keep up is to stay ahead.”  These words might apply to LEED building standards. LEED certified professionals (LEED AP) will have some studying to do to get up to speed with proposed changes for LEED 2009, or LEED V3. [...]

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Carbon Offsets for U.S. Green Affordable Housing

November 25, 2008

 Duh! This news release looks like an afterthought by the organizers of recent USGBC Greenbuild International Conference and Expo held in Boston November 19 – 21.

The release, dated November 24, 2008, looks forward to the Conference which ended three days earlier. Too bad, because the news content is interesting.
 
Attendees at this year’s Greenbuild can assuage [...]

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Green Building Programs In USA

November 14, 2008

 
Did you know that there are over 90 green building programs in the USA?   
 
Or that the residential buildings use more energy than the automotive sector?
 
Here’s a video that talks briefly about these issues and makes the point that green building, particularly in the residential sector, can make a huge difference to America’s energy consumption.
 
I’ve [...]

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NAHB National Green Building Standard: Not Here Yet

November 13, 2008

A clarification here for anyone reading Floor Covering Weekly’s October 13 2008 supplement “The Green Guide.”  A story on page 12 suggests the National Home Builders’ Association Model Green Building Guide has already been declared a national standard by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The story says, “At the 2008 International Builders show, the NAHB launched its [...]

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Green Building Councils Overreach Mandate

October 30, 2008

As a vendor of a building material certified by the FSC. BuildDirect qualifies according to FSC rules to advertise the product (Kontiki Vifah Eucalyptus Deck Tile) with the FSC logo and name. BuildDirect satisfies all the requirements for FSC chain of custody regulations for using the FSC logo in its advertising, and the folks at [...]

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LEED and FSC: Too Close for Comfort

October 30, 2008

 
LEED is currently the best known acronym in the green building industry. As a branding success, its meteoric rise is nothing if not phenomenal. What does it stand for? Unless you’re a LEED accredited professional (LEED AP), you probably can’t remember (and don’t care) if it stands for Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design or [...]

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Sustainable Forest Certifications in North America

October 23, 2008

North American sustainable forestry certifications are outlined in an excellent article in January 2008 issue of Environmental Building News. You need a subscription to read it so I’ll render a précis here.
Among others, the major certification organizations operating in North America are: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI); American Tree Farm System [...]

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