If you are remodeling this summer or fall, you’re not alone. It’s big business – Americans spent $173 billion on remodeling in 2002.
There are many resources to help you remodel green:
If you live in the Seattle area, you can participate in Green Home Remodel classes at Community Centers there. If you live elsewhere you can still access the Washington’s Sustainable Building Program web guides – detailed booklets on specific projects such as Kitchen, Bath and Laundry and Roofing. Watch for future publications on Paints & Finishes, Landscape Materials and Hiring a Professional.
www.seattle.gov/sustainablebuilding/greenhome.htm
If you’re building a house, you might want to take advantage of naturalhomeplans.com – you’ll also find them featured in Natural Home Magazine.
To donate or incorporated used building materials, do a search for building materials exchanges, which are located on the Web and around the US. Habitat for Humanity runs ReStores around the country.
To find “green” contractors who are trained to build and/or design projects that are energy, water, and resource-efficient, as well as employ methods that ensure proper indoor ventilation, see if there is a “Master Builder” near you, certified by the Energy and Environmental Building Association or the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. Green architects can be found at greenbuilder.com. For more green building resources, consult our Resource Directory.
Green Building News
In July, the City of Vancouver announced the adoption of green building standards LEED for British Columbia (LEED-BC) for all new civic buildings greater than 500 square meters. New public buildings must achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. The City also mandated specific energy points in the LEED Rating System to ensure a 30% energy reduction in all new civic buildings.
LEED-BC, licensed to Canada by the U.S. by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is a performance based tool that rates different elements of building design and construction to ensure better environmental performance. LEED-BC has been tailored to meet the needs of the British Columbia market and will be administered by the Canada Green Building Council (CGBC).
Rick Fedrizzi, USGBC CEO & Founding Chairman, commended Vancouver as the first city to raise the bar to the level of LEED Gold. “We look forward to more cities following their leadership,” he said.
LEED Gold is an ambitious standard which only two buildings in Canada have qualified for to date. Both of these buildings are in British Columbia. With the adoption of this standard, the City plans to save taxpayers millions of dollars in long-term operating costs.
The announcement also serves as a catalyst to promote greening of the 2010 Winter Olympics, which will be held in the City of Vancouver.
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Bill McDonough is profiled as one of Fast Company Magazine’s “Master of Design” in he cover story of the June 2004 i
ssue. The issue includes profiles of “20 visionary men and women who are using design to create not just new products, but new ways of working, leading, and seeing.” William McDonough leads the group of four designers identified as “Impact Players.”
McDonough’s cradle-to-cradle product design protocol is making its way into many products. The Fast Company article features Shaw’s “Walk in the Garden” carpet tiles made using the protocol.
Earlier this year, Shaw announced it would stop using PVC carpet backing by year end. An article in the July issue of Metropolis Magazine highlights both the significance of the move, and the market factors behind it. Shaw’s EcoWorx cradle-to-cradle carpet tile backing has seen steadily taking more market share than its PVC-backed products, as designers and specifiers increasingly look for high-quality, environmentally favorable alternatives to vinyl.
An article in the current issue of Metropolis features the environmental achievements of Steelcase’s new Think office chair, also designed using McDonough’s protocol. The company describes it as “a smart, simple and environmentally sustainable seating product.”
To design the chair, Steelcase asked a network of recyclers what they would realistically recycle from a chair. They said they would take as many materials as they could in five minutes using a common hand tool. Think is 99% recyclable and can be disassembled in 5 minutes. The midpriced ($600-$1,200) contract chair is made of 40% recycled material and conforms to MBDC’s Cradle to Cradle Design Protocol for material health. Steelcase is also debuting the “Steelcase Environmental Partnership,” a combination take-back and brokerage program that coordinates suppliers, charities and recyclers in the US and Europe to reuse and recycle Steelcase products.
View a video clip on Think’s environmental achievements: (look for the “Meet the Environmentalists” clip in the Think Environment section).
MechoShade, the leading producer of window shade products, showed off its new McDonough protocol product, EcoVeil, at the NeoCon trade show. EcoVeil is a healthy and fully recyclable alternative to standard PVC-polyester shade cloth materials. Made entirely from a new “technical nutrient” material, with a Thermoplastic Olefin (TPO) -based yarn called EarthTex, it can be recycled into new shade cloth or other EarthTex based products after use, in a cradle-to-cradle cycle.
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In early July, US Senators Jim Jeffords (I-VT) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the High Performance Green Buildings Act of 2004. This legislation would provide $35 million over five years for the development and construction of environmentally responsible federal buildings and schools.
Jeffords, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said, “Green buildings are an environmental investment in our future. This legislation promotes buildings that incorporate energy efficiency, waste reduction and other efficient design features. Green buildings improve the health of their occupants, protect our natural resources, and in the long-run can save our nation billions of dollars in energy and other costs. It’s time for the federal government to catch up to the private sector and work together to reap the many benefits of high-performance buildings.”
According to the U.S. Green Building Council there are 118 certified green buildings across the United States with 1,395 in the pipeline. The legislation:
– expands green building research;
– provides for public outreach and assistance to states;
– creates an incentive for making investments in federal green building purchases and practices;
– provides $10 million in grants to state and local education agencies;
– requires the Comptroller General to identify and incorporate long-term savings that can accrue from the use of life-cycle costing in building construction into the federal budget process;
– creates an Office of High-Performance Green Buildings at the General Services Administration (GSA) to promote public outreach, research and development.
Jeffords and Lautenberg drafted the legislation based on the findings of two recent reports: “Building Momentum: National Trends and Prospects for High-Performance Green Buildings,” prepared by the U.S. Green Building Council; and “The Federal Comm
itment to Green Building: Experiences and Expectations,” prepared in 2003 by the President’s Office of the Federal Environmental Executive.
Co-sponsors of the legislation are Senators Tom Carper (D-DE), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Tom Harkin (D-IO), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Harry Reid (D–NV) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Buildings in the U.S. account for: 36% of total energy use; 65% of electricity consumption; 30% of greenhouse gas emissions; 30% of raw materials use; 30% of waste output (136 million tons annually) and 12% of potable water consumption.
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