How Cool Roofs Lower Energy Costs

By: Scott Kriner - Sunday, December 9, 2007 Source: The Metal Initiative

In the United States, buildings are responsible for almost two-thirds of national electricity consumption and more than one-third of total primary energy use. As a result, the current energy crunch has made conservation measures within these structures more important than ever.

Heating and cooling costs are generally the major expenses associated with the operation of a building. Therefore, any reduction in these costs through the use of energy efficient building envelope components makes sense. Unfortunately, the roof can be the least energy efficient component of a building envelope. Is it any wonder, then, that cool roofing has become such a hot topic?

Cool roofing is gaining in popularity due to its ability to reduce cooling and heating energy usage. Utility companies are also interested in cool roofing because it can help reduce the peak demand in electricity during the afternoon hours of summer months, preventing power disruptions. And, from an environmental point of view, cool roofing can also help to mitigate a phenomenon known as the heat island effect.

Read the full article published on iGreenBuild.com.

Some Facts & The Future of Solar

Back in the 60’s or 70’s (too long to remember exactly) there was this myth that if the Pentagon would cover all their facilities with PV the price would drop enough that the average citizen could cover their dwelling unit. The simple answer to this question is price. The not so simple answer is thinness.

While California has 73% of the U.S. solar market is it price or efficiency holding back exponential growth. Efficiency means packing more silicon wafers into each cell. How can you do that? There is another issue, that of brittleness of the wafers. The thinner they get the harder it is to connect the poles to the edges of the wafer.

Read the complete article on iGreenBuild.com here.

Will the Electric Grid Stay On?

Going far beyond explaining the usual problems with biofuels, the video of David Fridley's June 2007 presentation "The Myths of Biofuels" explains why cellulosic ethanol won't come to the rescue anytime soon, how much biomass could possibly be grown in North America and exactly how poor ethanol really is. David is a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory staff scientist specializing on biofuels.

Read this page and learn more quick and dirty insights into the future of Energy from some very reliable sources.

Read the complete article here.

Green Schools Event Attracts An Inconvenient Speaker

Green California Schools Summit – The largest sustainable summit and expo to focus on bringing green technology and natural products into K-12 schools in California (December 4-6, Pasadena, California) announces the addition of Laurie David, Academy Award winning documentary film maker (An Inconvenient Truth), and Cambria Gordon, children’s book writer, as general session keynotes on December 6. They will join acclaimed scientist, educator and author Bill Nye “the Science Guy.”

Read more and get a free pass at iGreenBuild.com.

Green School Design Recognized

San Francisco, CA – The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) recognized notable leaders of high performance school building at the Greentools for Healthy Schools Conference awards luncheon this fall. The Green Apple Awards were distributed to outstanding school districts, school projects and industry leaders for their contributions to the green school movement.

Read the full article on SchoolFacilities.com here>

Green Lifestyle Challenge Offered To Employees

November 15, 2007 (HOUSTON, TX) – Kirksey, leader in sustainable architecture and design, today has issued a challenge to employees and the community to encourage them to live a greener lifestyle. Developed by The Kirksey Center for Sustainable ArchitectureSM, The Kirksey Carbon Copy™ is a guidebook detailing this challenge and outlining simple measures for companies and individuals to undertake to reduce our collective carbon footprint.

See some examples of the challenge and read the full article on iGreenBuild.com here.

Energy Efficiency Global Forum & Exposition

Nov. 11-14, 2007, Washington, D.C.

The Energy Efficiency Global Forum & Exposition, hosted by the Alliance to Save Energy: a first-of-its kind, comprehensive international energy-efficiency forum that will attract industry professionals, policymakers, and academics to forge partnerships and develop “best practices,” policies, and strategies to respond to the climate, national security, and economic implications of the increasing global demand for energy.

Read more about this event on iGreenBuild.com

GREEN BUILDING GROWTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

TUCSON, Arizona – October 31, 2007 – With the number of LEED-registered and LEED-certified green building projects increasing at rates approaching 70% to 80% year-over-year, a new book by leading green building consultant, Jerry Yudelson, entitled “The Green Building Revolution,” shows why this trend has become a “revolution.” Yudelson’s book not only chronicles the dimensions of this growth, but provides its manifesto as well.

Paint Goes Eco Friendly

PHILADELPHIA, PA, October 30, 2007 – The global paint and coatings industry is doing its part to build a safer, greener and more sustainable world. These were the observations of Luis Fernandez, Vice President and Global Business Leader for Rohm and Haas’s $2 billion Paint and Coatings Materials business, when he addressed ABRAFATI, the Brazilian Paint Manufacturers Association, late last week.

Read the full article here.

Lifetime achievements in green building recognized at 3rd Annual Toronto Green Building Festival

(Toronto, Canada, October 25, 2007) Three green building gurus-Peter Love, Janis Kravis and Doug Pollard-received Lifetime Achievement Awards today at the 3rd Annual Toronto Regional Green Building Festival at Ontario Place.

Read the full release here.

Green Holiday Lights Save Energy

HolidayLEDs.com, a new ecommerce company located in Michigan which specializes in energy-efficient LED holiday lighting, is offering a discount on its LED holiday lights to customers of all U.S. utility companies. “LED holiday lights can have an astounding impact on holiday energy consumption and we want to give our nation’s utility companies a tool to help encourage their customers to make the switch,” said Philip C. Curtis, co-owner of HolidayLEDs.com. HolidayLEDs.com is offering a 10% discount to all customers of participating U.S. utility companies on its full line of LED holiday lights.

Read the full article here.

Climate Change: barn door has begun to close

Australian Scientist Tim Flannery, author of The Weathermakers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, has told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that GHG emissions were at the ‘dangerous’ 455 parts per million level by the middle of 2005.

Though not an IPCC member, Flannery’s statement is based on his analysis of the three working group reports released earlier in 2007. He anticipates the upcoming November IPCC report will state that global greenhouse gas levels already are at the levels potentially contributing to dangerous climate change, which had been predicted for 10 years from now based on worst-case scenarios.

This disclosure will increase pressure to use green buildings to mitigate – and adapt to climate change.

Sustainability Leaps Forward

What do a Toyota Prius and a Platinum LEED green building have in common? Both are elegant solutions to a wide range of problem statements, and both come with some cost premium. If "elegance" can be defined as the value created for the energy expended, both the Prius and the Platinum building are elegant. Thinking of LEED as a "Quality Assurance" process makes the analogy clearer; green buildings are to typical buildings as a Prius is to a Chevy Malibu. They both represent a quantum leap in quality and performance from "yesterday's standard" to something that will be a viable product well into the future.

Read the full article by Sustainability expert Jerry Yudelson here.

German's Are Great Green Builders Says Jerry Yudelson

I just returned from a trip to Germany and there's a lot happening there in green building that we know little about, including "great" buildings, green technology and advanced thinking about energy efficient and zero net energy buildings. Read more about what caught my attention in this very interesting article.

Green Building Programs From Global Green

Local government officials and citizens interested in eco friendly construction and development take a look at this:

Developing Green Building Programs: A Step-By-Step Guide for Local Governments Global Green USA’s recently completed step-by-step guidebook outlining a six-step process that local agencies can utilize to develop their own green building programs. Download

Seattle Sets The Pace For Green Building In U.S.

I just read an interesting piece in the Seattle Times about King and Snohomish counties having a goal to build 10,000 Built Green homes by 2010. According to the Times the total already stands at nearly 12,000 homes. Amazing! Take a look at www.BuiltGreen.net and learn about how this organization provides consumers with rating systems for green-home construction and remodeling in Seattle. This is a great initiative that other cities and counties around the nation are learning from.

Cheers to BuiltGreen.net and our friends in Seattle!

Popular Green Building Article

Good morning, afternoon or evening...depending on where you are right now. Here's a quick preview of another article from iGreenBuild.com that has been forwarded to lots of readers from other readers on the web site. In partnership with local Native American communities, model homes that demonstrate the "eco" in both ecology and economy are taking shape as a class project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is what we need to see happening in more of our higher ed programs.

Pass "Building Green For Less Green" to any other green building enthusiasts.

Collective marketing materials for owners and tenants, derived from the business case for green buildings

Business cases provide a plethora of support for green buildings, and input for marketing materials. To enable market proliferation of green buildings and common messaging, it is useful for associations to have a toolkit of collective marketing materials which articulate the information based on client need and focus, and are updated as new data arise.

Nils Larsson (MRAIC, Executive Director of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment), Mark Lucuik (P. Eng., LEED AP, Morrison Hershfield) and myself (lead author, MBA, LEED AP, Sustainable Alternatives Consulting) have just completed two projects for the Canada Green Building Council, intended to help members market green buildings to owners and tenants of leased properties, to enable data updates, and provide common messages. This material is derived from The Business Case for Green Buildings in Canada by Mark Lucuik, (lead author), Wayne Trusty, Nils Larsson and Robert Charette, with research updates.

Look for the material on the CaGBC’s website in about 6 weeks.

LEED Canada Launches Green Building Pilot Project

The deadline has been extended for submitting expressions of interest in participating in the LEED Canada Complete Pilot Project for Commercial Office Buildings.

This initiative has the support of REALpac and NAIOP who are encouraging their members’ participation in the pilot. Expressions of interest are to be submitted to Maura Chestnutt at the CaGBC: mchestnutt(at)cagbc.org or by fax to: 604-681-7817.

The CaGBC will be giving a 2-week notice when the submission period will be ending.

LEED® Canada Complete is being developed by the CaGBC for launch in 2008 at the CaGBC’s first national summit, June 11-12, 2008 in Toronto, and full program launch in 2009. It is an expansion to provide low-cost, performance-based LEED certification at all stages of a building’s life cycle via a distributed, on-line, market-based delivery.

LEED® for Homes: Call for expressions of interest in CaGBC’s Case Study Program

The Canada Green Building Council’s LEED® Canada Complete has just received a huge response to their call for expressions of interest in their upcoming commercial office buildings national pilot project.

The CaGBC is now taking expressions of interest (before September 13, 2007) from Canadian teams that are part of (or interested in participating in) the USGBC’s Pilot project of LEED® for Homes, for inclusion in the CaGBC’s Case Study Program. These participants will have a variety of benefits, including contributing to the development of the LEED® Canada for Homes rating system.

Canadian teams that already are involved or interested in participating in the USGBC LEED® for Homes pilot are invited to apply to the CaGBC Case Study Program before Thursday, September 13th, 2007.

LEED® Canada Complete is being developed by the CaGBC for launch in 2008 at the CaGBC’s first national summit, June 11-12, 2008 in Toronto, and full program launch in 2009. It is an expansion to provide low-cost, performance-based LEED certification at all stages of a building’s life cycle via a distributed, on-line, market-based delivery.

The CaGBC has ambitious goals, and LEED® Canada Complete is the tool to achieve them.

More on LEED® Canada Complete in the next issue of www.iGreenBuild.com’s e-newsletter.

Florida Green Communities Sets Eco Friendly Example

I just read about The Florida Community Loan Fund, the Florida Green Building Coalition and Enterprise and their effort to invest more than $2.5 million in green building in Florida. This funding will be used to build or remodel 200 homes in the state. Organizations with programs of this sort are starting to surface in other parts of the U.S. and are wonderful tools for increasing earth friendly awareness in business and community.

Learn more about Florida Green Communities here.

improving climate change reporting

A new study, entitled improving climate change reporting is destined to advance both the recognition and the implementation of green buildings’ utility in reducing energy consumption and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

The report is published by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and the investment index organization FTSE. ACCA has global membership comprising 115,000 members plus 296,000 students, throughout 170 countries.

Some data from the study:
· of the 990,000 business entities in operation within the UK, 2,000 are energy intensive, and represent 45% of total UK emissions from business.
· of the balance of (non-energy-intensive) UK companies, over 60% of emissions arise from ‘buildings-related energy consumption.’ this is also the scenario for SMEs and public sector organizations.

As the title indicates, the report contains recommendations that companies are expected to demonstrate their actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and improve their climate change reporting. Implications are for energy efficiency, renewables and supply chain management including carbon labeling of products.

While the tone of the report’s recommendations appears to be voluntary, the urgency of the issues – and the opportunity costs of inaction - make these suggestions more of a warning or directive.

Environmentally Friendly WorldGBC International Congress

WorldGBC International Congress
The WorldGBC International Congress in July was "an unbelievable execution of a world class event with less than two months to prepare," as noted by WorldGBC Chair Kevin Hydes.

Kevin Hydes’ and that of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Rob Bennett were two of the many important presentations from the Congress that were reported in my recent www.iGreenBuild.com article.

Kevin Hydes later issued a call to action in his thank-you message to participants:
"These are unusual times as our earth suffers the stress of a century of abuse. Our organization needs to find unique solutions to meet our destiny and create the real impact on carbon reduction that the planet needs for its survival."

It is a call to action for us all.

Green Building Thought For The Weekend

Are you going green this weekend? Home improvement project? Yard work? Vacation? Whatever you do this Saturday and Sunday and whether you are eco friendly or not, pick up a piece of trash from your local park or beach, buy a green friendly product for your house improvement project or turn the lights off in the five star resort room you are sleeping in (before you grab a cool drink by the pool!).

I'm going surfing now and will no doubt have a handful of plastic and paper on my way back from the Pacific.

Cheers....Matt

What Will Create Positive Change In Green Building?

What are the weak signals that could spur momentous changes in the green building world? Here are a few that occur to Jerry Yudelson of Yudelson Consulting and iGreenBuild.com's Sr. Editor.

1. The trend in venture capital to focus on renewable energy, carbon mitigation and energy efficiency technologies (these grabbed almost 10 percent of all new venture money last year). This could mean that concept-busting innovations might be coming a lot sooner than you think. Consider solar powered roofing systems that deliver electricity at 10 cents or less per kilowatt-hour and what that could do to building design and zero-net-energy homes and buildings.


2. The availability of software, sensors and intelligent networks that make buildings so smart they can identify their problems and come up with fixes, so that we can achieve these 50 to 90 percent reductions in energy use that are part of every scenario for controlling global warming.


3. The continuing trend to cheapen and miniaturize communications technologies, along with an increasingly mobile workforce, means that we can make buildings half the size we think we need and still accommodate workforce and productivity needs.


4. LED lighting is moving rapidly to replace even compact fluorescents, with half the power consumption. This will allow the further downsizing of mechanical HVAC systems, opening the way for new HVAC technologies to serve buildings' needs.


5. Nano-technologies will revolutionize every aspect of building technology, from self-cleaning windows (no more guys suddenly materializing outside your windows ladies, watching you put on makeup at 10 a.m. in your office!), to self-cleaning façades, windows with R-10 values (instead of R-2 now), wall paints that insulate and so on.


6. Building information modeling that will enable integrated design to happen in real time, so that you could know the energy use of every possible building design change in minutes, instead of weeks.

New Issue Of The iGreenBuild.com Newsletter Is Published

We're done clicking, typing, copying and pasting and the latest issue of iGreenBuild.com has been published to our green building and eco friendly subscribers. if you haven't received it or simply don't have a subscription you can sign up for it here.

This issue covers a number of sustainable building and environmentally friendly living topics. We've published articles about Live Earth, the 2007 International Green Building Conference, building green for less, Project Frog high performance modular schools, green cleaning, news and more.

National Wildlife Federation Talks Global Warming With Students

ClimateClassroom.org helps educate children about global climate change in accurate, developmentally appropriate, and hopeful ways. Sections designed for parents and K-12 educators provide talking points, attractive visuals, instructional guidelines, and helpful resource links for investigating the topic with children. An additional section for school-age children offers quality learning experiences and realistic suggestions for becoming part of the global-warming solution.

Visit www.ClimateClassroom.org

Solar Legislation Needs Your Support

From Aaron Hall of Borrego Solar Systems

I sent out an email a couple of days ago encouraging you to support legislation that will increase the fuel economy standards and set a minimum target of renewable energy production.
This email is specifically for solar and deals with the most important legislation for solar in our country's history. Together our support brought on state legislation, now we can help the entire nation!

Specifically the bill contains the following provisions for solar:
Eight year extension of the 30% commercial solar tax credits (Section 48)
Removal of the $2,000 cap on the residential tax credits
Ability to take the tax credits against the alternative minimum tax

What I am urging you to do is to contact your congressional rep and let him or her know that you feel it is paramount that this legislation passes in order to ensure long term success of the solar industry in our country, which will result in solar power being competitive with fossil fuels, even when you don't take in to account all of the external costs of these conventional energies associated with wars, climate change, dependence on foreign energy, pollution, etc. If you are in the solar industry, let them know and remind them of the jobs that solar creates in their area.

To find contact info for your congressional rep, enter your zip code here. Then go ahead and call him/her. It helps! If you are so inclined, send them a fax as well. My congressman Duncan Hunter (East San Diego) currently is not on board so he especially needs some encouragement from his constituents.The vote will take place very soon, potentially today or tomorrow.
Thanks!

The bill# is HR2776

What's In The Latest GreenSage?

I just received the latest issue of GreenSage and recommend you do the same. GreenSage is one of the original online sources for 'Green' information, products and services and their eNewsletter is just a tease for the green building product information on their web site.

Here's what I found in this weeks issue:

1. Water water every where
2. Wind Power 2007
3. Fuelin' Woes
4. New Evidence in War on Toxins
5. Compare Green Vegetative Roofs With Conventional

Visit www.greensage.com and sign up for this publication today.

Green Building Experts Syndicate

iGreenBuild.com has a new way for green building enthusiasts, eco friendly people, architects, contractors and other professionals to receive timely information about sustainable building practices and environmentally conscious building products right on their desktop, within their browser or by email. Call it really simple syndication or RSS, click on a simple link and you are on your way to becoming really knowledgeable about environmentally friendly building.

"At first I was puzzled with the RSS concept but the further I read about this method of sending readers our content the easier the implementation on our web sites and blogs got, " said Matt Banes iGreenBuild's founder.

"It took me one minute to subscribe to our blog GreenCentric.com and now I can see any editorial updates to that blog right in my Google browser," commented Elizabeth Crane, one of iGreenBuild.com's editors.

Subscribing to an RSS feed involves very little. In fact, once you subscribe it's almost magic how the information you want starts appearing in a small window in your browser or, for those of you tech-savvy followers, right in your custom RSS reader. It's like having a ticker or small TV on your desktop.

Visit www.iGreenBuild.blogspot.com or www.GreenCentric.com and look to the upper right corner of these pages. You have an option to receive updates via email or enable the feed for your browser. iGreenBuild.com and its parent company GBM Marketing, Inc. plan on syndicating each of the firms twelve blogs and four web sites in the near future.

Green Building For Renovation Projects Is A Challenge

While it is increasingly true that buildings being built now are incorporating ecologically friendly aspects into their buildings, the problem of how to "green" existing buildings remains.

In Canada, 90 percent of buildings are existing properties (the other 10 percent are new construction). Given the enormous concerns about GHG emissions and energy consumption related to climate change, as well as the logic of using green building measures like daylighting to reduce employee costs via productivity gains, it is vital to find a way to green existing buildings which bypasses some of the major challenges.

Read the full article from Green Syndicated Columnist Sonja Persram here.

Hawaii Department Of Education Goes Green

The U.S. Green Building Council presented the Hawaii State Department of Education with its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification award for the DOE's innovative "green design" of the Waipahu Intermediate School cafeteria. The LEED award was presented at the school.

The cafeteria is only the sixth LEED-certified project in Hawaii and the first DOE project of its kind. The LEED rating system was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.

Primary sustainable achievements and design features of the cafeteria include: 100 percent daylighting of the dining area; 65 percent reduction in irrigation water consumption; and effective natural ventilation. The school saves $3,000 per year due to a 15 percent reduction in annual energy consumption. Construction used locally manufactured materials and materials with recycled content, and 88 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfills.

"The Waipahu Intermediate cafeteria will be our LEED model for future public schools built in our state," said Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto. "Our department worked diligently to attain LEED certification and we are proud of this major facilities milestone."

Ferraro Choi and Associates, Ltd., designed the 19,175-square-foot cafeteria, and Okada Trucking Co., Ltd., was the general contractor. The facility was completed in April 2006 and can accommodate 750 students during each meal shift. Total design and construction costs were approximately $5.8 million.

New schools and facilities will follow Waipahu Intermediate's "LEED." House Bill 2175 HD2 SD1 CD1, passed by the 2006 Hawaii State Legislature and signed into law as Act 96, directs all state agencies to implement energy efficiency and environmental standards such as LEED for new state facilities. For example, upcoming schools such as Ewa Makai Middle and Wailuku II Elementary will be seeking LEED certification.

IBM Goes Green With Energy Saving Project in 2007

Big Blue has another nickname: "Big Green." In a presentation earlier this year, IBM unveiled its "Project Big Green," a $1-billion-a-year effort to make data centers worldwide more energy-efficient, cost-effective and greener overall.

The company also announced, as part of this plan, that it would use the latest hardware, software and services to double the computing capacity of its data centers worldwide by 2010, without increasing its power consumption.

The project comes as individuals, governments are businesses alike are increasingly concerned about climate change, and seeking to implement new strategies to stem the worst of its effects. Energy use, as a major generator of greenhouse gases worldwide, is an important place to focus efforts, and IBM today said it was putting the entire weight of its company behind this project.

"There are times when we need to mobilize the entire company, as we did with the internet, with e-commerce, and others," said Mike Daniels, IBM's senior vice president of Global Technology Services. "We think this is one of those times, and we have reallocated $1b around these initiatives."

The company's strategy is to offer a "road map" to green data centers. There are five steps to the program: Diagnose, Build, Virtualize, Manage and Cool, and IBM today outlined each of those in its presentation.

The first step in reaching energy efficiency is to know where a company is starting from. To that end, IBM has developed a tool and set metrics by which companies can measure their power consumption across their IT operations. IBM will also assess clients' energy efficiency to determine the most important first steps to take.

As part of the Build aspect of the plan, IBM has created Mobile Measurement Technology to provide a three-dimensional map of temperatures in data centers, again with the goal of showing what areas need the most urgent attention. When Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility company, implemented MMT at three data centers in Northern California, it accurately visualized hot spots, air leakage and other inefficiencies across their 40,000 square feet of data center space in a few days, as opposed to a few weeks if they had been surveyed by hand.

IBM also unveiled a tool that provides a virtual representation of energy needs in data centers. One of IBM's chief engineers, Donna Dillenberger, showed the program off at the presentation, and said that it can be used to help plot when your data centers will have the highest energy demand and how making small tweaks to performance can increase or decrease energy needs. This can give companies the ability to accurately forecast their power needs.

Virtualizing IT infrastructure can allow companies to dramatically cut down on both their hardware and energy needs. Companies using IBM's mainframe or its new BladeCenter server, can use nearly 100 percent of a server's capacity, and cut down power use by as much as 50 percent.

IBM is encouraging companies to take advantage of power management software as an easy way to drop electricity usage. IBM estimated that if all the country's data centers simply set their servers to go to sleep when they're not in use, the country could save 5.4 billion kilowatt hours per year, enough electricity to heat 370,000 homes for a winter.

Finally, the fifth stage of IBM's road map involves cooling world's data centers. One new service the company has created, the IBM Data Center Stored Cooling Solution, was put in use in a data center in Quebec, which was able to save 45 percent of its cooling costs.

The company will also promote its Rear Door Heat eXchanger, product, which use chilled water to dissipate systems' heat by as much as 60 percent.

Green Development Grows in Brooklyn

Bright City development group and broker Aguayo & Huebener announced the opening of sales for 5one5 Condominiums, a new development based on sustainable building practices and located in Brooklyn's Park Slope South neighborhood. The building, 515 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, had its first Open House on Earth Day, Sunday, April 22, 2007.

Read the full article here.

Ask the Green Architect: Fluorescent Bulbs

Read this very helpful article by Eric Corey Freed and learn the answer to questions concerning mercury in fluorescent bulbs, environmentally friendly disposal of bulbs and alternatives to these products.

Read the full article here.

Eric Corey Freed is a Green Syndicated Columnist at iGreenBuild.com and a regular contributor to the site's enewsletter.

Get the iGreenBuild.com Search Box For Your Web Site

Give your web site visitors and employees access to the web's most insightful database of environmentally friendly information. The iGreenBuild.com search box is easy to add to your web site and even easier for people to use.

See it for yourself >>

Hill Air Force Landfill Gas to Energy Case Study

Read this one page case study on Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which was the first Federal agency to award a project delivery order under the Department of Energy’s BAMF Super ESPC.

Case study.

Green Building Trends for 2007

As a consultant to this industry, I have a great vantage point to see what’s been happening and what is likely to occur in the coming year. I wanted to release these predictions right after New Year’s to encourage others to share their expectations for the growth of green buildings.

Here are my predictions click.

Academy for underserved youth first LEED-designed building in Newark, NJ

St. Philip's Academy is celebrating the completion of their new school campus, the first LEED-designed building in Newark. Designed by Gensler from a 1920's factory building at 342 Central Avenue, St. Philip's Academy is an independent K-8 school founded in 1988 to serve underserved city youth. The school welcomes all children regardless of their family's ability to pay tuition. StructureTone was contractor for the project.

Read the full article.

Long Beach Welcomes Eric Corey Freed

Principal of San Francisco, California-based organicARCHITECT, Eric Corey Freed will speak on the Power Panel for "Sustainability & Going Green" March 14, 2007, at HOME·X 2007 Homebuilder Summit & Expo.

A founding board member of the San Francisco Design Museum, Freed served as chair of architecture from 2002 to 2005, where he developed weekly evening lecture series and hands-on workshops for corresponding exhibits. Consulted as the LEED Accredited Professional for five LEED Silver Rating green buildings, Freed has shared his keen insight and dynamic approach to design with his industry colleagues as a lecturer for the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, San Francisco’s Harvard Club, the Industrial Designers Society of Los Angeles, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Users Group, several AIA chapters, the University of San Francisco and more.

"I firmly believe that a building should follow three simple principles: that it be individual so that a unique design is created for each unique client; that it be ecological so that we take responsibility for the materials and systems we place into the building to protect our natural resources; and finally, that it be organic such that the design grows based on the needs and functions of the site and program," says Freed. "I am continuing the tradition of Organic Architecture founded by Frank Lloyd Wright. Each project is a new set of issues and problems to solve. Each project has its special challenges."

Co-founder of ecoTECTURE: The Online Journal of Ecological Design, Freed is an adjunct professor of both the Academy of Art University and the University of California Berkeley and was awarded San Francisco magazine’s Best Green Architect award in 2005.

Go Green or Go Home Industry leaders in the fields of residential building, land development, architecture, engineering, interior design and planning will gather at HOME·X 2007 for a riveting three-day summit during which they will tackle the most pressing issues affecting all realms of housing today. Topping the list is the importance of cutting-edge green building practices and innovations, as well as the international need for highly livable, truly sustainable communities. Topics to be covered in the HOME·X 2007 summit tract entitled "Sustainability & Growing Green" include:• Why Go Green? The Market, the Environment and Profits in 2007 • Energy Savings & Efficiencies from the Experts • Sustainable Architecture, Structure & Design • Lessons Learned — What Sells and What Doesn’t in a Buyer’s Market

For more information, visit www.organicarchitect.com. To register for HOME·X 2007, where you will here the latest words of wisdom from this inspiring industry luminary, please visit www.homex2007.com/register.

Fight Global Warming

National Coatings AcryShield Roof Coatings Fight Global WarmingLast year alone, the cool-roof coating materials manufactured by National Coatings under the AcryShield label helped avoid as many as 24 million pounds of CO2 being produced due toreduced demands for energy.Camarillo, CA February 2, 2007 -- National Coatings is proud to announce that their AcryShieldcool-roof acrylic, water-based roof coatings, manufactured and installed last year alone, helped avoid as many as 24 million pounds of CO2 production in reduced demands for energy across the nation.National Coatings, http://www.nationalcoatings.com/, the leader in Acrylic Cool Roof Technology continues to demonstrate leadership in the roofing industry's fight against Global Warming. The commercial/industrial low slope roofs that have an installed AcryShield Cool-Roof will experience ongoing savings for years to come."Each company doing their part can make a significant impact on the environment." Matt Kolb, President of National Coatings Corporation further comments, "The compounded cumulative savings that can be realized can be staggering if owners of low slope roofs choose a cool roofing system" The cumulative effect can quickly move into annual avoided production of hundreds of millions of pounds of CO2 annually." says Bill Kirn, Technical Director, noted author, speaker and chemist in acrylic cool roof technology.About National Coatings CorporationPerformance through Innovation™, National Coatings Corporation (Camarillo, CA) is a leading manufacturer and supplier of premium-quality elastomeric roof and wall coating products. For over 25 years, NCC has provided its customers with leading edge products, support, and thought leadership. National Coatings is a charter member of the Reflective Roof Coating Institute the Cool Roof Rating Council and the ENERGY STAR® Roof Productsgroup, and was twice recognized as ENERGY STAR Roof Products Partner of the Year. NCC's leading brands include AcryShield®, AcryPly®, AcryPly-D™, AcryFlex® and White Armor™.

Major Industries Joins iGreenBuild.com

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Orange, California

Major Industries, a firm that specializes in manufacturing quality skylights and translucent curtainwalls, has joined a growing list of companies advertising on iGreenBuild.com in 2007.

iGreenBuild.com is the leading online source of information about green building, sustainability and environmentally friendly living. Architects, engineers, builders, building owners and home owners use the web site to source information about topics such as energy conservation, green products, recycling, home and office design and global warming.

Contact Matt Banes, iGreenBuild.com Publisher, at (714) 279-7933 for more details about the web site.

Green Building Portal Adds Amazon.com As Partner

iGreenBuild.com now has an extensive offering of green building, sustainability and environmentally friendly living books, cds and DVD's from Amazon.com. Visitors at iGreenBuild.com will now have access to hundreds of books with titles covering a variety of topics covering everything from energy conservation to green home design.

"I can see iGreenBuild.com becoming the Google of green building information and adding Amazon.com as a partner gets them one step closer" says Eric Hasting of EH Design who is a regular user of the web site.